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Victim-Offender Relationships and Severity of Victim Injury

Taylor & Francis
The Journal of Social Psychology
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Abstract

A study was conducted to explore whether a close, or more personal relationship between a criminal offender and victim of an assault was related to the extent of injury to the victim. Case records of 328 pretrial defendants and presentence offenders examined during a seven-year period at a Court Psychiatric Clinic were reviewed. Records included data on victim relationship and victim injury as reported by the interviewing psychiatrist. Findings revealed that when a closer relationship between offender and victim existed, severity of victim-injury was greater. This relationship was found regardless of the diagnosis or age of the offender and regardless of the sex or age of the victim.
... (p. 231) Research supports these scholars' sentiments about the heightened intensity level between intimate relationships in regard to injury patterns in assault (Heller, Ehrlich, & Lester, 1983), sexual assault (Stermac, Del Bove, & Addison, 2001), and homicide (Au & Beh, 2011;Last & Fritzon, 2005;Salfati, 2003;Wolfgang, 1958). ...
... This line of research points to violence being more severe and homicide more prevalent in more rural areas (Edwards, 2015;Gallup-Black, 2005;Peek-Asa et al., 2011). Scholars have also shown severity of the victim's injuries to be greater in more intimate relationships (Au & Beh, 2011;Heller et al., 1983;Last & Fritzon, 2005;Wolfgang, 1958) with closer relationships characterized by multiple wounds, wounds occurring to multiple body parts (Last & Fritzon, 2005;Salfati, 2003), and wounds to the face (Au & Beh, 2011;Trojan & Krull, 2012). The current study is unique as it connects these bodies of scholarship to examine whether injury patterns in FV IPHs vary across place to more accurately understand the dynamics of FV IPH in the context in which it occurs, which would be beneficial to both law enforcement (e.g., crime scene investigation) and health care professionals (e.g., IPH risk assessments) as well as inform policies across place (e.g., policies to address gun availability, poverty, unemployment, gender inequality in employment and education). ...
Article
Research demonstrates place matters in the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) and intimate partner homicide (IPH) with rural women experiencing more severe IPV and a higher risk of IPH. In addition, research points to variations in injury patterns with intimates characterized by more wounds and facial injuries. Little is known whether injury for female IPH victims differs across place; however, research suggests that abuse is a product of a larger social context. Using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, results indicate that some variations exist based on degree of urbanicity of the county in which the IPH occurred.
... With respect to offender characteristics, consistent with prior research, offender age was inversely correlated with experiencing any injury (Kelsay et al., 2017). Also, in line with previous literature, relational distance to the victim significantly altered the probability and severity of physical injuries (Bachman et al., 2002;Heller et al., 1983;Kyriacou et al., 1999;Weaver et al., 2004). In the "any injury" model, offenders who were victims' current or ex-spouse and current or ex-boy/girlfriends had a higher likelihood of inflicting an injury than offenders who were victims' nonintimate relatives. ...
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This study examined the consequences of domestic violence (DV) in light of the multiple changes to the lifestyles and routine activities of households during the Covid-19 pandemic using incident-level data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Through logistic regressions, we first examined odds of injury among DV victims. We then examined odds of severe injury among DV victims who experienced injury. We compared the pre-pandemic odds of these injurious outcomes to these odds in two distinctive periods during the Covid-19 pandemic — March 2020-March 2021 and April 2021-December 2022. Study results suggest that the risk of both “any injury” and “severe injury” was higher between March 2020-March 2021 in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. Findings further suggest that the risk and severity of DV victims’ injury after April 2021 were not significantly different from the pre-pandemic era. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
... Morevoer, the closer the genetic relationship between the victim and perpetrator, the more seriously the "crime" was viewed. Similarly, when the relationship between a victim and her abuser is close, the severity of the injury was greater (Heller et al., 1983). Conversely, for certain crimes such as stalking, the perpetrator's behaviour was perceived to constitute stalking, necessitate police intervention and/or criminal charges, and cause the target alarm or personal distress to a greater extent in the stranger condition compared to the ex partner condition (Scott & Sheridan, 2011). ...
