Why Women Kill: Studying Motives for Committing Crimes

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to determine the primary internal motives associated with a woman’s decision to commit murder. We analyzed 250 sentences on female homicide offenders in the Russian Federation. The sentences were published on the official websites of the courts of the Russian Federation. We found that the most common motives are: hostility caused by an insult from another person; dislike caused by violence from another person; the desire to protect oneself from sexual harassment. More than 87% of women who committed murder were intoxicated at the time.