Heng Choon (Oliver) Chan

• PhD in Criminology; MA in Forensic Psychology; BA in Psychology
• Professor (Associate) at University of Birmingham

This book comprehensively discusses 13 infamous cases of serial and non-serial sexual homicide committed around the globe in the past four decades (1974–2010). Offering a psycho-criminological perspective, it analyzes the cases theoretically (i.e., contributing and precipitating factors, and offender typology) and considers the practical implicatio...

Sexual homicide generates widespread public fear and media attention, yet remains an understudied area within criminology. This book provides a thorough survey of sexual homicide offender classifications, and analyses current theoretical explanations and understandings of sexual homicide from a criminological perspective. Importantly, Oliver Chan o...

Research on sexual homicides has primarily focused on male offenders, and thus little is known about female offenders who perpetrated sexual homicides. This study aimed to develop the first statistical classification of female single‐victim (SV) sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) using the U.S. FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports database that spann...

Although studies have been made of different subtypes of individuals who committed sexual homicides, the research into nonstranger and stranger sexual homicides remains limited. This study therefore aimed to examine whether those who sexually murder nonstrangers differ from those who kill strangers. Data derived from police records, court documents...

School violence and bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber‐deviance have become subject matters of great concern for various disciplines, such as social work, criminology, psychology, education, medicine, public health, and nursing. In the past years, scholars in different countries have adopted the theoretical perspectives developed in their respectiv...

This study of 21 youthful parricide offenders (YPOs) ages 11–21 examined the relationship between psychopathology, level of psychopathy, and crime scene behaviors, particularly two forms of “body management”: (1) “body movement” and (2) “body alteration.” Undoing, a form of body alteration reflecting psychological rather than practical needs, for e...

The comparative examination of different groups of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) is currently limited. To expand our understanding of Chinese sexual homicides, this study aimed to distinguish between the modus operandi (MO) characteristics of repeat (i.e., with previous arrest and/or conviction) and nonrepeat (i.e., without previous arrest and/o...

This study aims to investigate the relationship between risky sexual behavior (RSB) and psychopathy in a non-clinical sample of 714 Hong Kong adults, shedding light on sex differences. Our findings reveal that males exhibit significantly higher mean levels of RSB (general, penetrative, and nonpenetrative), as well as egocentric (Factor 1) and callo...

Introduction Little is known about the nature and prevalence of sexual offending among youth in Hong Kong. Methods Testing self-control theory and sexual health risk factors (i.e., risky sexual behaviors [general and two subtypes] and paraphilic interests [general and 14 subtypes]), the prevalence of self-reported sexual offending behaviors (i.e.,...

This is a descriptive study of 21 cases of serial sexual murder by children and adolescents spanning nearly the past century and a half. No earlier cases worldwide were identified. Each of these youth committed two or more sexual homicides prior to age 18. Their psychopathological, psychosocial, crime scene behaviors, and offender–victim relationsh...

Limited information is available on the prevalence and nature of sexual offending in Hong Kong. This cross-sectional study seeks to explore the role of risky sexual behavior (RSB) and paraphilic interests in self-reported sexual offending behavior (i.e., nonpenetrative-only, penetrative-only, and nonpenetrative-plus-penetrative sexual assault) in a...

In this chapter, four theoretical models that were developed specifically to describe sexual homicide offending—both serial and non‐serial—are discussed. These theoretical frameworks are (a) the motivational model, (b) the trauma‐control model, (c) the paraphilic model, and (d) the social learning‐routine activity integrated theory.

In this chapter, 12 theoretical models that are classified as Level III theories, descriptive framework of the offense chain or relapse process in sexual offending, are elaborately described. These micro‐models mostly constitute temporal or dynamic theories, often specifying the cognitive, behavioral, motivational, and social factors associated wit...

In this chapter, the general prevalence and nature of sexual offending in Asia (i.e., East, Southeast, South, West, and Central Asia regions) are summarized, followed by distinguishing the nature of sexual offending in Asia from that in other regions (i.e., the West). In general, sexual victimization against sexual partners is also more commonly ob...

In this chapter, the literature on the prevalence, nature, and offending dynamics of sexual offending in Central Asia is synthesized, and cultural values and norms related to sexual offending are discussed, followed by penal codes of different Central Asian countries. Two Central Asian violent sexual offenses in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are summar...

