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• Serial murder peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, James Alan Fox and Jack Levin write
• Rapid growth of U.S. prison population may have contributed to the decline, they say
• But there are still as many as 10 serial killers captured each year by police, they write

Editor's note: James Alan Fox and Jack Levin are criminologists at Northeastern University and co-authors of 'Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder.' The views expressed are their own.

(CNN) -- The case of Darren Deon Vann, who police say confessed to murdering as many as seven women in northwest Indiana over the past couple of years, is just the latest example of a kind of crime spree that has become all too familiar. At a time when television crime dramas like 'CSI,' 'Criminal Minds,' and 'Law and Order' record high ratings with lurid plot lines about repeat killers, it is easy to come away believing that serial killings are as prevalent as they have ever been.

Actually, quite the opposite is true.

Looking at the actual numbers, it is clear that serial murder peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, and has declined dramatically ever since. During the 1980s, for example, there were an estimated 200 serial killers operating in the United States; in the first decade of this century, by contrast, the count was half that figure.

Why? The reasons for this precipitous decline are complex.

In part, the drop parallels the sharp downturn in all forms of homicide beginning during the 1990s, and is, to some extent, a result of some of the same factors. The growth in the U.S. prison population, for example, kept many violent predators -- including many potential serial killers -- safely behind bars. In 1980, for example, the number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal authorities stood at 330,000. By 1990 that number had climbed to 773,000, and by 2009 it had soared to 1.6 million.

But the decline in serial murder may also reflect improved law enforcement investigative techniques. True, things might not always work quite as smoothly as they do on the crime drama 'Bones,' but advances in DNA profiling and databases, as well as enhanced interagency communication, may have helped capture many would-be serial killers before they were able to amass a large victim count. In addition, a host of technological innovations -- including Amber Alert, sex offender registries, video surveillance systems, GPS tracking of mobile phones and vehicles, and monitoring of social media and chat rooms -- have presented law enforcement with additional tools to identify and apprehend sexual predators early in their criminal careers.

Meanwhile, the Internet has provided sex offenders with a wide variety of options for satiating their sadistic desires without needing to involve unwilling victims. Of course, society may frown on the level of violence in widely available pornography. But as distasteful as it may sound, this ready accessibility may also serve as a cathartic release valve for certain individuals who might otherwise resort to rape, torture and murder (although the evidence on whether it is a release valve or sometimes a catalyst is mixed).

Technology has also provided greater safety for potential victims. Cell phones and their photographic functions have added some level of protection from strangers. At the same time, the greater public awareness of serial offenders has significantly increased the level of caution about accepting rides or gifts from total strangers. Many parents, for example, have become reluctant to permit their unsupervised children to play in the street or the front yard of their own home. Decades ago, hitchhiking was a relatively common way of getting around. Nowadays, most people avoid hitching a ride unless there is absolutely no alternative. When was the last time you actually saw someone thumbing on the side of the road?

Unfortunately, a reduction in known cases of serial murder is not the end of the story. It is possible, for instance, that a number of cases occurring in recent years have not yet been identified and solved, causing them to be absent from the database of known perpetrators. Even now, as in previous decades, so-called 'linkage blindness' continues to prevent or at least delay recognition that a single killer may be responsible for widespread carnage. Before identifying a serial killer, we must first acknowledge the strong possibility that one is operating in a particular community. Over the decades, many serial killers have cleverly concealed the extent of their murderous behavior by varying their modus operandi, as well as the types of victim they target.

Forty years ago, when many Americans were first apprised of accounts of serial murder, the fascination with the phenomenon -- and with names like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy -- was palpable. As a result, enterprising entrepreneurs marketed serial killer 'murderabilia,' including calendars, trading cards, T-shirts, action figures, paintings and comic books.

As the public's fascination with serial killers has subsided, so has its preoccupation with more typical cases that do not yield double-digit body counts or particularly gruesome tortures. To attract extensive publicity, a serial killer almost has to stay on the loose for decades, kill a dozen victims or more, and engage in disturbing rituals or cannibalism. Fortunately, such characteristics are even rarer than the fans they inspire.

Yet regardless of the decline in numbers, any serial murder remains a difficult and perplexing problem for law enforcement. There are still as many as 10 serial killers captured each year by the police, and even a drop in the numbers is unlikely to reduce the level of fear that serial killers still create. Indeed, the power they have over the public's psyche remains extraordinary, and criminologists have a responsibility to try to understand how and why these offenders take the lives of innocent victims -- and how they can do so with such chillingly cool deliberation.

Long before accurate information was being kept of the everyday happenings of ancient societies, crime was prevalent. The earliest examples of widespread murders date all the way back to 331 BC, and involve a group of 170 women who used the plague as an alibi for poisoning Roman men. All 170 women were convicted of their crimes. So — who was the first serial killer ever? Surprisingly, the first recorded solo serial killer was a woman as well.

Locusta of Galt was a poisoner for hire who worked for the Roman emperor Nero's mother, Agrippina the Younger. She was tasked with poisoning members of the Imperial Family as well as Agrippina's husband, the former Emperor Claudius, as a means for Nero to gain power. Her involvement in Claudius' death has not been completely confirmed, however. During the early first century A.D., the Roman empire was in a massive state of upheaval that saw Nero's reign as emperor conclude with his ousting by Gaius Julius Vindex, a governor of the Lugdunensis province who was unhappy with Nero's rule and wanted to reinstall a previous style of government last seen with Caesar Augustus.

Little is known regarding how many people Locusta had poisoned during her tenure under Nero but she was rewarded greatly for her efforts — only to be executed by Galba, the emperor who assumed power following Vindex's coup, in 69 A.D.

Following Locusta, yet another serial killer was convicted by the Roman government just one year later. A man known as Aspernas went to court for murdering an estimated 130 people; it's unclear what his motives were or what his preferred method was, though it has been suggested that he too used poison. Records were not meticulously kept in 70 A.D., so little information is known about both Locust and Aspernas in terms of an exact number of people they killed or over how long of a span of time the murders took place, though both are considered some of the earliest recorded serial killers out there.

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Meanwhile, the first recorded serial killer in America wreaked havoc on the city of Chicago some 1,800 years after Locusta and Aspernas had murdered hundreds of Romans. Dr. H. H. Holmes, who has been portrayed in film, television, and books, was a notorious killer who used his extensive medical knowledge to not only torture his victims and collect on their life insurance policies, but to extensively dissect their bodies then subsequently sell them to medical schools.

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Holmes conducted his killings in a three story hotel that he'd had built. The building included shops as well as elaborate methods of escape like trap doors and secret passageways. Many features of the structure were used to help facilitate Holmes' murders. According to legend, Holmes had as many as 200 victims die at his hands while staying at the makeshift hotel he'd built.

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It was not until suspicion grew around Holmes' collecting of life insurance policies that his crimes were discovered. Around the same time, the body of an office tenant and former business associate, B.F. Pitzel, was discovered in the serial killer's hotel, further damning Holmes. Philadelphia Police Det. Frank Geyer worked tirelessly to connect Holmes to the murder of Pitzel as well as his three children. The doctor was convicted and hanged on May 7, 1896.