Domestic Homicide

Patterns and Dynamics

Marieke Liem, Frans Koenraadt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351708104
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The literature on domestic violence will often treat homicide as its most extreme outcome. The reality is more nuanced, with many domestic homicides occurring within a history of abusive behaviour. This book offers a much-needed synthesis of the literature on domestic homicide, covering its history; the theories supporting it; its various forms such as filicide, intimate partner homicide, parricide, siblicide and familicide; and its prevention.

The authors explore the predominant theories that have been used to explain domestic homicides in general, as well as specific subtypes of domestic homicide. Each chapter then takes a chronological approach in examining relationships between victim and perpetrator in the most prominent types of domestic homicide. Drawing on the empirical evidence, it offers a unique insight into the dynamics of domestic homicides, and debunks some of the common stereotypes surrounding it. The book concludes with an overview of the main areas of prevention of domestic homicide and offers recommendations for professionals working in domestic violence services, medical practitioners and mental health services.

This book will be of interest to criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists alike, and will be key reading for a range of courses on violence, abuse and aggression.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The family as a vulnerable cornerstone

The closed nature of the family acts as a protective cover, under which abuse and maltreatment may continue undisturbed. This greatly complicates any assessment of the motives and the actual course of events behind criminal conduct. Domestic violence covers a wide range of delinquent behaviour, where homicide may be considered as the lethal outcome at the extreme end of a continuum of violence.

Together with the police and the army the family is considered as one of the most violent social organizations in society. An organization that is highly vulnerable to the occurrence of violence, which can be understood by a combination of factors, which separately do not explain the occurrence of violence. Yet, combined, these factors make the family sensitive to aggression, and conflicts, including lethal conflict.¹ First, the long period of time that family members are in contact with each other, and are dependent on each other, increases the risk of conflict. Second, a broad range of activities and interests might cause tension among relatives. In every family stressful events, such as accidents, illnesses and conflicts etc., take place. These confront each of the family members, while coping styles might differ for each family member. Further, interaction between family members is characterized by intensity. Fourth, with the exception of most intimate partners, family membership is not voluntary chosen. Also, the family is a private organization where social control is limited and intervention by outsiders is often considered as a last resort. Finally, family members share much of each other’s personal history, which may constitute an additional tool to hurt one another in case of family conflict.

The family also constitutes an important social institution, as an educational area where interaction with other persons is shaped, and where one may experiment with certain behaviours. In the family, human beings as dependent persons receive food, shelter, protection, affection, knowledge and guidance in order to survive.² It is in this environment that many people spend considerable time with other crucial persons. As such, they learn, are socialized in and receive models for dealing with conflicts and for applying violent and non-violent behaviour. Against this background, the family and its members might function as breeding area for aggressive behaviour, which may not only be applied inside the family but also outside of it: if not guided adequately, it appears that violence might expand in time and space. Violence breeds violence.

Domestic homicide constitutes the most extreme type of violent behaviour. When such events take place within the family, the degree of secondary victimization spreads drastically. Such events lead to confusion, and to questions such as: Who are the victims and the perpetrators? Where did these events take place? What are the motives and dynamics underlying the event? And, how can future events of this kind be prevented? In this book, we seek to provide insights into the most common types of domestic homicide: the killing of an intimate partner, child, parent, sibling or another family member.

In discussing lethal domestic violence, it is important to define who actually belongs to the family unit, as domestic participants. In this book, we incorporate step-, foster, adoptive, grand- and biological fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, as well as (estranged) intimate partners, spouses, wives and husbands (see Box 1.1 for an overview, including common Latin terms to denote such homicides). Even though servants and domestic personnel can be considered as part of the household, for the purpose of this book they fall outside of our scope.

Trends and shifts in domestic homicide

Domestic homicide is not a stable phenomenon. In the course of time, patterns and dynamics of interaction between perpetrators and victims change, the criminal history of the offender might escalate, the degree of personal and soci(et)al involvement oscillates, professional intervention increases, and finally, the modus operandi evolves. This book focuses on domestic homicide against the background of these developments that we will clarify first.

Box 1.1 Domestic homicide subtypes

Type	Latin Term
Child homicide	Filicide Infanticide Neonaticide
Intimate partner homicide	Uxoricide
Homicide of parents	Parricide Patricide Matricide
Homicide of siblings	Siblicide Fratricide Sororicide
Homicide of multiple family members	Familicide

Perpetrator – victim – witness – bystanders

In many domestic homicide cases, the roles of victim and of perpetrator change, particularly when it comes to so-called reactive killings. A reactive killing is characterized by a preceding period of maltreatment or (sexual) abuse, as sometimes happens in cases of intimate partner killing as well as in cases of the killings of parents. In such intimate partner homicides, the roles of the victim and perpetrator can change rapidly: women who suffered from their partner’s violence in the past and could not escape it or were not able to resist the abuse, may end up from being victims into being perpetrators. Such a role change demonstrates the suspect’s position as both a victim as well as a perpetrator. In committing such a killing, it often appears that the suspect tries to prevent turning into the victim’s role again, considering that offending is the best defence. In this type of killing, the victim tries to stop their role as a victim and stop the aggressor’s exercise of power, by taking the position of the aggressor. Van der Heijden shows that in former days judges, neighbours and plaintiffs made significant distinctions in cases of domestic homicides, where perpetrators also appeared to be victims. According to contemporary views, assaulted or maltreated women are without any doubt the victims of their perpetrators.³