In this chapter, the literature on the prevalence, nature, and offending dynamics of sexual offending in Southeast Asia is synthesized, and cultural values and norms related to sexual offending are discussed, followed by penal codes of different Southeast Asian countries. Two Southeast Asian violent sexual offenses in Indonesia and Malaysia are sum...

In this chapter, the literature on the prevalence, nature, and offending dynamics of sexual offending in South Asia is synthesized, and cultural values and norms related to sexual offending are discussed, followed by penal codes of different South Asian countries. Two South Asian violent sexual offenses in India and Pakistan are summarized—i.e., th...

The existing literature has consistently demonstrated that, to a certain extent, the offending dynamics and behavior of female sexual offenders are different from those of male sexual offenders. In this chapter, two theoretical models that were developed specifically to describe the offending process of female sexual offenders are discussed. These...

In this chapter, eight theoretical models that are categorized as Level I theories, multifactorial or comprehensive accounts of sexual offending, are discussed. These theories were developed to describe core features of sexual offenders and a complete account of what causes these phenomena and how they manifest in sexual offending behavior. These t...

In this chapter, 11 theoretical models that are classified as Level II theories, single‐factor theories, are described. Expanding on the factors identified in Level I theories, these theoretical models are (a) the sexual deviation theory, (b) the cognitive distortion theory, (c) the intimacy deficits theory, (d) the conditioning theory, (e) radical...

In this chapter, the literature on the prevalence, nature, and offending dynamics of sexual offending in West Asia is synthesized, and cultural values and norms related to sexual offending are discussed, followed by penal codes of different West Asian countries. Two West Asian violent sexual offenses in Iran and Turkey are summarized—i.e., the Iran...

There is limited information available on the phenomenon of stalking in the Asian context, especially in mainland China. This study investigated individuals' perceptions of stalking behavior, the motives of stalkers, and the effective strategies for coping with stalking victimization in a sample of 985 young adults (aged 18–33 years) from Liaoning...

Many studies of stalking and intrusive behaviors are conducted with samples from individualist Western cultures, and limited information is available on such behavior in collectivist cultures. By using a sample of 1143 adults (440 males and 703 females) from Hong Kong (n = 305), mainland China (n = 464), and Ghana (n = 374), this study compares per...

Hong Kong has experienced social unrest in response to the proposed anti-extradition bill since early June 2019. Demonstrations and rallies have often ended in violent clashes between protestors and the police. Based on a sample of 1024 Hong Kong adults, this study explored the psychosocial factors underlying public perceptions of police procedural...

Background Little is known about the prevalence and nature of paraphilic interests in the Hong Kong young adult population. This study explores the psychosocial factors associated with paraphilic interests.Methods Testing the propositions of several criminological theories (i.e., the theories of self-control, general strain, social learning, social...

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-021-00598-3

Information on the stalking perpetration dynamics of young male and female adults in Asian countries is scarce, particularly in relation to stalkers’ offending characteristics, perpetration behaviors, motives, and other violent and nonviolent behaviors. This study compares the stalking perpetration dynamics (i.e., offending characteristics, lifetim...

Little is known about stalking perpetration in the Asian context. This study examines the dynamics of stalking perpetration (i.e., offending characteristics, perpetration behaviors, motives, and other violent and nonviolent behaviors) among adults in Hong Kong by stalker-victim relationship (i.e., ex-intimate partner, non-intimate non-stranger, and...

Traditionally, criminological scholarship has been Western-centric. In recent decades, movements to ‘decolonise’ criminology from its Western-centricity have been initiated. The decolonisation and democratisation of criminology have also been observed in the African context, with the development of African criminology. Although the African criminol...

Policymakers and the general public have expressed concerns regarding crime and the activities of criminals in several African countries, including South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. Of interest also is the discussion relating to the intersection between crime, mental health and criminal justice. While many of the discussions in this book have centre...

Since early June 2019, Hong Kong has been experiencing ongoing social unrest in response to the anti-extradition bill. These demonstrations and rallies have often ended with violent clashes between protestors and the police. Moreover, the frequent mass demonstrations that initially focused on the bill have since evolved into pro-democracy protests...

Sex workers are commonly claimed to be at heightened risk of fatal victimization. Although prior research indicates that the dynamics of sex worker homicides resemble sexual homicides more than nonsexual homicides, little is known about how these types of homicides compare in terms of offending patterns. This study considers a sample of 2,851 singl...

