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Locating the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’: A Crime of Time and Place?

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Book cover Revisiting the Yorkshire Ripper Murders

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Victims and Victimology ((PSVV))

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Abstract

This chapter explores the social and historical context of the Sutcliffe case, identifying how narratives of political and economic crisis in 1970s Britain combine with cultural conditions associated with northern England such as economic decline, deindustrialisation and working-class masculinity to form the backdrop to these murders and the police investigation. The chapter also draws on the concept of hauntology to highlight how space and place are transformed by violent events. In conclusion, the chapter argues that although misogyny and violence against women may demonstrate culturally-specific features linked to class and locality, patriarchal violence nevertheless transcends the local. Having said that, it is argued that locally and historically-specific conditions can expand understandings of the social and situational nature of violence and murder.

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  1. School of Social Sciences, Business, Law, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Louise Wattis

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  1. Louise Wattis
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Wattis, L. (2018). Locating the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’: A Crime of Time and Place?. In: Revisiting the Yorkshire Ripper Murders. Palgrave Studies in Victims and Victimology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01385-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01385-1_2

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