Homicide

Risk Factors for Offending

* personality disorders
* substance use
* low SES
* unemployed parents
* broken home
* truancy
* low school achievement
* being held back a grade

Instrumental Homicide

killing to achieve some other goal

* robbery
* gang violence
* drug trafficking
* terrorism

Expressive Homicide

killing to alleviate emotional frustration and pressure

* domestic violence
* revenge
* instrumentality effect

Situational Characteristics

* argument - 38.5%
* crime - 29.8%
* gangs/drugs - 19.4%
* multiple offender - 16.3%
* multiple victims - 9.13%

Location

* residential - 50.0%
* street - 27.7%
* car/vehicle - 7.7%
* business - 6.7%
* other - 7.9%

Victim-Offender Relationship

* intimate partner - 17.4%
* family - 17.1%
* friend - 29.1%
* other known - 21.3%
* stranger - 15.2%

Role of Guns

* instrumentality effect: guns are 15x more lethal than knives (second most deadly weapon)
* typically involve 2 young men of color who know each other (as friends or acquaintances) and get into an argument at home or on the street

Spikes in homicide rate over time mostly due to…

guns

1980s: crack cocaine epidemic

2019-2020: 35% increase in firearms homicide

Types of Homicide

* gang violence
* IPV
* Mass murder
* school shootings

Gangs

* formed in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods
* lack conventional opportunities for youth
* poor education
* single parent households
* poverty
* low life expectancy
* unsupervised youth hanging out on street corners

Code of the Street

* violence becomes socially tolerated or even encouraged
* defending turf and illegal businesses
* promoting social status (masculinity)
* preventing victimization
* reputation is everything
* children socialized into gang life by parents
* “toughening up”

Gang Violence

* alternate form of social control and economic opportunity
* provides protection
* acceptance in group
* sense of purpose
* mentorship from OGs
* drug trade as income
* conflict over turf
* usually a few blocks of violence
* small social networks
* organizational memory
* retaliatory homicide

Complicated Communities

* tight knit where many “decent” folk have ties to gang members
* less fear: members not strangers
* act as community police and address local concerns
* part of local economy

Prevalence

* approx. 27,000 gangs and 770,000 members in the US
* 80% located in urban areas
* 60% of members are 18+
* gang members account for 0.2% of population, but 13% of all homicides
* nearly half of all homicides in major cities are gang-related

Gangs and Guns

* Relative to nonmembers, gang \n members are
* 3x more likely to own a gun for protection
* 4x more likely to carry guns
* More likely to have peers that own guns
* Gun carrying for protection against rivals creates an arms war
* “Firepower is the name of the \n game”
* Number and deadliness of guns increases gang’s reputation
* Gangs may actively recruit \n members with access to firearms
* Guns are used in 80-96% of gang \n homicides in major cities1
* Tend to be unplanned events rather than coordinated drive-bys

Homicide rate surged ___ in metropolitan areas in 2020…but also increased ___ in rural areas

30%, 25%

example of a large city safer than rural areas

NYC

Role of Race

* POC overrepresented as both offenders and victims
* racial invariance assumption
* not inherently antisocial or violent
* individual-level risk factors operate similarly across racial/ethnic groups
* differences in offending/victimization rates are due to types of environments in which people live
* divergent social worlds

IPV

* IPH accounts for 15% of __all__ homicides and 40% of femicides
* IPH is gendered
* 2/3 of all IPH involves men killing women

Types of IPV

* situational couple violence
* intimate terrorism
* violent resistance

Coercive Control

* isolating from friends and family
* economic dependency
* threats and intimidation
* against children
* to commit suicide
* gaslighting

Why don’t they leave?

* lack of financial resources due to forced dependency
* lack of social support from family/friends
* shame
* love for abuser and hope for future
* fear
* leaving is most dangerous time for a battered woman
* threats

Men Killing Women

* Male sexual proprietariness theory
* men believe they “own” women and their reproductive capabilities
* Use violence when genetic lineage is threatened
* Risk factors:
* jealousy/infidelity
* attempting to leave: 264% increase in homicide risk if she left in past year
* pregnancy

Women Killing Men

* most often part of violent resistance to intimate terrorism
* victim precipitation occurs in 75% of female-perpetrated IPH incidents
* women 7x more likely than men to kill their partners in self-defense
* typically last resort/act of desperation
* female IPH offenders often attempt suicide, call police multiple times, and/or attempt to leave before committing homicide

What About Guns?

* 3.5% of nonfatal IPV involves firearms, but 60% of IPH victims killed with guns
* perpetrators access to firearms increases likelihood of IPV turning deadly between 5x and 10x
* guns facilitate coercive \n control even when not \n being used to kill

Firearms IPH rates have ___ 26% since 2010, but nonfirearms rate have ___

increased, declined

Stopping Abusers from Getting Guns

federal prohibitions for

* misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (MCDV)
* domestic violence restraining orders (DVRO)

but most states have no enforcement to make abusers relinquish their guns