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Patterns of homicide in Sfax, Tunisia: A 9‐year cohort study (2011–2019)
Abstract
Introduction:
In Tunisia, since the January 2011 revolution, there has been considerable media interest in violence, particularly homicides. A popular perspective is, aside from any politically motivated killings, of a rise in homicides from year to year. In the absence of Tunisian national homicide statistics, a more accurate picture may be obtainable from area pathologist records.
Aims:
To examine annual homicide rates from post-mortem data for the second largest administrative area of Tunisia, Sfax, with a mixed urban-rural population of about one million people.
Methods:
All victims of common law homicide for the region are taken to the forensic department of one hospital in Sfax. We conducted a retrospective and descriptive study of all such cases of homicide for the 9 year period from the date of the fall of the Tunisian government in 14 January 2011 to 31 December 2019 and linked these data to those from earlier studies in the same department.
Results:
One hundred and nine victims of unlawful homicide were identified during this nine year period, with an average of 12 cases per year and a peak of 17 cases in 2016, yielding a broadly consistent rate of 1.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and no consistent pattern in fluctuations. Just over two-thirds of the victims were men. Mean age of victims was 34.85 years (range 8-90 years). Just under half were married (45%); largest employment groups were of low-paid casual workers (40%) or unemployed (28%). One third of the killings had taken place in a private residence, with interpersonal conflict given as the largest explanatory category; over one quarter were intra-familial and 14% between intimate partners. There was some seasonal variation, with nearly two-thirds of homicides occurring in the spring and summer months.
Conclusion:
Contrary to press hype, we found no evidence of rising homicide rates in Southern Tunisia, although this does represent a different picture from that in the north of the country. The seasonal variation would merit further exploration as it raises questions around impact of fluctuations in mental health.
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Background
The extent to which rates of homicide by people with or without schizophrenia vary over time has theoretical and practical implications in understanding homicide by people with mental illness.
Aims
The aim was to report on the rates of homicide by people diagnosed with schizophrenia over time in a region in which there were dramatic changes in the overall rates of homicide.
Methods
An examination of homicide by people diagnosed with schizophrenia in the course of judicial psychiatric examination, and the rate of other homicide in the Chuvash Republic of the Russian Federation between 1981 and 2020 was undertaken.
Results
During the 40 years of the study a total of 5741 people faced legal proceedings for a homicide offence, of whom 179 (3.1%) were diagnosed with schizophrenia. During the study period the average annual total homicide rate rose from about 9 per 100 000 in the 1980s, peaked at 17 per 100 000 in the 1990s before falling to 13 per 100 000 in the 2000s and 6 per 100 000 in the 2010s. Rates of homicide by people with schizophrenia also rose and fell over this period and were significantly associated with the rates of other homicide ( r = 0.503, d.f. = 38, P = 0.001).
Conclusions
The rise and fall in rates of homicide by people diagnosed with schizophrenia in parallel to total homicide suggests that homicidal behaviour might not be intrinsic to the clinical manifestations of the illness, and might instead reflect a heightened vulnerability to social factors that are associated with homicide by people without schizophrenia.
Background
Nearly 1800 homicides were reported in 2018 among individuals aged 60 years or older in the US. The characteristics and circumstances of these homicides are understudied. We investigated the trends of homicides over time and compared victim, perpetrator, and incident characteristics by mechanism (firearm vs. non-firearm) among adults aged 60 years or older.
Methods
We examined cross-sectional restricted-access data from the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2003 to 2017. Fatal Injury Data by CDC provided age-adjusted homicide rates. We quantitatively summarized victim, perpetrator, and incident characteristics for firearm and non-firearm homicides. We also reviewed 150 qualitative narratives to better understand the context of older adult homicides perpetrated by firearms. All data were analyzed in February 2020.
