CRM380: 9 ~ Homicide and Family Violence

Homicide

• Only about 1% of all violent crimes

  • Homicide rates peaked in 1991, and then began to drop off

• Perspectives on Crime

  • Many people often believe that crime gets worse every year

    • Not exactly true

  • Most murders known their victims, often intimately

    • Stranger homicide is less common than family, friends, acquaintances, gang, and drug homicides

      • Victims killed by family member:

        • Overall = ~25%

        • Male = ~13%

        • Female = ~43%

      • Female murder victims:

        • ~37% killed by husband/boyfriend

Psychology of Fascination?

• Why are we so fascinated with homicide?

  • Need for stimulation, excitement, novelty

  • Curiosity -- adaptive, functional (e.g., better identify dangers, take precautions)

• Reasoning could be that…

  • Humans are naturally drawn to puzzles and mysteries?

  • Interest in crime in violent evolved as a way of spotting danger in the environment?

• Dysfunctional side -- desensitization; available heuristic (cognitive shortcuts or rules of thumb that simplify decisions) (increased fear, exaggerated incidence)

Demographics - Race

• Strong correlation to race, gender, and age

• Race - offenders and victims of homicide are disproportionately African American

  • 13% 0f population, 53% of arrests

  • African American males are arrested for homicide at a rate of 8x greater than white males, and are 6x more greater to be victimized than white males

• Most murders are intraracial (white people tend to kill white people, black people tend to kill black people)

• Why? - No evidence of biological, neuropsychological differences (genetics/predisposition)

  • 99.9% identical at the DNA level, these is no genetic basis for race, and there is more genetic variation within a race

• Inequalities (employment, education, discrimination)

Demographics - Gender/Age/SES

• Gender - disproportionately male

  • 90% male offenders, 77% male victims

• Age - disproportionately young adults (50% under 25 years old)

• SES - risk tied to adversities and disadvantages

Weapons

• 67% of crimes involve firearms (68% of those were handguns)

  • Guns don't cause violence, but facilitate it

  • Weapons effect - widespread presence of aggressive stimuli in neighborhood may promote aggression and facilitate cycle of violence

• 70% firearms used by offenders are obtained via theft

Psychological Aspects

• Buss' homicidal fantasy research revealed that 91% of men and 84% of women have had at least one vivid fantasy -- often intense and astonishingly detailed -- of committing murder

• What triggers homicidal fantasies?

  • Men: 54% - women ending their relationships

  • Women: Physical, sexual, and psychological abuse (also leading predictors of when women kill their partners)

• The most frequently cited reason for not carrying through on the homicidal fantasies was the fear of getting caught and spending their life behind bars. Many of us owe our lives to the fact that murder is so costly to commit in the modern world

  • When asked people to estimate probability that they would carry out their homicidal fantasies if they could get away with them.. Men's likelihood quadrupled (4x)

• High percentage of male-on-male murders are triggered by seemingly "trivial" altercations

  • Often comes down to status

  • Falls into the category of: General altercation homicide

• Research on more than 10,000 people in 37 cultures found that the traits men most valued in a mate were beauty, youth and fidelity

  • A husband discovering his wife having an extramarital affair is one of the leading causes of women being murdered…

• Homicides in Chicago - 50% of wife killings took place within the first 2 months of the separation, and astonishing 85% of these women were killed within the 1st year

  • "It is likely that the key danger us not the length of time per se but, when the man realizes she will never return to him"

• In conclusion:

  • Multidetermined

  • Various risk factors

  • Situational factors

    • Availability of weapon, alcohol consumption, provocation, emotional state of offender, etc.

Typology

• General Altercation Homicide (Largest, 45%)

• Felony Commission Homicide (during the commission of other felony)

• Domestic (Next largest, 25%)

• Accident (e.g., DUI)

General Altercation Homicide

• Reactive aggression - response to anger inducing conditions (e.g., insults, threats, failures)

  • Impulsive, emotionally-charged

  • Arguments escalate

  • Need to retaliate after provocation

• Offender Characteristics

  • Hostile attribution bias - likelihood of interpreting ambiguous as hostile or threatening; more likely to infer hostile intent

  • Promotes violence as response to (even minor) perceived provocation/threat; "hair trigger"

  • Impulsivity

    • Inadequate self-regulation (at times, with hostile attribution bias)

      • Self-regulation of emotions, impulses = key protective factor against violence

        • Develops at early age

  • Alcohol impairs self-regulation

  • Emotional arousal - impairs (even inhibits) cognitive processes (thinking)

    • Act before thinking

Felony Commission Homicide

• Motivated by instrumental aggression

  • Cf. General altercation (reactive, expressive)

• Proactive violence - non-emotional, premeditated aggression for personal gain (e.g., robbery)

• Product of learning

  • Anticipation of positive consequences for aggressive behavior

    • Cf. Reactive - self-regulation problems, did not expect positive consequences

• In sum:

