An exploration of the current knowledge on young people who kill: A systematic review

Abstract

This exploratory systematic review assessed the quality of primary studies on young people who kill and synthesised the findings regarding the characteristics of these offenders. An electronic search yielded 12,717 hits of papers published between 1989 and 2012. Of these, 8,395 duplicates, 3,787 irrelevant hits, and 527 publications not meeting the inclusion criteria of the review were excluded (15 publications were added after searching the grey literature), leaving 23 good quality studies. From these, a further seven were removed due to their small sample size (i.e., n < 30), leaving a total of 16 studies reviewed in detail. A search update was carried out on 2 February 2014 and no further studies meeting the inclusion criteria were found. The results indicate that juvenile homicide offenders are a heterogeneous group and the risk factors for juvenile homicide are cumulative and evolve through life. The findings are mixed, but ten risk factors are identified which appear to be consistent for offenders across the studies reviewed. The limitations of the current review are highlighted and recommendations for future research are outlined, with particular consideration given to improving the quality of the literature in this field.

Gender Comparison of Young People Charged With Murder in England and Wales

“…Variables that could assist with explaining how and why young people engage with committing these offences are not recorded. Future research should aim to include variables relating to risk factors (see Gerard, Jackson, Chou, Whitfield & Browne, 2014) and prior criminal history, which has found to be relevant in previous studies (Heide, 1999;Loeber & Farrington, 2011).…”

Factores de Riesgo Asociados a la Conducta Homicida de un Niño hacia un Par

“…En el caso de niños/as es más relevante el ámbito escolar, específicamente en cuanto a un escaso nivel de rendimiento o comportamientos inadecuados tales como conductas disruptivas en clase, daños en la propiedad de la escuela, problemas con los compañeros y profesores y, finalmente, la deserción o abandono escolar. Específicamente, se ha reportado que asistir a distintas escuelas, tener bajo logro académico y presentar problemas de adecuación se asociaron a la conducta homicida juvenil (Gerard, Jackson, Chou, Whitfield y Browne, 2014). 4) Relación con el grupo de pares: relaciones entre el NNA y sus pares que presentan conductas agresivas, están involucrados en conductas delictivas y muestran actitudes positivas hacia éstas, instando al NNA a que participe de dichas conductas, consumen drogas y no tienen respeto por la autoridad, entre otros.…”

Post‐incarceration Recidivism of Lone versus Group Juvenile Homicide Offenders

“…Most of the existing literature on JHOs over the last 70 years has focused on them as a group rather than as specific types of homicide offenders. The characteristics of juvenile murderers as a class of young lawbreakers have been well digested by scholars (see, for example, Gerard et al, ; Heide, ). More recent research has investigated the characteristics of juveniles who have killed specific victim types, such as mothers (Heide, ), fathers (Heide, ), siblings (Peck & Heide, ), and parents (Myers & Vo, ).…”