An Analysis of Crime Scene Behavior in Korean Homicide

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to identify themes of crime scene behaviors in a sample of 487 Korean homicides and test whether these themes are linked to offender characteristics. A content analysis of police information was first conducted and then a multidimensional scale approach was used to identify themes in the homicide data. The exploratory thematic structure showed four factors that confirmed the instrumental/expressive themes as being useful in differentiating homicides: sex-arousal, cognitive, overkill-blood, and impulsive. These four themes were compared with the previous themes identified in Western studies of homicide. Finally, the current findings support the idea that there are relationships between crime scene behavior themes in homicide and offender characteristics.

Crime Scene Behaviors and Characteristics of Offenders with Mental Illness: A Latent Class Analysis

“…The instrumental–planned category from the present study could be correlated with the instrumental–cognitive and instrumental–sexual arousal themes identified in other studies. In these categories, victims are targeted and the crime scene actions indicate planning (e.g., removing incriminating and forensic evidence).…”

“…Finally, offenders from the expressive–unplanned class showed some similarities with the themes of “overkill” or “blood” identified in previous studies . These offenders found themselves in situations where the crime was triggered by a loss of control mainly owing to their mental illness and was directed toward an intimate partner or family member.…”

“…For example, the dominant theme in the South Korean diagnostic sample in this study was instrumental, which is in accordance with a South Korean nondiagnostic sample (extracted by ref. ) but incongruent with Western nondiagnostic samples (expressive theme). Cultural variance could have an impact on the manifestation of crime scene behaviors .…”

“…In addition, the SCAS includes diverse sources and files, such as criminal index files, investigative items (e.g., witness reports; medical, criminal, school, and military records), crime scene investigation files (e.g., crime scene pictures), and forensic psychological evaluation reports of the offender (e.g., Personality Assessment Inventory and Psychopathy Checklist‐Revised (). According to previous studies, the interclass correlation between two independent raters (ICC (1,2) ) on SCAS questionnaires among criminal profilers ranges from 0.75 to 0.78 (see refs for ICCs).…”

Behavioural profiles and offender characteristics: Typology based on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) in homicide cases

“…The mean age of our samples in the current study is compatible with around 37 years reported in the official Crime Statistics of South Korea (see Kang & Park, 2008;CS, 2017). This is older than offender ages reported for the North America (Sea & Beauregard, 2017;UNODC, 2016).…”