  • Reactive =- thoughtless, emotionally driven

  • Proactive = self-regulated, product of rewarding learning history

Juvenile Homicides

• 9% of homicides (child delinquents 7-12 years old = 2%)

• Majority are general altercation homicide (includes gangs) or felony commission

• 94% male

  • Female offender juvenile homicides are very rare

    • Girls are more likely than males to kill family members, other females, intimate partners and/or offspring

    • Also more likely than males to use weapons other than guns

• Risk factors:

  • Dynamic Cascade ("Snowball effect")

    • Interaction between multiple factors that lead to deviance and violence

Family Violence

• Subcategories:

  • Abuse, maltreatment, neglect, child, elder

• Family violence - assault, intimidation, battery, or other criminal offense resulting in personal injury or death of one family member or household member by another who is or was residing in the same single-dwelling unit

• Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) - physical, sexual, psychological harm by current or former partner

• Forms of violence are often accompanied by others

  • Child maltreatment and IPV commonly co-occur

    • 30% - 60% of intimate partner violence perpetrators also abuse children in the household

  • ~50% of families with maltreatment also involve IPV

• Includes things like:

  • Parricide - killing parent

  • Patricide - killing father

  • Matricide - killing mother

  • Filicide - killing child

  • Infanticide - killing child (<1 year old)

  • Fratricide - killing brother

  • Sororicide - killing sister

Family Violence - Homicide Prevalence

• 1/5 murders and non-negligent manslaughter = family members (20% of homicides)

  • 50% of those include a spouse killing a spouse

  • Homicide-suicide = rare (<2% of all homicide)

Family Violence - Victims

• ~19% of all aggravated assault arrests

• 68% of all simple assault arrests

Child Abuse and Neglect - Prevalence and Demographics

• Girls are 4x more likely to be sexually abused than boys

• Poly-victimization: multiple forms of victimization (e.g., Parental abuse, bullying, physical, sexual) (not multiple incidents of same type)

  • Most associated with mental health problems and other bad outcomes

Child Abuse and Neglect - Link to Criminal Behavior

• 14% of men in prison and 36% of women in prison were abused as children (2x the rate of the general population)

  • As many as 2/3 of the people in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused or neglected as children

• Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 40% more likely to become involved in criminal activity (50% more likely to as juveniles)

Stereotypical Child Abductions

• Abduction by family is far more common than believed

  • A majority of kidnappings (83.7%) perpetrated by non-strangers

  • Victim injury was more likely to occur in non-stranger kidnappings

  • The odds of sexual victimization were greater in stranger kidnappings

• Majority are taken within 1/4 mile of home (16% taken from the home)

• Abductions from school are rare

• Often killed (40%), usually within first 3 hours after being abducted by a stranger

  • 67%/50% within hour 1

• Motivation: commonly sexual (50% sexually assaulted)

  • Over 2/3  victims are female

  • Usually 6-14 years old (preschool aged rarely targeted)

  • Ideal age for sexual offenders is ~11 (sexual maturity, but controllable)

• Offenders: avg. 27 years old (vast majority under 30; only 10% over 40)

  • Unmarried, poor social skills, marginal employment, few friends

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

• 20% of all violent crime against women

  • 32% female murder victims (2.7% male victims)

• Most IPV incidents are not reported to the police

  • Only 20% of rapes/sexual assaults reported

  • 25% of physical assaults reported

  • 50% of stalking toward women reported

• Despite severe under-reporting of IPV, called related to IPV make up about half of all violent crime calls to police departments

Characteristics of Abusers

• Assumptions: possessive, jealous, inadequate

• No typical "profile" of abusers or abused

• Mate homicides study (motives):

  • Possessiveness - 48.9%

  • Argument/emotional motivation - 20.7%

  • Self-defense - 15.5%

• Drugs and alcohol exacerbate, but do not cause

  • Abusive men who drink - more frequent and more serious violence

• The presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women by 500%

  • More than half of the women killed by gun violence are killed by family members or intimate partners

• Must understand reciprocal interaction

Sibling to Sibling Violence

• Most common form of violence within families

• Linked to violence in dating, family violence in adulthood

Child to Parent Violence

• 1/3 restraining orders in MA were parent vs. adolescent

• Study: 10% aged 10-17 committed an act of violence against a parent in the past 12 months

• 25% of family murder victims killed by children

  • Matricide more common than patricide

    • Female offender parricide is rare (often solicit help of male friend or sibling)

• Three types of homicide offenders (Heide):

  • Severely abused child

  • Severely mentally ill

  • Dangerously antisocial

• Often include: multi-assaultive dynamics, easy access to firearms, alcohol/drugs, offender feelings of helplessness

  • Risk peaks at age 15, then diminishes

  • Most involve conflicts over responsibilities, money, privilege, etc.

• Violent disposition during childhood (towards teachers, babysitters, etc.) = one of the best predictors of later violence toward mothers