There is limited knowledge of the prevalence and nature of risky sexual behavior (RSB) among young adults in Hong Kong. This cross-sectional study explored the psychosocial risk factors of RSB with a sample of 1,171 Hong Kong university students (aged 18–40 years). Grounded in the theoretical propositions of several criminological theories (i.e., t...

Filicide is the purposeful killing of one or more children by a parent, step‐parent, or other parental figure. Revenge filicide is a poorly understood, rare form of filicide in which a parent murders their child to cause emotional harm to the child's other parent. This descriptive study presents an international case series consisting of 62 revenge...

This study examines the overlap between sexual offending perpetration and victimization among 1,171 participants (18–40 years) in Hong Kong. Testing the theoretical propositions of several criminological theories (i.e., self-control, general strain, routine activity, and social learning), the participants’ prevalence of general, penetrative, and no...

This chapter comprehensively discusses the role of sexual sadism and psychopathy in sexual homicide, and how the presence of these two mental disorders exacerbates the severity of the offense. Despite the many different definitions proposed to define sexual sadism, disagreement continues to exist in regard to the subjective defining and diagnostic...

Purpose This study seeks to expand our limited understanding of sexual homicides committed in China, especially with respect to the murder weapons used. It explores the differences between opposite-sex (male-on-female) and same-sex (male-on-male) male sexual homicides. In addition, it examines how the weapon choice of sexual homicide offenders (SHO...

This study investigated the overlap between cyberbullying perpetration and victimisation among 1,893 adolescents. The prevalence of general, overt-aggressive, and relational-aggressive cyberbullying was examined, based on the adolescents’ psychosocial characteristics including self-esteem, prosocial behaviour, empathy, family attachment, perception...

Most studies of stalking and other forms of intrusive behavior are conducted in the West. Little is known about the phenomenon in the African context. The present work represents the first dedicated stalking study conducted in Ghana. Based on a sample of 371 male and female university students, this study explored the gender distribution of overall...

Purpose Most stalking studies have been conducted on Western samples. Little is known about victims of stalking and harassment outside the Western Hemisphere generally, and victim coping approaches have so far gone unexamined within populations of Asian victims. Methods Using a sample of 198 self‐reported victims of stalking or harassment drawn fr...

Most stalking studies are conducted in the West. Limited information is available on victims of stalking from the Asian continent. This study specifically explored the victimization experiences of young male and female adults in Hong Kong. Using a large sample of university students (N = 2,496) aged between 18 and 40 years, the gender distribution...

The insanity defense is among the most controversial legal constructs that has attracted the attention of scholars, practitioners and policy makers. Here, we conducted a systematic review of the literature spanning 2004 to 2019 that produced 58 studies of insanity defense research. Findings are organized according to: (1) assessments and assessment...

Limited information is known about the offending phenomenon of Hong Kong adolescents, specifically from a theoretical standpoint. Using a sample of 892 secondary school students, this study aims to explore the criminogenic risk factors of juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong adolescents. Grounded in the theoretical propositions of mainstream criminolo...

The frequency with which assessment for risk of criminal offending is requested across mental health and criminal justice systems in Western countries is historically unprecedented. However, information concerning risk assessment practices and research in Sub-Saharan Africa is virtually nonexistent. In filling this gap, the present study discusses...

Little exists beyond medicolegal case reports on victim mutilation homicides, much less on those occurring in the context of sexual homicides. As limited information is available on sexual homicides that occurred in China, this study aims to explore the offending characteristics of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) who mutilated their victims and to...

Animal cruelty has been a growing concern worldwide, and is broadly defined as all socially unacceptable behaviors that are intentionally perpetrated to cause unnecessary pain, suffering, distress, and/or death to an animal. This review synthesizes more than 87 research studies identified through online databases and manual search of specific studi...

Little is known about victims of crime in Hong Kong, particularly from a theoretical standpoint. Using a sample of 1306 secondary school students, this study aims to explore the criminogenic risk factors of victimization in Hong Kong adolescents. Grounded in the theoretical propositions of mainstream criminological theories (i.e., self-control, soc...

On Saturday, April 20th, 1985, a Scottish male adolescent, aged 17 years, Kenneth McBride (簡尼.麥伯迪), and a British female adolescent, aged 18 years, Nicola Sharon Myers (尼歌拉.梅雅絲), were found brutally beaten to death in a desolate area on Braemar Hill, Hong Kong. Myers had been raped and sexually assaulted in a violent manner before being murdered. T...