Results
Overall and firearm-specific older adult homicide rates increased between 2014 and 2017. Of the 6188 victims, 62% were male. The majority of victims (68%) were killed at home. Firearms (44%), sharp (19%) and blunt weapons (15%) were common mechanisms used in older adult homicides. The perpetrator was an intimate partner in 39% of firearm homicides and 12% of non-firearm homicides (prevalence difference = 27%; 95% CI: 25, 30%). Similarly, homicide-suicides (prevalence difference = 21%; 95% CI: 19, 22%) and multiple-victim incidents (prevalence difference = 7%; 95% CI: 5, 8%) were more common in firearm (23 and 13%, respectively) than in non-firearm (2 and 6%, respectively) homicides. Common contexts of firearm homicides were familial/intimate partner problems, robbery/burglary, argument, and illness.
Conclusions
A substantial number of older adults were killed with firearms and by their intimate partners. Further research to identify violence victimization prevention strategies in this group, especially those that limit access to firearms by potential perpetrators, is warranted.
This study analyzes postmortem records from 260 homicide cases autopsied by the Department of Forensic Medicine in Rome from 2000 to 2014. The victims were mainly males (74%) and young (61% aged from 21 to 50 years). Although the victims were mostly Italians, the number of foreign victims (33%) has increased since 1990, primarily due to immigration. The offenders frequently used firearms (39%), particularly in multiple murders. An increase in blunt (20%) and sharp force (32%) weapons was also seen. The primary crime scene was residential (42%), and the head was the most frequently injured body region. Male victims occurred frequently in the context of organized crime (7.6%). In family or intimate‐sexual relationships, women were the majority of victims (8%). Forensic pathologists play an important role during investigation. They should consider all the information available to them, including autopsy information, crime scene information, and crime investigation data.
Homicide studies traditionally analyze the prevalence and patterns of homicide by exploring the age and sex of victims, the relationship between victims and perpetrators, and the cause of death. Use of a combination of more than one homicidal method was also found in various studies. Some of them found females as more common victims of multiple methods, whereas the others found males. Combination of methods commonly involved were sharp trauma, blunt trauma, and strangulation. This study was undertaken to know the pattern of homicide by multiple fatal methods at South Delhi. We have analyzed retrospective data of homicidal deaths in which multiple different fatal methods were used. We have also analyzed the number of perpetrators involved in those scenarios. The cases were autopsied at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi during the 20-year period from January 1996 and December 2015. There were 187 such reported cases where multiple methods were used for homicide, constituting 13.6% of all homicide deaths autopsied at the department. Multiple methods were used more commonly against female victims. Methods used in cases of male victims were the combination of head injury and stabbing in the chest/abdomen, followed by strangulation with smothering, whereas in cases of female victims, it was a combination of ligature strangulation and smothering which was most common, followed by the combination of smothering with throttling. Gunshot with stabbing was found to be a rare combination. A single perpetrator mostly used various asphyxial methods in combination or head injury with other methods such as stabbing and asphyxiation against male as well as female victims. Other combinations of methods, especially sharp weapon injury with blunt weapon injury or gunshot injury, suggest the involvement of more than one perpetrator.
In Medellín, Colombia, homicides have been the leading cause of death since 1986. Their proportion among total deaths increased from 3.5% in 1976 to 42% in 1991 and subsequently decreased to 7% in 2006. From 1979 to 2008, there were 81,166 homicides (annual mean, 2,706). The homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants were 44 in 1979 and 47 in 2008, with a peak of 388 in 1991. The current article analyzes homicides in 30 years (1979-2008) using a random sample of 3,414 forensic autopsy reports. The vast majority of victims were males, 92.8% (95%CI: 91.8%; 93.6%), mostly low-income young people from 27 to 33 years of age. Most homicides involved revenge, fights, or armed robberies. The study showed different periods in the homicide epidemic: the first 15 years, with a rapid increase, the second, with a steady decline until 1998, and the third, with a fluctuating but overall steep decline in the last 10 years. This long-term study on violence in Medellin opens possibilities for analyzing and identifying more consistent policies for intervention.
The purpose of this study was to examine the trends and patterns of homicide in the Republic of Ireland over a five-year period (2004-2008). In total, 293 cases are covered in the survey. The majority of the victims were men. The most common age group of victims was 20-29 years old. The majority of the suspects were also men. The most common age was also 20-29 years old. Stabbing was the most common method used to kill and this often featured multiple wounds to the head and body. Shooting and blunt force traumas were also common. Homicides are more likely to occur over the weekend period. This study also explored the relationship between the suspect and the victim, the motive and the location of the fatal assault. In the majority of cases, the victim and the perpetrator were known to each other. The site of the fatal assault was most likely to be a residence and the most frequent motive was an argument/quarrelling. A small number of cases involved multiple fatalities, often involving relatives. The figures were compared with other international studies; our findings are broadly in agreement with them.
