Girls Arrested for Murder: An Empirical Analysis of 32 years of U.S. Data by Offender Age Groups

Abstract

Most studies on juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) have used small samples and have concentrated on adolescent male offenders. As a result, little is known about the population of female juveniles arrested for murder. This study utilized the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) database to investigate age differences between younger (aged 6-12 years) and older (aged 13-17 years) females arrested for murder in the United States from 1976 to 2007. As predicted, six variables used to test seven hypotheses with respect to younger and older female JHOs in single victim incidents were significant (victim age, victim gender, victim offender relationship, murder weapon, offender count, and homicide circumstance). Regression analysis revealed that younger girls were seven times more likely than older girls to kill children aged 0-12 years. Girls aged 6-12 years were five times more likely than their teen counterparts to be involved in conflict-related homicides as opposed to crime-related homicides. Although approximately the same percentages of younger and older girls killed infants under the age of 1, the victims were significantly different for the two offender age groups. This article concludes with a discussion of our findings and directions for future research.

Age effects on juvenile homicide perpetration

“…A final limitation of prior research into juvenile homicide that is of particular relevance to the present study is the fact that most of it has only considered adolescent male offenders (Heide & Sellers, 2014). By looking at empirical patterns in the crimes and backgrounds of only those in one particular section of the total age-range encompassed by the term 'juvenile', important developmental differences may be ignored (Shumaker & McKee, 2001).…”

“…What age an individual needs to be in order to be classified as a child has also proven problematic. Heide & Sellers (2014) Case studies have gained favour in research juvenile homicide research, because they allow in-depth analyses of the backgrounds of the perpetrators of such crimes as well as enabling the effectiveness of subsequent interventions and treatments to be assessed.…”

“…This, the authors note, is a somewhat surprising omission, given that clinical studies have long suggested that younger children who kill differ from adolescent killers (see, for example; Bender & Curran, 1940). As Heide & Sellers (2014) discuss, developmental differences are likely to be important in understanding juveniles' involvement in homicide. They suggest that younger children will not typically understand the irreversibility and permanence of death, that they are more likely than older teens to act impulsively, and that they might easily influenced to engage in homicidal behavior by immoral, unstable, or mentally ill parents (Heide & Sellers, 2014).…”

“…Bailey, 1996;Rodway, Norrington-Moore, While, Hunt, Flynn, Swinson, Roscoe, Appleby & Shaw, 2011); weapon use and preferences in juvenile homicides (Carcach, 1997;Rodway et al, 2011); gender differences in the perpetration of juvenile homicides (e.g. Heide & Sellers, 2014) and gender/age interactions in juvenile homicide (Heide, Solomon, Sellers & Chan, 2011). As However, research has been heavily biased towards male adolescent (teenage) homicide perpetrators and their offences (Heide, 2003).…”

“…those under 14 years of age) who kill -rather, the literature on these offenders remains largely restricted to case studies or case reports of isolated incidents, with a lack of uniformity in the methods by which investigators have collected and reported information and observations about participants (Sellers & Heide, 2012), and has been primarily descriptive in nature (Heide, 2003). Finally, studies comparing sub-sets of juvenile homicide offenders across a range of different variables and attributes remain, at present, sparse (Heide & Sellers, 2014).…”