The "modern" or traditional funeral, as it is known in the funeral industry today, that includes embalming, casket, service, and burial in a cemetery, emerged as a result of four forces in American society: the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, the emergence of a genteel code of conduct as a result of increased wealth in our society, and changing cultural views toward death. While the traditional funeral ritual remains the most popular funeral selection in the United States today, the industry is experiencing changes that are reshaping the death rituals and methods of body disposal. A meta-analysis of relevant news articles from 1987 through 2014 finds that these changes are occurring as a result of two general motivational themes: a Business-Related Motivation and a Consumer-Related Motivation, each with corresponding subthemes.

As a result of recent economic changes in the United States and cultural changes among the population, the funeral industry has experienced a "legitimation crisis." The objective of this research is to examine new advertising and marketing strategies engaged in by professionals in the funeral industry to respond to market and cultural changes that have affected both the funeral industry at large and the role of the funeral director as a participant in this industry. A meta-analysis of articles from issues of the industry trade journal American Funeral Director for the years 2008 through 2015 was conducted. Two major themes emerged from the data. First, that funeral home owners should respond to market changes by using their assets for diverse reasons and second that forms of community engagement can create feelings of goodwill that will increase usage and loyalty from families. Within each of these major themes, a variety of subthemes emerged from the data.

The study of death within the field of sociology is expansive yet despite this research there is a lack of inquiry within the area of crime and deviance on the topic of thanatological crime. One researcher that has conducted an analysis of this topic is Bryant (2003). In his exposé on thanatological crime, Bryant (2003) developed a conceptual paradigm of death-related crime that consisted of four motivational categories and two patterns of victimization. Using data from the Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database (Aamodt 2013), this article extends and applies the conceptual paradigm of thanatological crime to serial homicide.The study of death within the field of sociology is expansive. Researchers within this academic discipline have examined this subject from a variety of angles and have provided us with a way to conceptualize this inevitable phenomenon in an intellectual fashion. Some have focused their efforts on describing how different societies make sense of individual mortality (Berger 1969;Durkheim 1954Durkheim [1915) while others have examined the various cross-cultural and historical ways that these various societies deal with different types of death, the experience of dying and with the body of the deceased (Walter 1996). The dead are also studied by sociologists. Researchers question not only how people die but also investigate the various sociodemographic correlates of these mortality factors to determine the variations in types and rates of death among various social groups and within different institutional settings (Bryant 1979; Durkheim 1951Durkheim [1897; Lee and Ousey 2007;Neckerman and Torche 2007;O'Brien and Stockard 2006;Simon 2002;Titterington 2006). Yet despite this plethora of research in the discipline of sociology on the subject of death, there is a paucity of inquiry within the area of crime and deviance on the topic of thanatological crime and deviance. One researcher that has conducted an analysis of this topic is Bryant (2003). In his exposé on thanatological deviance, Bryant (2003) developed a conceptual paradigm of death-related crime that consisted of four motivational categories and two patterns of victimization. The resulting typology contained eight separate types of death-related crime, each of which included various criminal acts that fit within the categories. While Bryant (2003) conducted an extensive analysis of death-related crime in his original article and this topic was later revisited and further examples of death-related crime were provided by Bryant and Rothwell (2009), this area of research in crime and deviance has largely been neglected despite Bryant's (2003) call for other researchers to further explore this topic by extending his paradigm and/or applying the paradigm to various topical areas within the subject area of crime and deviance. This article answers Bryant's (2003) request by extending and applying the conceptual paradigm of thanatological crime to the phenomenon of serial homicide. More specifically, this article will be an examination of the post-mo...

The present study uses primary data collected by the researchers on residential burglaries committed in the time-period of 1991–2021 to analyze the individual year frequency of obituary burglaries and patterns across time in relation to obituary burglaries. The goal is to assess the frequency of this form of burglary and the potential impact of increased web based publishing of obituaries on incidents of residential burglaries during funerary rites. Findings indicate that while this form of burglary is rare, it is a niche form of residential burglary committed by specialized burglars who utilize information available about funerals to specifically target the family of the deceased’s home or the vacant home of the deceased. Recommendations for protecting against this form of victimization are provided.