Murders of Family Members: Features of Offenders and Victims in Regard to the Offender’s Gender

Abstract

The inspiration for the paper and the problem(s) that the paper addresses: Violence happens around us every day. It appears in various modalities and at various intensities. The offender and the victim can be total strangers, acquaintances, friends, but also very close, that is, they can be members of the same family. The consequences of violence are varied. The most serious intended consequence of domestic violence is death of a family member. Therefore, seriousness of the consequence indicate the purpose of conducting research in the scope of murders of family members.

The goals of the paper (scientific and/or social): The objective of the conducted research was to gain insight into certain features of murderers of family members and their victims. The focus, and also the goal, of the research was to identify differences in certain features of murderers of family members and their victims in regard to the offender’s gender.

Methodology/Design: Secondary data sources were used for the research sample, namely collected police files of murders and aggravated murders of family members committed on the territory of the Republic of Croatia in the period from 1 January 2005 until 31 December 2010. During the research, a total of 113 murders and aggravated murders were analyzed. The research sample included 113 offenders and 128 victims since some of the offenders had committed a criminal offence to the detriment of several victims. After the data collection had been completed, the data from the survey questionnaires were entered into the database in the SPSS Statistical Software (version 16.0), and after the data had been entered, a logical control was performed of the input.

Research/the paper limitations: Limitations of this research are related to the lack of specific data in certain analyzed files therefore was formed the category “no data”.

Results/findings: Conducted research showed differences in the age of offender’s gender, in education and employment of the victim, victim’s gender and cohabitation in regard to the offender’s gender.

General conclusion: Considering the goal of the research, differences were found in certain observed features of murderers of family members and their victims in regard to the offender’s gender.

Research/the paper justifiability: From a practical point of view, the work should contribute to identifying certain features of victims and offenders, such as gender and age structure, socioeconomic status of the victims and offenders, all for the purpose of identifying differences in regard to the offender’s gender and certain features of the offenders and victims that are relatively the most common in murders of family members. Consequently, the work should help, to some extent, in planning, creating and adjusting preventive measures and actions aimed at high-risk victim categories and at murderers of family members.