Adolescent parricide offenders (APO's) are typically presented in the literature as prosocial young people in fear of their lives who often kill to protect themselves from death or serious physical injury or to end the chronic abuse they have suffered. In contrast, dangerously antisocial young people kill their parents for selfish, instrumental reasons. The accurate identification of dangerously antisocial young people is vital. If these young people are misdiagnosed, they may have both the opportunity and underlying character structure to kill again. A qualified mental health professional with expertise in juvenile homicide should evaluate the young person to determine if he or she meets the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder. This diagnosis is typically the forerunner of antisocial personality disorder, a diagnosis requiring the offender to be 18 years of age or older. The mental health professional also needs to address what causes a young person to commit homicide. Adolescent parricide offenders, however, are not always "pure types" and the mere diagnosis of conduct disorder does not rule out the young person may be a severely abused child who killed to end the abuse. Three cases are presented to illustrate the complex nature of categorizing adolescent parricide offenders. 13 references
Dangerously Antisocial Kids Who Kill Their Parents: Toward a Better Understanding of the Phenomenon (From Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes - Proceedings of the 1996 Meeting of the Homicide Research Working Group, P 228-233, 1996, Pamela K Lattimore and Cynthia A Nahabedian, eds. - See NCJ-166149)
NCJ Number
168590
Date Published
1996
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Three types of young people who kill their parents have been identified in the professional literature (severely abused children, severely mentally ill children, and dangerously antisocial children), and this paper focuses on the diagnosis of a parricide offender as dangerously antisocial.
Abstract