Pre‐offense characteristics of nineteenth‐century American parricide offenders: an archival exploration

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Previous criminological research has examined the causes and correlates of violent juvenile offending, but failed to explore the developmental taxonomies of crime throughout history. Theoretically, developmental trajectories of offending (i.e. life-course persistent and adolescence-limited offenders) should be identifiable irrespective of time and place. This study aims to examine the pre-offense characteristics of nineteenth-century American parricide offenders.Design/methodology/approach -Using archival records of two major newspapers (New York Times, Chicago Tribune), the study examines 220 offenders who committed attempted and completed parricides during the latter half of the nineteenth century .Findings -Results reveal that a small group of adult parricide offenders displayed antisocial tendencies at an early age that persisted into adulthood. These findings are consistent with the developmental literature, thus providing support for identification of pre-offense characteristics of parricide offenders across historical periods.Originality/value -The findings reported in this paper are of value to psychologists, historians, and criminologists, for they illuminate the similarities in predictors related to violent behaviors in a small subsection of adult offenders across two centuries.