Homicidal Ideation in a Sample of Capital Murderers: Prevalence, Morbidity, and Associations With Homicide Offending

Abstract

Homicidal ideation is an important, but understudied construct in criminological research. Unfortunately, previous investigations into homicidal ideation are limited by reliance on small convenience samples, larger correctional samples with limited access to the most serious and violent criminal offenders, and single-item measures of the central construct. The current study improves and extends existing research by examining the link between three unique measures of homicidal ideation spanning its frequency, chronicity, and severity on murder and attempted murder among an enriched sample of death-sentenced prisoners in California. Many individuals in these data have extensive criminal careers and multiple homicide offenses. Homicidal ideation frequency and severity were significantly associated with both murder and attempted murder convictions, homicidal chronicity had null effects. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Superhomicide offenders: Nosology, empirical features, and linkages to sexual and multiple murder typologies

“…Several summary parameters of the criminal career (Blumstein et al, 1986;Burgason et al, 2022;DeLisi & Scherer, 2006;Wright et al, 2008) Psychopathy is measured with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) and is specified based on its empirical association with homicide offending (Fox & DeLisi, 2019;Porter et al, 2003). The PCL-R is the most widely used psychopathy assessment in forensic and correctional populations.…”

“…Several summary parameters of the criminal career (Blumstein et al., 1986; Burgason et al., 2022; DeLisi & Scherer, 2006; Wright et al., 2008) were utilized including total official arrest charges ( M = 20.39, SD = 15.74, range = 1–131), total convictions ( M = 15.03, SD = 11.43, range = 1–119), total prison sentences ( M = 2.11, SD = 1.44, range = 1–13), arrest onset age ( M = 19.7, SD = 6.53, range = 8–52), antisocial behavior onset age ( M = 16.86, SD = 6.83, range = 4–52), prior murder convictions ( M = 0.29, SD = 0.85, range = 0–11), prior attempted murder convictions ( M = 0.36, SD = 0.79, range = 0–6), prior rape/sexual assault convictions ( M = 0.79, SD = 2.51, range = 0–30), prior child molestation convictions ( M = 0.17, SD = 0.99, range = 0–15), prior kidnapping convictions ( M = 0.19, SD = 0.88, range = 0–14), prior armed robbery convictions ( M = 1.43, SD = 3.11, range = 0–24), prior burglary convictions ( M = 0.91, SD = 2.7, range = 0–35), prior arson convictions ( M = 0.04, SD = 0.47, range = 0–11), prior assault convictions ( M = 1.57, SD = 2.34, range = 0–27), and prior escape convictions ( M = 0.09, SD = 0.37, range 0–4).…”

“…Homicidal ideation, defined as thoughts about perpetrating murder regardless of whether an attempt is made, is a composite indicator reflecting the frequency, chronicity, and severity of homicidal ideation each of which is measured on a 3‐point ordinal scale indicating low = 0, medium = 1, or high = 2. Higher scores on each dimension and the composite indicator refer to individuals whose homicidal ideation is daily, lifelong, and severe (Burgason et al., 2022). Homicidal ideation has empirical associations with homicide and pathological violence perpetration (Burgason et al., 2022; Burgess, 2021; Vaughn & Sarteschi, 2024).…”

“…Higher scores on each dimension and the composite indicator refer to individuals whose homicidal ideation is daily, lifelong, and severe (Burgason et al., 2022). Homicidal ideation has empirical associations with homicide and pathological violence perpetration (Burgason et al., 2022; Burgess, 2021; Vaughn & Sarteschi, 2024). Evidence for homicidal ideation is apparent in several circumstances in legal documents including clinical notes from out of home placements where the individual made homicidal threats toward their parents, siblings, and peers, killed pets and neighborhood animals while making homicidal statements, or reported to caseworkers that they actively thought about killing people.…”