Women who kill: A comparison of the psychosocial background of female and male perpetrators

How could she? Psychosocial analysis of ten homicide cases committed by women

“…negative family environment, previous physical and/ or sexual abuse or history of family violence, extreme life conditions at the time of the crime), they are often unemployed and they show less frequently previous criminal or arrest records. 2,12 In contrast to our data, others have found that women were more likely to suffer from a mental disorder at the time of crime than men. 24 …”

“…Yourstone and colleagues found that only one in two female perpetrators had been in contact with the medical system, the police or social welfare authorities prior to the homicide. 2 …”

“…1 Women tend to deal with life stressors in rather noncriminal ways compared to men and female offenders constitute only approximately 10% to the entity of arrested homicide perpetrators. 2,3 It has been argued that women tend to internalize negative affects using inward compensatory strategies, such as becoming depressed, misusing substances, or feeling guilty rather than externalizing their anger. 2,4 Homicidal acts by women have been found to result to a great extent from interpersonal conflicts, and to be specifically directed at persons with whom they have intimate or emotional relationships.…”

“…2,3 It has been argued that women tend to internalize negative affects using inward compensatory strategies, such as becoming depressed, misusing substances, or feeling guilty rather than externalizing their anger. 2,4 Homicidal acts by women have been found to result to a great extent from interpersonal conflicts, and to be specifically directed at persons with whom they have intimate or emotional relationships. 5 Whereas in Germany the proportion of women among all criminal offences increased since the 1970s (from appr.…”

What is the role of epidemiology for forensic psychiatry?

“…Subgroups of these populations, such as younger (Fazel et al, 2008c) and older patients (Fazel and Grann, 2002), have been the subject of research interest from our group. Other work has provided useful information on the needs of women (Coid et al, 2000a;Yourstone et al, 2008), ethnic minorities (Coid et al, 2000b) and other subgroups in forensic hospitals (Coid et al, 2001).…”