parents of serial killers are they to blame,

Maybe they are maybe they are not. By that I mean, I do believe that there are parents who are to blame, but there are also parents who do everything right and it still happens. Some people have mental illness and while a parent can keep them on meds and everything they need to control it when they are chidren, once those children becomes an adult there is not much really that the parents can do anymore. Plus there are times when things in someone's environment cause them to snap. I don't know if those are the ones that become serial killers, as I think that serial killers are deeply disturbed, and very, very sick. The most parents are to blame for them is not keeping them in institutions where they can not harm others, but there is not much the parents can do about a very deeply disturbed mind, but then again I believe that some people become that way because of how they were raised. So my answer is yes and no. Yes some parents are to blame, in other cases mental illness is to blame.

I will say parent is one of the contributing factors in the actions of their child later on, if you have investigated the background of all the known serial killers, many did actually have bad childhood experiences,or came from neglecting family, or has history of abusive parent, that play a part in shaping their character and mind set toward society at large from formative year to adult. When the combination of other factors like lackluster law enforcement agency , existence of greater window of opportunity, lack of sophisticated forensic science, less value on human life by society,or even leniency on convicted killers by law makers and etc..arrived at the right moment, killer will get the chance to become a serial killer.

Well, its a case to case basis. Parents who were abusive of their children are to be blamed. Some of them (serial killers) had bad experiences most especially in their childhood at their homes. However, peer pressure and to cope with society's expectations may also be one of the reasons, it may also be caused by depression or disappointment of things they really had high regard with. Parents should monitor their children's activities most especially in their teen years as most of these behaviors develop during these years.

Sometimes it might be a parents fault if they are cruel to a child. But a lot of children grow up to be very productive adults and they were treated horribly by their parents. I believe that there are just plain evil people out there and that there are no out side influences to cause them to become serial killers. These peo-ple are born evil and there is nothing that can change them before they become evil..

When such horrible happen everybody becomes a professional psychologist trying to determine why such things have happened. I don't think it is the parent's fault. Although the upbringing does have a real weight on the child development later on in life. But I do think that social factors play a major role on people's decisions.

We are all of us much wiser after the fact aren't we. I find it pretty useless to blame parents per se. You just find you should blame the parents of the parents and then their parents before that and so on. Unless a couple are going to go and do a couple of years study on how to successfully raise a decent child it's a moot point in my opinion.

I really don't think all of the parents are to blame but some of them are in how they raise their children. I think children that are raised in abnormal families would have a tendency to be more violent than children in normal families, but sometimes it does not matter how we as parents raise our children, they tend to be whatever they want to be no matter how they are raised, but chances are if they are raised in a good family, then they have better chances to lead a good life.

@winterose I think if the parents help him become a serial killer then they are responsible but if they did not know like they said then they are not responsible for how their son turned out. It depends on if he was always that way depends on if they were responsible or not.

I have always wondered why some parents aren't held or charged criminally for the acts of their offspring after abusing them so extreme during the formative years and continually until the child eventually leaves the home. I'm not at all saying all killers had horrible childhoods but the ones that have documented prove of severe childhood trauma by the hands of the people who were supposed to have loved and nurtured them most definitely play a huge role in how that child turns out. I think if we can charge someone with accessory after the fact then we should charge them with accessory BEFORE the fact. Yes, I know that argument is called mitigating circumstances. Nature versus Nurture argument speaks for itself, if your loved you learn to love if your neglected and beaten etc. The odds are you will not have empathy or compassion later in life which in my opinion is lack of a conscious. Bottom line, genetics plays a small role in how we develop.