The changing face of homicide research: the shift in empirical focus and emerging research trends

Abstract

Homicidal behaviour is influenced by a complex interaction of behavioural, situational, and environmental factors that raise many challenging psychological questions. A large and continually-growing body of research has explored the crime of homicide, its epidemiology, victims and perpetrators. The area is developing rapidly, opening up new avenues of study.This special issue of the Journal of Criminal Psychology brings together an exciting array of papers on homicidal behaviour, examining a wide range of issues including juvenile homicide perpetrators, school shootings, child homicide, homicide-suicide and differences in offence behaviours and victim characteristics between hard-to-solve one-off homicides and serial homicides. The range of papers included in this special edition cover a wide range of aspects of homicidal behavior, reflecting the importance of -and the need for -applied research moving away from examining general homicide to specialised research focusing on subtypes of homicide and subgroups of homicide offenders. A research agenda is proposed.

Differentiating Male and Female Intimate Partner Homicide Perpetrators: A Study of Social, Criminological and Clinical Factors

“…The year of 1992 has been identified as the turning point with regard to incidence of homicides in the U.S. (Eisner, 2008), aligned with the findings regarding rates of non-IPHs demonstrated in study I, with a peak in 1991 followed by a decline. In corroboration of the view that it is necessary to disaggregate homicide into meaningful subtypes in order to advance knowledge within this area (Ioannou & Hammond, 2015), the findings from study I elucidate that the trend of IPH rates is distinct from that of non-IPH rates. In contrast to the decreasing trend of non-IPHs from the early 1990s and onward, IPH rates remained stable until 2006, followed by a decreasing trend.…”

“…Fortunately, there has recently been a paradigm shift, in which the advantages of classifying homicides into relevant subgroups are acknowledged (Cao et al, 2008;Ioannou & Hammond, 2015). Classification of homicides into meaningful subtypes enables the ability to measure and evaluate to what extent individuals are victimized by their intimate partners.…”

“Like Death is Near”: Expressions of Suicidal and Homicidal Ideation in the Blog Posts of Family Caregivers of People with Dementia

“…A better understanding of suicidal and homicidal thoughts and behaviors in family caregivers, including how they develop and change over time [5], will be essential for ensuring at-risk caregivers can be identified and supported. Unfortunately, conducting primary research on suicidal and homicidal thoughts and behaviors is both ethically and practically challenging given the sensitive nature of the topic, a lack of understanding amongst institutional review boards and other gatekeepers, limited measurement tools, variations in nomenclature, and differences in reporting requirements and data management legislation across locations [19,20]. Existing sources of data, however, may be able to provide powerful insights.…”

Post‐incarceration Recidivism of Lone versus Group Juvenile Homicide Offenders

“…Several studies also have looked at juveniles involved in sexual homicide incidents (Chan, Heide, & Myers, ; Khachatryan, Heide, Hummel, & Chan, ; Myers & Chan, ). Others have compared differences between boys and girls involved in murder (Heide, Roe‐Sepowitz, Solomon, & Chan, ) and between older and younger JHOs (Hammond & Ioannou, ; Heide & Sellers, ; Heide, Solomon, Sellers, & Chan, ). Studies in recent years have also investigated differences between JHOs and serious and/or violent juvenile offenders (Cope et al, ; DeLisi, Piquero, & Cardwell, ) or between juvenile and young adult homicide offenders and their non‐lethal violent counterparts (Loeber & Farrington, ).…”

“…In recent years, homicide research has moved away from examining homicide in general to research investigating subtypes of homicide and subgroups of homicide offenders. This shift has occurred due to an awareness that the motivations, circumstances, and characteristics of homicide offenders and incidents may vary across different subtypes of homicide (Ioannou & Hammond, ). In recognition that not all JHOs are the same, studies have increasingly focused on examining specific types of juveniles involved in murder.…”