U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Sexual Homicide: A Synthesis of the Literature

NCJ Number
225468
Journal
Trauma, Violence, & Abuse: A Review Journal Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2009 Pages: 31-54
Author(s)
Heng-Choon Chan; Kathleen M. Heide
Date Published
January 2009
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article provides an extensive review of the extant literature concerning sexual homicide.
Abstract
This article presents a review of the existing sexual homicide literature focusing on definitions, general theoretical understanding, and typologies that have evolved over the years. Additionally, issues surrounding the study of sexual murderers, such as sadistic fantasy and developmental deficits, are addressed by the authors. The article notes that sexual homicide is a heavily studied, but unclearly defined area of homicide studies. Numerous topics are provided, to include: psychological development defects among sexual murderers; general theoretical understanding of the offenders and their taxonomy; sexual murderers by victim gender; and a comparison of different types of these offenders. The article concludes with an analysis of various existing studies and discusses implications for practice, policy, and research. The discussion provided in this article was derived from an examination of the empirical studies in sexual homicide from the mid-1980s to 2008. A comparison of different types of sexual homicides through a synthesis of 32 published empirical studies is made.mTables and references

Downloads

No download available

Availability