NCJ Number
224159
Journal
Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Dated: 2008 Pages: 166-176
Date Published
2008
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined and compared the sociodemographic, environmental, and psychopathological factors underlying maternal and paternal filicide.
Abstract
The results indicate that differences between men and women were found with regard to age, methods of killing, and motivation underlying the filicide, the murder of a child by a parent. The categories of filicide identified corresponded to those in studies from other countries, indicating that filicide follows similar patterns throughout the Western world. The aim of this work was to examine and compare the sociodemographic, environmental, and psychopathological factors underlying maternal and paternal filicide, as historically, filicide was regarded as a female crime. Currently, in the West, men have become increasingly likely to be convicted of killing their child. Previous research on filicide has primarily focused on either maternal or paternal filicide rather than comparing the two. In this work, the fact that 25 percent of fathers had killed in reaction to threatened separation or divorce, and that over a third of men and more than half of the women were mentally ill at the time suggest that increased monitoring by primary care physicians under such circumstances might have preventive value. Data were extracted from records in a forensic psychiatric observation hospital in Utrecht, in the Netherlands for the period 1953-2004. Seventy-nine men and 82 women were detained in the hospital under criminal charges in that period, 132 having killed or attempted to kill (29) their own children. Tables, references