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Terrorism, described as "acts of violence by non-state actors, perpetrated against civilian populations, intended to cause fear, in order to achieve a political objective” (LaFree et al., 2010) and torture have many negative consequences on individuals and are usually banned in all societies. In this scientific journal, the interest of understanding and dealing with the perception of crimes by the public and individuals specifically would be to include the discrepancies in outcomes regarding the perception of crimes between different types of offenses, but also to intensify prevention of judgment and perception biases that have a range of implications for potential victims, those tried and society more generally. I would therefore like to apply this principle of severity to terrorism and torture with recent scientific results. Some limitations are observed in particular: I have focused on the research of literature only on the perception of crimes by others and not by victims, cultural differences can lead to contradictory results in future research, the observed results may not be representative of what might be observed for various crimes and specifically for terrorism and torture. It is also said that violence remains pervasive in societies.
... Beliefs concerning being betrayed may, therefore, have particular significance for homicide and the seriousness of violence for patients with schizophrenia. In non-psychotic homicides, evidence from the forensic literature supports a relationship between intimacy and overkill [72]. In some cases, specific moral cognitions accounted for the form of violence even when controlling for the presence of psychotic symptoms. ...
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Background: People with schizophrenia are ten times more likely to commit homicide than a member of the general population. The relationship between symptoms of schizophrenia and acts of violence is unclear. There has also been limited research on what determines the seriousness and form of violence, such as reactive or instrumental violence. Moral cognition may play a paradoxical role in acts of violence for people with schizophrenia. Thoughts which have moral content arising from psychotic symptoms may be a cause of serious violence. Method: We investigated if psychotic symptoms and moral cognitions at the time of a violent act were associated with acts of violence using a cross-sectional national forensic cohort (n = 55). We examined whether moral cognitions were associated with violence when controlling for neurocognition and violence proneness. We explored the association between all psychotic symptoms present at the time of the violent act, psychotic symptoms judged relevant to the violent act and moral cognitions present at that time. Using mediation analysis, we examined whether moral cognitions were the missing link between symptoms and the relevance of symptoms for violence. We also investigated if specific moral cognitions mediated the relationship between specific psychotic symptoms, the seriousness of violence (including homicide), and the form of violence. Results: Psychotic symptoms generally were not associated with the seriousness or form of violence. However, specific moral cognitions were associated with the seriousness and form of violence even when controlling for neurocognition and violence proneness. Specific moral cognitions were associated with specific psychotic symptoms present and relevant to violence. Moral cognitions mediated the relationship between the presence of specific psychotic symptoms and their relevance for violence, homicide, seriousness of violence, and the form of violence. Conclusions: Moral cognitions including the need to reduce suffering, responding to an act of injustice or betrayal, the desire to comply with authority, or the wish to punish impure or disgusting behaviour, may be a key mediator explaining the relationship between psychotic symptoms and acts of violence. Our findings may have important implications for risk assessment, treatment and violence prevention. Keywords: Violence, Homicide, Schizophrenia, Moral cognition, Delusions, Hallucinations, Violence risk assessment, Neurocognition, Forensic psychiatry, Moral foundations theory
... A number of authors have additionally utilized overkill as indicative of offender motivation (e.g. Keppel and Birnes, 1997) or a characteristic of a particular type or sub-type of homicide (Bell and Vila, 1996;Hunter et al., 2000;Last and Fritzon, 2005;Heller et al., 1983), with several of these studies, implying that the concept may have direct applicability to homicide investigations. ...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the term “overkill” is used in the homicide literature to identify definitional issues that may interfere with reliable data coding across studies. This preliminary examination of the concept can guide future studies seeking to develop a standard definition. Design/methodology/approach To identify issues inherent in the term “overkill,” three definitions – ranging from broad and unclear to more specific and objective – were extracted or adapted from the existing literature. Using closed, homicide case files, nine coders were tasked with coding for the presence of overkill according to one of the definitions across two rounds of coding. Definitional components that made the coding of overkill difficult were identified using a qualitative sorting task to separate items into themes that represented similar issues; basic inter-rater agreement patterns were examined using pairwise percent agreement. Findings Based on coder feedback, two problems were identified: conceptual issues with the definitions and logistical issues with coding. However, feedback also suggested that increasing the objectivity of the overkill definition led coders to feel the intended meaning of the term was lost. Two out of three groups showed an increase in coder agreement between the two phases of data collection, illustrating how increased training is useful in certain situations. Originality/value This study is the first in-depth methodological and empirical examination of how the term “overkill” has been operationalized in the literature, raises key questions that may help with more clearly coding this variable, and outlines issues that may add difficulty to the development of a standard definition.
