Homicide in the Family

Chapter I. Homicide and aggression in the history of mankind 11 1.1. Homicide and aggression in the individual and social experience 11 1.2. Aggressive behaviour in the legal system of the Old Testament 13 1.3. The male – female relationship as a source of potential aggression 16 1.4. Politically and religiously motivated homicides 22 1.5. Aggression towards the enemy defeated in a war 23 1.6. Warfare, women and male murderers in the ancient world of Herodotus 27 1.7. Aggression and violence in the medieval and modern Europe 30 1.8. The assessment of a woman in the early Christianity and the Middle Ages 36 1.9. Hypotheses on the state of nature in the Age of the Enlightenment 41 1.10. The 19^th-century views and the modern pacifism 42 1.11. Summary 45 Chapter II. The scale of offences against life and health 48 2.1. Offences against life in Poland and other countries 48 2.2. Homicide in the family 50 2.3. Characteristic features of homicide within the family 52 2.4. Summary 56 Chapter III. Selected theories on crimes committed by men and women 59 3.1. Contemporary male and female crime 59 3.2. Selected theories on male and female crime 60 3.3. Personality-related determinants of crime 65 3.4. Strain theory as an attempt at interpreting interpersonal aggression 67 3.5. The significance of gender in explaining homicide causes 69 3.6. Summary 78 Chapter IV. Domestic violence and its connection with homicide 82 4.1. The legal and psychological conceptions of violence 82 4.2. Relations and partnership connections between the perpetrator and victim 86 4.3. The strategies of dealing with violence 92 4.4. Theories explaining the mechanisms of violence 96 4.5. Summary 101 Chapter V. The psychological approach to aggression and violence 103 5.1. The modern psychological approach to aggression and violence 101 5.2. Destructive and hostile aggressive behaviour as a motive for homicide 111 5.3. Summary 117 Chapter VI. Motivation for homicide 120 6.1. The definition of motivation and the difficulties in tracing the motivational process 120 6.2. The discharge of emotions in relation to aggressive behavior 124 6.3. The two-level system of structures controlling and regulating emotions 125 6.4. Summary 127 Chapter VII. Male and female homicides in criminological and psychological research 130 7.1. Case analysis as a method of research 130 7.2. The victimological approach 132 7.3. Situational factors 134 7.4. Abnormal socialisation and its importance in the aetiology of homicide 135 7.5. The cognitive functioning of killers 138 7.6. Psychological studies of the perpetrators’ personality 139 7.7. Mental health of the killers 145 7.8. A tentative typology of the most common motives for homicide 147 7.9. Situational factors as motivational background for homicide 149 7.10. A tentative typology of perpetrators 157 7.11. Conclusion 166 Chapter VIII. Research aims and methodology 168 8.1. Validation of the relevance of the current study 168 8.2. Aims of the study 172 8.3. Material and methodology 173 8.4. Description of the research material 175 Chapter IX. General characteristics of the subjects 178 9.1. Preliminary characteristics of the subjects – the conditions and course of socialization 178 9.2. Organic determinants and their influence on the subjects’ functioning 188 9.3. Test results 189 9.4. The influence of situational factors on the aggressive act of homicide and the type of motivation 202 Chapter X. Comparative analysis of male and female killer groups 208 10.1. Conditions and course of socialisation of males and females 208 10.2. Organic factors 212 10.3 Comparison of male and female killer groups with respect to intensity of central nervous system damaging factors and their consequences for cognitive changes and certain personality dispositions 213 Chapter XI. Comparisons of psychological test results of the two groups 218 11.1. IQ tests results 218 11.2. Male and female killers personality assessment 219 11.3. Results of Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI) 222 11.4. System of values. Interpersonal attitudes in the male and female killer group 226 11.5. Summary 241 Chapter XII. Impact of situational factors on homicide motives 245 12.1. The situation as a wider motivational background of homicide 245 12.2. Types and frequency of motives 258 Chapter XIII. Homicide motivation in the light of statistical cluster analysis 275 13.1. Cluster analysis – distribution of motives 275 13.2. Clusters of dominant and coexisting motives in the isolated groups 280 13.3. Individual and group activity in the isolated clusters 291 13.4. Male and female killers in the isolated clusters 293 Chapter XIV. Correlation of motives with personality dispositions 295 14.1. Correlation of motives with intelligence 295 14.2. Motivation and personality – MMPI 299 14.3. Personality variables – Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory Results 302 14.4. SUI interactions and emotional attitudes in the isolated clusters 305 14.5. Hierarchy of values in the isolated clusters on the basis of the Rokeach Value Survey 308 Chapter XV. Summary and conclusions 315 15.1. Verification of basic assumptions and hypotheses of the work 315 15.2. Significant results obtained in the study 318 15.3. Personality differences between the groups of males and females 320 15.4. Homicide motives in the female and male group 322 15.5. Motive cluster analysis in the two groups 323 15.6. Correlation of the isolated motives with certain personality dispositions 325 15.7. Conclusions 326 15.8. Scientific and practical value of the results 328 15.9. Conclusion 329 Appendix I – Case studies 331 Appendix II – Tables 351 Bibliography 365