Background
Many studies have established a correlation between the increase of homicide rates, and economic crises and rapid social changes following historical events. We propose to analyse the impact of the Tunisian Revolution on homicide rates in Tunisia in a clinical population.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective comparative study of all individuals who commited an homicide and were admitted, at least once, to the forensic psychiatry unit in Razi Hospital between January 1st, 2004 and December 31st, 2018 after a decision of irresponsibility by reason of insanity.
Results
The number of homicides committed by the individuals with mental illness included in our study was multiplied by a factor of 1.3 after the revolution, with a prevalence of 11.0% between 2004 and 2011, compared to a prevalence of 14.7% during the period 2011–2018. No significant difference was noted between the two groups regarding the socio-demographic characteristics or the characteristics of the act committed.
Conclusion
Our results highlighted that political and socio-economic crises following the Tunisian revolution significantly contributed to an increase of homicide rates in people with severe mental illness. Thus, macro-level socioeconomic determinants would be important to consider in homicide prevention strategies.
The ability to conduct accurate retrospective homicide comparative research is reliant on the publishing of robust studies that assess the specifics of homicides in a standardised manner. To address these matters at the Institute of Forensic Medicine (IFM) in Pristina, Kosovo, the IFM homicide data of the years 2006-2015 was retrospectively studied. In general, there was a year on year downward trend in the number of homicide deaths in Kosovo per 100,000 people, however it was noted that a standardisation method to record homicides in Kosovo has not been developed and as such, the data may not be complete. In addition, the analysis of the IFM data demonstrated that firearms were consistently used in 73.76 % of all homicides committed between 2006-2015 but the examination of, and the specific documentation of the types of firearms used was not recorded. This is important to provide evidence to enforce legislation to reduce the availability of these weapons and ultimately the number of homicides. Consequently, this study aimed to compare global homicide trends relative to the retrospective homicide data from Kosovo, to inform and address the need for prevention programmes and to establish standardised recording of homicides in Kosovo.
In the research literature on homicide, gender has typically received far less attention than other demographic characteristics, specifically the age and race of victims and offenders. To some extent this is understandable given that the overwhelming majority, almost three-quarters, of homicides in the United States involve a male killing another male. Therefore, the usual patterns of homicide mirror for the most part the patterns of male homicide. However, there are substantial differences in the trends and patterns of female offending and victimization that should not be obscured in the aggregate. In this article, we replicate previous work with updated data by using a national homicide database (the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports) from 1976 through 2017, multiply imputed for missing data, to examine gender differences among victims and offenders in terms of characteristics such as age, race, weapon, circumstances, and victim–offender relationship.
Objectives
To analyze the impact of the Tunisian Revolution on suicide and homicide patterns in Tunisia.
Methods
It is a retrospective, cross-sectional study, including all the cases of homicides and suicides that occurred during an 8-year period (2007–2014) in Northern Tunisia. We compared data before and after the revolution.
Results
After the revolution, the number of suicides rose 1.7 times, with a prevalence rising from 1.8 to 3.12 suicides per 100,000 persons per year. Homicides rose 1.3 times after the revolution. For both manner of death, victims were mostly males, aged between 20 and 39 years, living in urban areas. Hanging and self-immolation rose, respectively, 1.8 and 3 times after 2011. We observed suicide cases most frequently occurred in public places and in front of public administration after 2011. Homicide victims’ profile and circumstances showed a single variation which is an increase in number of cases happening in rural areas.
Conclusions
Our results proved a short-term impact of the transition period on homicides and suicides. Urgent preventive measures are needed especially to decrease the suicide rates.
Patterns of homicide in North Tunisia: A 10 year study (2005–2014)
- M. B. Khelil
- F. Farhani
- H. Harzallah
- M. Allouche
- M. Gharbaoui
- A. Banasr
- A. Benzarti
- M. Hamdoun