Article
Prior research has suggested that hate crimes hurt more, in that they are more physically severe than other crimes. A separate body of research has focused on the role of weapons in exacerbating violence; yet, no research has considered the role of weapon use in bias crime victimization. Following this, this research examines the relationship between weapon use, bias motivation, and victimization in the United States. On one hand, weapons may play an important role in hate crime by exacerbating violence. On the other hand, weapons may be unnecessary for facilitating hate crime violence, given the animus associated with bias motivation. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, we find that bias crimes are both (a) less likely than nonbias crimes to involve weapons and (b) more likely than nonbias crimes to involve serious or lethal victim injury. These patterns are particularly pronounced for antisexual orientation hate crimes.
Research
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This represents one of several sections of "A Bibliography Related to Crime Scene Interpretation with Emphases in Geotaphonomic and Forensic Archaeological Field Techniques, Nineteenth Edition" (The complete bibliography is also included at ResearchGate.net.). This is the most recent edition of a bibliography containing resources for multiple areas of crime scene, and particularly outdoor crime scene, investigations. It replaces the prior edition and contains approximately 10,000 additional citations. As an ongoing project, additional references, as encountered, will be added to future editions. The impact of one’s culture on daily activities is inescapable. That impact, whether conscious or not, must in some ways extend to the commission of crimes as well as victim reactions. The compiler witnessed this in the investigation of the abduction and murder of a young Bosnian girl who had resettled in the United States with more than 8,000 other refugees from the Balkan Wars of the early 1990s. The ease with which her neo-Nazi murderer was able to enter the homes of the Bosnian refugees, and ultimately kidnap this victim, was partly the result of the cultural experiences of the victimized families who feared law enforcement in their home country and so were reluctant to report the preadtor who introduced himself into their community as a health inspector. This category includes citations beyond those about death rituals and includes references about criminal psychology, cultural studies, and forensic psychiatry. A greater understanding of the psychological and cultural motivation subjects might have in committing crimes will impact approaches to searching for, and processing, evidence. One need not be a behavioral scientist or criminal profiler to realize that a subject diagnosed with paranoia might dispose of a victim in a manner different than a sociopath. An example of cultural influence in the selection of a victim’s disposal site is the case of Jeremiah James Bringsplenty. Accounts of this 1992 case included that of the abuse and murder of Jeremiah by family acquaintances who were babysitting the infant in his Clarksville, Tennessee home. Both the victim and the subjects were of Native American ancestry. The subjects left Tennessee for the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota with plans to bury Jeremiah near relatives. Because of decomposition, however, they were forced to stop outside Lincoln, Nebraska to bury the remains. This section also contains references valuable for investigators interviewing subjects and witnesses. This category and “General and Cultural Anthropology of Death” overlap to some degree. The examples or accounts examined in the resources within this section involve a spectrum of physical traumas which might befall victims of homicide or suicide. For that reason, the reader/research should also look in Taphonomy-Trauma for related citations. (3305 citations)
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On the basis of information regarding 276 homicides committed in South Korea between 1987 and 2008, we compared offenders’ and victims’ characteristics, injury locations, weapon-related behavior, and offending behavior between homicides involving sharp and blunt instruments. The victims of sharp-force homicide were much younger relative to those of blunt-force homicide. In addition, homicides involving blunt instruments were more likely to be committed by offenders who lived with the victims. Most sharp-force homicides involved injuries to the torso, while blunt-force homicides involved mainly head injuries. Furthermore, perpetrators of sharp-force homicides tended to preselect their weapons, while those of blunt-force homicides were likely to use weapons of opportunity. Logistic regression analysis identified a number of factors, including injury location and body transportation, which significantly predicted weapon type. As this was the first South Korean study to compare sharp- and blunt-force homicides, the results have practical implications for homicide investigations.
