Nature Of Homicide Research Articles

The changing nature of murder in Russia

The death rate from homicide in Russia increased rapidly during the 1990s. It is now about 20 times higher than in western Europe and is among the highest recorded anywhere in the world. However, this issue has received little attention so far from public health researchers or policymakers. This paper describes the changing nature of homicide during the 1990s in Russia as a whole and, in more detail, in the Udmurt Republic. The study uses data from three sources: routine mortality data for Russia from 1970 to 1999; statistics on criminal investigations and convictions in Russia between 1990 and 1997; and an in-depth study of homicide trial records in the Udmurt Republic in 1989–1991 and 1998. Deaths from homicide increased between 1970 and 1985, falling slightly during the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign and then resuming their increase until 1994. Another fall in the late 1990s was arrested in 1998, with an increase in 1999. By 1999 the age standardised homicide death rate in Russia was 81% higher than in 1990, an increase almost twice that of all causes of death combined. Throughout the 1990s about 10% of those convicted of homicide were female. Of those homicides leading to convictions in the Udmurt Republic, 71% of those killed by males were male, as were 76% of those killed by females. Killings of women by men often involved sexual assaults. In Russia as a whole, about 80% of those convicted of homicide were reported to be under the influence of alcohol at the time. In the Udmurt Republic, where data on both offender and victim were available, victims were also commonly intoxicated. The nature of homicide in Russia has changed considerably in less than a decade, with many more now involving aggravating circumstances, such as murder to conceal another crime, in association with robbery or rape, or by a group of people. Although still a small proportion of the total convicted, the number of murders by hired killers is also on the rise. The characteristics of those convicted of homicide have also changed during the 1990s. They are now younger, less likely to have previous convictions, and to have a more diverse range of educational levels. The previous urban–rural gap, with higher levels in rural areas, has also narrowed.

Murder in America: A Historian's Perspective

As of 1933, the U. S. murder rate stood at 9.3 per 100,000 annually; in 1993 it was 9.5. But the figures dropped sharply in between, to 4.5 in the 1950s, at the height of the urban industrial revolution. Despite the lack of reliable national figures before the 1930s, it is clear that a peak was reached shortly before the Civil War, and then dropped for generations. Rural areas, especially in the South and West, were more deadly than urban areas until the 1960s. The downturn after 1993 will likely be short-lived, depending on a number of conditions and policies that will either end soon or are reaching their effective limits. In any case, the public is less frightened by the numbers than by the nature of homicides, and several scary kinds, including mass, ideological, and felony murder, have been on the increase. Absolute poverty and the judicial system have been less important than have industrial or postindustrial growth, relative deprivation, family stability, the drug trade, and, in recent decades, c...

The Nature of Violence in the Middle Ages: an Alternative Perspective

Abstract An alternative perspective on the nature of violence in the middle ages is provided by the register of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Cerisy‐la‐Forêt in Normandy. Of particular interest are the detailed descriptions of assaults and brawls. Although numerous, these were mainly petty and unpremeditated and, as such, they serve to highlight the exceptional and often accidental nature of homicide, and the absence of ingrained habits of violence in the form of the feud. This contrasts with those studies which have taken such extreme forms of violence to be the norms and which, as a result, may have overlooked the mundane, everyday reality of violence.

Sex Differences in Criminal Homicide and Suicide in England and Wales and the United States

This is an analysis of patterns of criminal homicide and suicide in England and Wales and the United States during recent decades. Special attention is given to the sex of homicidal offenders and victims and of suicide victims. Also stressed are age of offenders and victims, the familial and other role relationships of homicidal offenders and victims to each other, and the nature of homicide followed by the offender's suicide in the two countries. In England and Wales, the low violence country, females if they kill at all are much more prone to commit suicide than homicide, as compared to females in the United States, the high violence country. In England and Wales, female victimization rates for both forms of death much more nearly approach those of males than is the case in the United States. Homicidal offenders are more likely to victimize members of their own families in England and Wales than in the United States. This is particularly true of English-Welsh females and especially in regard to killing of their own children. Homicidal offenders are decidedly more prone to kill themselves in England and Wales than in the United States. Female offenders are extremely likely to do so in England and Wales and very unlikely to do so in the United States. These tendencies are tentatively related to the possible development of a subculture of self-directed violence in England and Wales, particularly among females.

Subtle fatal child abuse

The majority of homicide victims in infancy and childhood have been either beaten or starved to death. However, the pathologist must recognize a much broader range of fatalities in early life for which an adult appropriately bears criminal responsibility. To emphasize the diversity and potential subtlety of homicide in infancy and childhood, we present six instances of fatal child abuse that illustrate the types of unusual physical and chemical assault and the covert negligence that kill children. Unfamiliarity with the law, lack of suspicion in approaching cases, and failure to utilize necessary techniques to establish the mechanism of death can obscure recognition of the homicidal nature of such fatalities.

Report of a case of Versuchung Angst attended by visual hallucinations of a homicidal nature.

Report of a case of Versuchung Angst attended by visual hallucinations of a homicidal nature.