Characteristics of Canadian Youth-Perpetrated Homicides

Abstract

Youth-perpetrated homicide has considerable impact on our society and justice system. unfortunately, youth-perpetrated homicide is an understudied crime and even less research has been conducted specific to a Canadian population. two decades ago, Meloff and Silverman published the most thorough examination of youth-perpetrated homicide in Canada. Since that time, it has been proposed that the motivations and characteristics of youth violence have changed in a number of important ways. the present study expands on previous limited empirical studies and investigation into features of youth homicides using a sample of 105 Canadian youth homicide offenders. a number of important differences were observed. For instance, there were substantially more multiple-perpetrator, stranger, and instrumental homicides. results are considered in relation to trends observed in Canada and the united States.

U.S. Homicides: Multi-Offenders and the Presence of Female Offenders

“…Prior research has found that many homicides occurred in the context of intimate relationships (Wilson and Daly 1985). Likewise, researchers have found that the likelihood of a homicide occurring with multiple offenders increased when the social distance between the victim and offender increased (Meloff and Silverman 1992;Woodworth et al 2013). We found this to be true, with the exception of female offenders when they offend with others.…”

Violent Female Youth: An Examination of Instrumental Violence, Psychopathy, and Offense Characteristics

“…Drugs and/or alcohol were not used prior to or during the offense by over half of the female youth cohort in the current study, which is consistent with Carpenter's () primarily male, generally violent male youth sample. In contrast, the rate of youths not using drugs and/or alcohol prior to or during the offense drops drastically to 32.0% among youth homicide offenders (Woodworth et al ., ). While the use of alcohol or substances appears not to be as primary a contributor for these female youths' engagement in generally violent offenses (compared with homicides), it still appears to explain, at least partially, their behavior in a substantial number of cases.…”

“…The use of instrumental violence among youths who possess higher levels of psychopathic traits has also been demonstrated among youths responsible for severe criminal acts. For instance, among an almost exclusively male homicide offender sample, Agar () found that increases in PCL:YV scores were associated with increases in the likelihood of instrumentality (see also Woodworth et al ., ). The interpersonal and affective characteristics of psychopathy arguably distinguish psychopathy from comparatively less severe antisocial disorders (Rogstad & Rogers, ), and the results indicated that factor 1 was significantly correlated with instrumentality.…”

“…Frustratingly, females are often excluded (e.g., Flight & Forth, ; Murrie et al ., ; Vitacco et al ., ) or represent only a small proportion of mixed samples (e.g., Carpenter, ; Woodworth, Agar, & Coupland, ). The only study in the literature to examine instrumental violence and its association with psychopathic traits among an exclusively female sample was recently conducted by Cook et al .…”

“…In particular, our main objective was to examine the potential association between the presence of psychopathic traits and the commission of instrumental violence among young female offenders. As considered earlier, research conducted with male offenders suggests that there is a difference between psychopaths and non‐psychopaths in terms of the type of violence they commit, and that factor 1 traits are generally responsible for this difference (Flight & Forth, ; Vitacco et al ., ; Woodworth et al ., ; Woodworth & Porter, ). The relationship between psychopathic traits and instrumental violence is less clear, though, when examining females (Cook et al ., ).…”