Abstract:A significant minority of adult domestic homicide perpetrators had symptoms of mental illness at the time of the homicide. Most perpetrators, including those with mental illnesses, were not in contact with mental health services in the year before the offense. Risk reduction could be achieved through initiatives that encourage individuals with mental health problems to access mental health services and that develop closer interagency working, including between mental health services, police, social services, a… Show more
“…Furthermore, when a woman commits an intrafamilial murderespecially if the victim is a childthe crime is generally associated with psychotic motivation, which normally excludes psychopathic motivations. This is consistent with research demonstrating that intrafamilial homicides have a higher association with psychosis than extrafamilial homicides (Oram, Flynn, Shaw, Appleby, & Howard, 2013).…”
Over the years, the number of homicides in Italy has progressively decreased, ultimately becoming one of the lowest rates in Europe (357 = 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, according to ISTAT). The number of homicides committed by women was about 9% of the total number of homicides during our study period. The percentage has increased in recent years because the total number of homicides has decreased without a proportionate decrease in the number of female homicides. Indeed, murder is an unusual type of crime for a woman and is often associated with a mental disorder, so when a woman committed a homicide, a psychiatric assessment was often performed. A forensic psychiatry expert was assigned to investigate the offender's psychopathology and mental state at the time of the offense. The root causes of the crime remained unexplained, however, due to the lack of a psychiatric precedent to justify this kind of assessment. The role of psychopathy in homicide has seldom been studied in female offenders, even though psychopathy has an important role in violent crimes.
The investigators examined, clinically and historically, a sample of women who committed murder with different levels of criminal responsibility (female homicide offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity, having partial criminal responsibility, and convicted as criminally responsible and sentenced to prison) to identify the prevalence of the psychopathic dimension and its possible role in this sample. Prevalence and degree of psychopathic traits were examined in these female offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist‐Revised.
This study showed that females who had committed homicide were likely to suffer from mental illness; most of the homicidal acts were committed impulsively; and most female homicides occurred within the family, especially among women who were psychotic, but less so if they were psychopathic. Psychopathy tended to co‐occur more with personality disorders than with psychotic psychopathology. Psychopathy was more evident among female homicide offenders who had been abused or traumatized. Psychopathic women who killed had high factor F1 scores and low antisocial component of factor F2.
“…Furthermore, when a woman commits an intrafamilial murderespecially if the victim is a childthe crime is generally associated with psychotic motivation, which normally excludes psychopathic motivations. This is consistent with research demonstrating that intrafamilial homicides have a higher association with psychosis than extrafamilial homicides (Oram, Flynn, Shaw, Appleby, & Howard, 2013).…”
Over the years, the number of homicides in Italy has progressively decreased, ultimately becoming one of the lowest rates in Europe (357 = 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, according to ISTAT). The number of homicides committed by women was about 9% of the total number of homicides during our study period. The percentage has increased in recent years because the total number of homicides has decreased without a proportionate decrease in the number of female homicides. Indeed, murder is an unusual type of crime for a woman and is often associated with a mental disorder, so when a woman committed a homicide, a psychiatric assessment was often performed. A forensic psychiatry expert was assigned to investigate the offender's psychopathology and mental state at the time of the offense. The root causes of the crime remained unexplained, however, due to the lack of a psychiatric precedent to justify this kind of assessment. The role of psychopathy in homicide has seldom been studied in female offenders, even though psychopathy has an important role in violent crimes.
The investigators examined, clinically and historically, a sample of women who committed murder with different levels of criminal responsibility (female homicide offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity, having partial criminal responsibility, and convicted as criminally responsible and sentenced to prison) to identify the prevalence of the psychopathic dimension and its possible role in this sample. Prevalence and degree of psychopathic traits were examined in these female offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist‐Revised.
This study showed that females who had committed homicide were likely to suffer from mental illness; most of the homicidal acts were committed impulsively; and most female homicides occurred within the family, especially among women who were psychotic, but less so if they were psychopathic. Psychopathy tended to co‐occur more with personality disorders than with psychotic psychopathology. Psychopathy was more evident among female homicide offenders who had been abused or traumatized. Psychopathic women who killed had high factor F1 scores and low antisocial component of factor F2.
“…Moreover, previous research has focused on direct relationships between homicide method and a mental illness per se (Minero et al, ) and do not account for circumstance surrounding the offence and type of victim. This pattern is consistent with previous research on adult family homicide reporting schizophrenia as the most prevalent diagnosis (Oram et al, ). Thus, our findings suggest the previously reported association between schizophrenia and sharp instruments may differ in cases where the victim is female, over 55 years, and the homicide is preceded by a domestic dispute.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 92%
“…This led Häkkänen () to propose that future research should focus on samples of homicide offenders with mental illness to establish whether specific offence characteristics might be linked to a particular psychiatric disorder. Findings have shown that homicide offenders with and without a mental illness differ from each other in their offence, demographic, and background characteristics (Häkkänen, ; Oram, Flynn, Shaw, Appleby, & Howard, ). For example, offenders with mental illness are less likely to have strangers as victims (Shaw et al, ), more likely to be older (Martone et al, ), and have more problematic backgrounds (Häkkänen & Laajasalo, 2006) compared with offenders without a mental illness.…”
Previous research suggests different crime scene patterns reflect differences in the background characteristics of the offender. However, whether differences in crime scene patterns are related to offender psychopathology remains unclear. We hypothesise that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depressive illness will each associate to a specific homicide crime scene pattern. Homicide data were obtained from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness. Our sample comprised 759 homicides committed by offenders in contact with mental health services in the year preceding the offence and with an available psychiatric report. We used joint correspondence analysis to examine patterns between different methods of homicide, circumstances of homicide, victim gender, and victim age groups. Three homicide patterns were identified: male conflict homicide, intimate female homicide, and child homicide. Additionally, each homicide pattern was associated with one or more mental illnesses. Results are discussed in terms of the possible role of psychopathology in "offender profiling" research.
“…Women, however, are more likely to experience sexual violence, severe physical violence or be murdered by a partner than men (Chermack et al, ; World Health Organization, ). Demographic (younger age and low socio‐economic status), distal (negative childhood experiences), proximal (substance use, psychological problems and anger expression) and cultural (sexist attitudes and support of gender‐specific roles) have all been associated with intimate partner violence perpetration (Dutton, ; Cunradi et al, ; Stith et al, ; Gil‐González et al, ; Oram et al, ; Ten Have et al, ). Leonard (: 422) wrote: Excessive alcohol consumption is one of the most controversial risk factors.…”
Intimate partner violence is common among men attending substance misuse treatment. Integrated interventions should that address both intimate partner violence and substance misuse should be considered. Areas for intervention would include reducing dominating-isolating behaviours and emotional-verbal abuse, improving communication skills, challenging gender-specific roles and believing that substance use 'causes' violent behaviour.
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