A 16-year-old girl, Wong Ka-Mui (王嘉梅), was reported missing by her family on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008. On Tuesday, May 6th, 2008, a police search of Wong’s telephone records led to a 24-year-old transport worker, Ting Kai-Tai (丁啟泰; aged 23 years at the time of offense), as the last person who had been in contact with Wong. This in turn led to a fu...

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as many as 71 females were murdered near Seattle and Tacoma, in Washington. The bodies of those victims, largely late adolescents and young adults aged between 15 and 26 years, were found after having been disposed of in wooded and remote areas around the banks of the Green River in King County. Most of them were ide...

Children disappearing on the streets of Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s was not uncommon, especially among the poorer strata, given the social convulsions that Colombia was experiencing as a result of three decades of armed conflicts. Parents often did not report a child’s disappearance for fear of reprisals from drug cartels, criminals, or corrupt...

On Friday, November 27th, 1987, a 12-year-old New Zealand girl of Mãori descent, Sian Kingi, was reported missing by her parents, Barry and Lynda Kingi, when she did not return home late in the evening. She had last been seen riding her bike at a park in the afternoon after she had gone shopping with her mother. On Thursday, December 3rd, 1987, Kin...

From June 18th, 1978 until July 19th, 1991, over the long period of 13 years, 17 known young men, mostly in their twenties, were found murdered and dismembered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During that period, this large series of unsolved murders caused residents in the state of Wisconsin to live in a state of complete terror. Finally, late in the even...

Over a 17-year time span, from January 15th, 1974 until January 9th, 1991, a series of heinous murders terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas. Ten victims, from nine to 62 years old, were strangled to death by a murderer who came to refer to himself as “the BTK Strangler” (BTK stands for “bind them, torture them, kill them”). The investigation went...

Sexual violence is a serious event and is generally considered to be both a violation of human rights and a public health concern. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sexual violence is defined as “any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a...

For a 16-month period beginning on April 24, 1992, Hong Kong was terrorized by a series of sexual robberies and sexual homicide cases. Nine female victims, ranging in age from 19 to 50 years old, were raped and robbed, and three of them were eventually murdered, in different housing estates in the Tuen Mun District (屯門區) and the Hung Hom area (紅磡)....

In the afternoon, on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010, 12-year-old Tia Rigg was asked by her mother, Lynne Rigg, to attend to a request from her 38-year-old maternal uncle, John Nigel Maden, to babysit his 10-year-old daughter in his house in Dalmain Close, Cheetham Hill in Manchester. Maden was unemployed and had an obsessive interest in pornography rela...

On Saturday, February 11th, 1989, a 22-year-old pregnant woman, Joy Stewart, was last seen leaving the home of Juanita Deaton, the mother of her friend, Chris Deaton, at around noon in West Alexandria, Ohio. Also present was Dennis McGuire, who was hired to clean the house gutters. Deaton last saw Stewart speaking with two unidentified males in a d...

On Thursday, November 6th, 2008, a 14-year-old Taiwanese junior high school girl, Fang Fang (方芳), was last seen skipping school at noon with her schoolmate, 14-year-old Tang Weiwei (鄧瑋瑋). They met up with Tang’s friend, 15-year-old Xu Jiajin (許家晉), and 19-year-old Xu Zhihao (徐志皓). Instead of following the initial plan to spend time at an Internet c...

Sexual homicides are rare events. Even in a nation with rampant violent offenses, such as the U.S., sexual homicide arrestees accounted for just 0.84% of all homicide arrestees, over the 37-year period from 1976 to 2012 (Chan et al. 2019). Of the sexual homicide arrestees, slightly more than half (53.1%) were considered to be single-victim offender...

Beginning on December 30th, 1978, and lasting until January 26th, 1983, over a period of slightly more than four years, 15 young men vanished from north London. The majority of them were either homeless or homosexual men. These victims, between 14 and 26 years old, were murdered, dissected, and disposed of. Their murders were finally discovered, an...

From February 3rd, 1982 until July 2nd, 1982, over a period of five months, a series of gruesome murders haunted many in Hong Kong and do even to this day. Four young females, between 17 and 31 years of age, were found murdered and dismembered. Their corpses were discovered in isolated dumpsites in New Territories (新界) and Hong Kong Island (香港島). A...

