Tangled Web UK Review January 2007
Better to Reign in Hell: Serial Killers, Media Panics & FBI by
Stephen Milligen
pbk out January 07
(Critical Vision)
at £12.99
Written by a former American Studies lecturer, Better To Reign In Hell exposes how
President Reagan, the New Right, the FBI and the media have encouraged widespread
fear of serial killers. By suggesting that these men - most political groupings ignore or
even deny the existence of the female serial killer - were born evil, they can ignore
social causes and find backing for their fundamentalist religious aims. Milligen notes
that 'Crime rhetoric in the twentieth century has always been dominated by
conservative spokesmen and has always reverted to superstitious language about
'evil' men and their deeds reflecting nostalgia for a pre-scientific era when Satan was
used as an explanation for transgression and deviance...'
The FBI have also transgressed. By portraying themselves as serial killer experts,
they've benefited from generous funding, with a story-hungry media collaborating
with the Bureau to talk up their success rate and glamorise their activities. 'The
identification of the supercriminal as a threat to society requires police officers of
superior talents to combat them, a conflict that has defined the image of the FBI G-
man since the 1930's, and adequate resources to wage a War on Crime. For almost the
entire of their history, the FBI have fulfilled their role pursuing symbolic criminals to
maintain the status quo.' Interviewed by the author, police departments said that the
FBI often step in to claim the glory at the eleventh hour and stated that FBI profilers
tried to find details of their strongest suspect then fed these details back to them as a
profile.
Milligen is on shakier ground when, discussing true crime books, he generalises that
'Showing sympathy for the criminals is unthinkable for authors in this genre and
stories are invariably recounted from a law enforcement point of view.' In truth, some
American authors have produced sympathetic portraits of abused teenage killers and
in Britain we've seen compassionate portrayals of, amongst others, Mary Bell and
Thomson & Venables. My own books show sympathy for the killers' unhappy
childhoods whilst decrying their adult crimes. Brian Masters also produced a fair and
frank portrayal of Dennis Nilsen - and, indeed, Milligen notes that Masters' book
about Jeffrey Dahmer was rejected by its American publisher because he showed
'pity, dismay and anguish' rather than 'loud, overt disapproval.'
Better To Reign In Hell is an intelligent, sociological look at American politics that
forces the reader to reappraise landmark organisations. Its extensive footnotes and
index also make it a useful reference point.
(
Carol Anne Davis
Author of Children Who Kill)
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