Nowadays, however, the distinctive position of the participant in the criminal procedure is not always clear-cut. Whereas there is a legal difference between the perpetrator and the victim role, in real life this role appears to be more subtle and more arbitrary, particularly when it comes to reactive killings. In reactive homicides, the initial aggression of the violent partner returns as a boomerang; frequently, perpetrators are reported to be provoked by the victim. Here too, the paradox of a reactive killing is remarkable: the aggressor who, by implicit and aggressive example, tarnishes the perpetrator of violence. The isolation in which many of these families live does not only limit the ability to escape the tyranny of the violent partner, but also increases the commitment to that partner because any alternative contacts are lacking. This same private isolation often makes that the only witnesses of what actually happened are both parties involved: the perpetrator and the victim, which causes severe problems for the criminal investigation. In those cases where only the perpetrator and the victim are witnesses the dark number of domestic violence might increase unheard and unseen. From our clinical forensic psychological work, it became clear that in some cases of intimate partner violence being mentioned ‘perpetrator’ or ‘victim’ is trivially dependent on whom of the two reaches the phone for alarming the police first.

Between exaggeration and denial

Given the domestic nature of such homicides, and the fact that oftentimes children are involved, the degree of attention to these cases tends to spread drastically, resulting in public upheaval. Not infrequently, such upheaval is associated with excessive media reporting. In the Netherlands, in the mid-90s, intense media reporting on a series of child homicides that took place within a short period of time actually gave rise to a moral panic: a widespread fear that reporting on such cases may result in new cases in a so-called copycat pattern. Although there were experts who requested a media silence for filicide gradually it became clear it was not more than just a slight variation of cases, not a particular growth.⁴ In recent years comparable examples can be found in other countries.

On the other end of the spectrum, domestic homicide cases are at times characterized not by exaggeration, but rather by denial. When conducting forensic mental health assessments, criminal investigations and scientific research in the area of domestic homicide, the question arises to what extent we actually cover the reality of the case(s) we study. In criminal law and forensic mental health, we are active for weeks, months or sometimes years after the actual crimes were committed. Throughout this time period, exaggeration and denial take different shapes. On an individual level, denial might take place for a pregnant woman who is not aware of her physical condition; her consciousness of being pregnant might be blurred.⁵ On a community level, neighbours who hear every (other) day spousal quarrels and fights next door, might not interfere because it happens in the private territory, or they aim to prevent the neighbourhood from a bad reputation if they would alarm officially. In this light, Cohen’s elaboration on the personal, social and societal denial of suffering and atrocities is helpful to further understand the notion of denial in domestic homicide. In his work, he differentiates between three types of denial in cases of criminal offences and atrocities. First, there are persons who are not fully aware of the behaviour, as they do not know or cannot recall what has happened. Second, there are persons who know, but deny the behaviour having taken place. Third, there are persons who know about the existence of the behaviour in question, but look the other way or simply argue it away. They keep themselves aloof and actually do not wish to know about what took place.⁶

From private vacuum to public policy

Whatever the motives for domestic violence might be, this type of violence typically takes place behind the closed doors of the family and may remain unnoticed by the outside world. Even domestic homicide might take place without outsiders being informed. For a long time, throughout the Western world, a taboo existed on intervening in this private domain. Where domestic violence was previously seen as a private affair that outsiders should not interfere with, nowadays it is seen as a major social issue, ever since violence within the domestic sphere has entered the sphere or advocacy organizations, news media and policy making. In its early stages, these developments were closely related to the rise of the women’s movement and the subsequent national awareness-raising campaigns, and ultimately changed public perceptions on regarding domestic violence as a private matter. Under the influence of this movement, the definition of intimate partner violence was broadened, so that nowadays it also covers aspects such as rape within marriage. As a result, an already existing phenomenon was assessed differently due to reduced tolerance to violence.

In Western countries, this process has taken at least two decades, before politics actually regarded domestic violence as a matter of public concern. In this regard, the Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly of 1993 on the Elimination of Violence against Women can be considered as a major milestone.⁷ In that same year, the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights confirmed women’s rights as Human Rights. Since then, initiatives and policies have been implemented at a European level in the context of domestic violence and violence against women in particular. In 1999, the European Commission launched a European campaign against violence within the family. The purpose of this awareness campaign was to encourage public opinion to tolerate violence under no circumstances. In many countries governmental policy resulted both in increased...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables and boxes
• About the authors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Understanding domestic homicide
• 3 The destruction of descendants
• 4 If I can’t have her no one can
• 5 Strikes at the very root
• 6 Lethal rivalry
• 7 Removing the total all
• 8 Dyadic deaths
• 9 Prevention
• References
• Index