Parricide Committed by Adolescents: Retrospective Interpretation and Identification of High Risk Subjects

• NCJ Number: 114326
• Author(s): K M Heide
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 33 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper prepared for the 40th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Chicago, November 1988

Annotation

An analysis of FBI data and research literature regarding murders of parents and stepparents by adolescents during 1977-86 indicated that the number of parricides could be greatly reduced if access to firearms and their ready availability in the home were severely curtailed.

Abstract

Although few parents and stepparents were killed by adolescents, five factors emerged as indicating high risk of becoming parricide offenders. These factors are a chemically dependent or other dysfunctional family, an ongoing pattern of family violence, an escalation of the violence, an increasing vulnerability of the youth to the family stressors, and ready availability of firearms in the home. All seven cases analyzed in detail involved the use of firearms. These situations would probably not have been lethal if the youths had been restricted to knives, blunt objects, bare hands, or other weapons. Analyses of other research studies, data tables, and 46 references.