Ethnocultural Diversity in Homicide Crime Scene Staging

Abstract

Homicide crime scene staging (HCSS) involves purposefully altering the death scene to obstruct the criminal justice process by concealing the true nature of a crime. It is one of the most perplexing and intriguing homicidal behaviors and one of the least systematically studied, particularly in non-Western societies. As the first systematic study of HCSS in a non-Western society, this paper contributes to the ethnocultural understanding of HCSS by analyzing nation-based data regarding 56 HCSS events in Israel (excluding the West Bank and Gaza) during a 40-year period (1980–2019). Descriptive statistics demonstrate HCSS in Israel differs from that reported by studies in Western societies regarding weapon of choice and the death scene scenario offenders tend to stage. Comparative analysis of the two main ethnic groups in Israel, Jewish and Arab, demonstrates ethnic diversity in HCSS frequency, killing motive, victim characteristics, and victim–offender relations.

An Ecological Review of Homicide Bereavement’s Risk Factors: Implications for Future Research

“…The situational level was added due to criminological research noting the link between characteristics of a crime and its effects on the victim (Campbell et al, 2009). In addition and given the salience of ethnicity in crime diversity (Dayan, 2022; Dayan et al, 2022), the review included ethnicity as a relevant social factor at both the individual and macro social levels. Consequently, the review synthesized HB risk factors into six main dimensions: individual level; situational homicide-related factors; and micro, meso, exo, and macro social levels.…”