Background Information on sexual homicides in China is scarce, particularly with respect to the offenders' primary motivation for the offence. Aims Our aim was to examine how offence characteristics of sexual murderers relate to different primary motivations. Methods The offender, victim, and offence characteristics of 67 sexual homicides, derive...

Purpose: Claims of a victim-offender overlap have been substantiated in the literature. However, little is known about the joint occurrence of victimization and offending in the Asian context. Methods: Using a sample of 892 secondary school students, this study aims to explore the phenomenon of overlap between offending and victimization among Hong...

Research demonstrates that prostitutes are at heightened risk of fatal victimization. Besides, prostitute homicides are known to be notoriously difficult to investigate; and hence, little is known about this underresearched offender and vulnerable victim populations. This study aims to explore the offender, victim, and offense characteristics of 24...

Previous studies have compared perceptions and experiences of intrusive activity and stalking between countries and the present work compares subcultures within a single country. Singaporean women (89 Chinese, 69 Indian and 68 Malay) with similar age profiles completed a modified version of the ‘Stalking: International perceptions and prevalence’ q...

Sexual violence is a serious social problem and a growing concern worldwide. Research has been devoted to understanding the etiology of sexual violence. This chapter first reviews the outcome nature of sexual homicide, with particular emphasis given to the differences between homicidal and nonhomicidal sexual offenders. A comprehensive discussion o...

Nearly all information available on sexual homicides are limited to studies conducted in the West. Little is known about sexual homicides that occurred in China. The current study is arguably the first to explore the offender, victim, and offense characteristics of Chinese sexual homicides. Over a period of 23 years (1994 to 2016), the data of 59 c...

Most studies have focused on male sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) without testing whether sex differences exist. Accordingly, little is known about the distinctions between male and female SHOs, particularly with respect to their use of weapons in killing their victims. This study used a sample of 3,160 single-victim sexual homicide cases (3,009 m...

Most studies of stalking are conducted with samples from individualist cultures. Little is known about the phenomenon within collectivist cultures. The present study is arguably the first stalking study conducted in Hong Kong. Specifically, this study investigates a large sample of Asian college students’ (N = 2,496) perceptions of stalking behavio...

Limited information is available on how victims cope with their cybervictimization experience. Therefore, using 432 cases of cyberbullying victimization (i.e., victims-only as passive victims and victim-bullies as aggressive victims) in a sample of Hong Kong school-age Chinese adolescents, this study examines the effects of different demographics (...

Sexual homicide (or sexual murder) is generally referred to as a homicide that is committed with an apparent or underlying sexual motivation. Extending the review conducted by Chan and Heide (2009) on the empirical studies on sexual homicide that were published from the mid-1980s to 2008, this chapter comprehensively reviews 47 published empirical...

Recent research has expanded our understanding of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs). However, little exists beyond case reports for older SHOs. We characterized male SHOs ≥ 55 years, comparing them to typical adult male SHOs who are in their 20s. Analysis of 37 years (1976-2012) of US Supplementary Homicide Reports data provided a large SHO sample (...

Competency to stand trial (CST) is related to the defendant's capacity to engage in a satisfactory level of participation in the court process. While the extant studies focus mainly on assessment-related issues such as assessment methods, guidelines for competency evaluations, and quality of competency evaluations, another area of considerable inte...

Decades of research have revealed the potential of individuals to be partial toward defendants pleading insanity at the time of offense. This study examines the internal structure of the Insanity Defense Attitude-Revised (IDA-R) scale as well as predictors of insanity defense attitude in a Ghanaian sample (N = 253). Using principal component analys...

Mental health professionals' attitudes toward offenders with mental illness have significant implications for the quality of care and treatment rendered, making it imperative for these professionals to be aware of their attitudes. Yet, this topical issue has received little research attention. Consequently, the present study investigates attitudes...

Jurisdictions across the world have promulgated legal standards for determining criminal responsibility and for invoking the insanity defence in criminal proceedings. At the moment, the literature on this contentious yet interesting topical issue is inundated with studies from western countries, predominantly the United States and Europe. There is...

Sexual homicide (or sexual murder) is largely referred to as a homicide that is committed with an apparent or underlying sexual motivation. Although this topic has been increasingly studied in recent years, little is known about how sex offenders who kill their victims differ from those who do not. This article recaps empirical findings related to...