An Inclusive Litany

4/13/92

Associate Editor Howard G. Chua-Eoan discusses serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Time, August 19, 1991:
There is a "logic" too to Dahmer's crime. Raised in a culture that condoned racial prejudice and despised homosexuals, Dahmer appeared to believe he could preserve a place in mainstream society—with all its furtive hopes of family, friends, and future—by destroying the evidence of his homosexuality. He killed his "lovers"—mostly blacks—dismembered them, and in some cases, may have devoured their remains. Crime is a logical, if messy, quick fix to the shortcomings of society. Is that the lesson then? That we get the criminals our societies deserve? Yes, of course.