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The aim of this study was to characterize young dating violent offenders (DVO), and to compare them to the general population and to young offenders with violent crimes directed against other victims. We have used data from the Development of Aggressive Antisocial Behaviour Study, in all 264 young men, 18 to 25 years, convicted of violent crimes and imprisoned in the Western Region of the Swedish Prison and Probation Services. We found that young DVO offenders differed from the general population in all investigated areas; however, the group did not differ in comparisons to other young violent offenders. Our results highlight the antisocial aspects of dating violent crime being rooted in aggressive antisocial behaviour, lacking signs of any specific offender type characteristics, thus questioning the validity of crime specific treatment programs in prison for young offenders of dating violence.
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Child-parent relationships can complicate law enforcement responses to domestic violence. Little research has been conducted on the construction of police reports, particularly in domestic violence. The authors analyzed domestic violence police reports to distinguish information recorded for three types of cases: child (adult or minor) involved, child (adult or minor) present, or other adults only. Using a social constructionist criminologist perspective, recorded information differs by the level of child involvement in cases. Discrepancies in report quality and details are important to social policy, as officers’ perceptions of the involved individuals and resources can be clarified through awareness and training.
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The essential result of our study is that crimes of violence committed by mentally ill and by mentally retarded are quantitatively proportional to the number of crimes of violence committed by the total population. In affective psychoses and mental retardation, the risk of committing an act of violence, which had to be calculated on the basis of inexact data, is about 6 in 100 000 approximately, and is one-tenth ofthat for schizophrenia (5 in 10 000). Factors which do not depend on the disorder, especially family and personality factors, seem to be relevant for the disposition to criminality. The disorder itself has different consequences. It generally seems to postpone the manifestation of the act of violence and thus raises the average age of the mentally-ill offenders. The closest connection between the crime motives and the disease can be assumed in depressed and schizophrenic offenders. The personality of the depressed seems to suppress the disposition to commit aggressive offenses with the exception of extended suicide as a combined act of violence and self-destruction. In schizophrenia, certain disturbances which can be found in chronic systematized paranoid syndromes seem to co-determine the motive of the offense, and are likely to favour its manifestation.
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The authors studied 62 emergency room patients with violent ideation or action to assess the feasibility of predicting assaultive behavior. Although the likelihood of future violent acts could not be predicted accurately, they discovered that a significant majority of violent patients were potentially treatable within the setting of emergency psychiatry practice.
Patterns in Forcible Rape. Chicago: Univ Mentally disordered violent offenders The Victim and His Criminal SHEPPARD, C. The violent offender
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intervention by the police and helping professions. REFERENCES AMIR, M. Patterns in Forcible Rape. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1971. HAFNER, H., & BOKER, W. Mentally disordered violent offenders. Sor. Psvchiat., 1973, SCHAFER, S. The Victim and His Criminal. New York: Random House, 1968. SHEPPARD, C. The violent offender. Federal Probation, 1971, 35, 3-19.