While traumatic losses such as those caused by homicide have been associated with poorer mental health outcomes, there is substantial heterogeneity in bereavement experiences, including the coexistence of distress and wellbeing. In this study, we sought to identify profiles of bereaved individuals based on their similarities in symptom levels and wellbeing indicators and determine whether type of loss predicts profile membership. A total of 238 participants bereaved by homicide or illness completed measures of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic growth, and life satisfaction. Latent profile analysis yielded profiles which were then compared based on psychosocial factors (fundamental beliefs, trauma coping self-efficacy and perceived social support). Three profiles emerged: a Low Distress–High Life Satisfaction profile (44.5%), a Moderate Distress–Moderate Life Satisfaction profile (37.4%) and a High Distress–Low Life Satisfaction profile (18.1%). Individuals bereaved by homicide were more likely to belong to the High Distress–Low Life Satisfaction profile. Profiles differed in fundamental beliefs, trauma coping self-efficacy and perceived social support. Levels of post-traumatic growth were equivalent across profiles. These findings suggest that post-traumatic growth can coexist with posttraumatic stress, depression and prolonged grief disorder. Clinical implications for fostering post-traumatic growth in bereaved individuals are discussed.
This study examines the release processes and post-release outcomes of individuals in North Carolina convicted of capital murder who were either initially sentenced to life with the possibility of parole or sentenced to death and later resentenced to life with the possibility of parole. The time period covered is 1977 to 1994, an era before North Carolina implemented life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) as the alternative sentence to the death penalty. Using logistic regression, we assess factors associated with parole decisions, including indicators of offender blameworthiness, community protection, and extra-legal considerations. We then analyze time to recidivism and offense types among those released, employing Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Finally, we explore associations between case, offender and victim characteristics, and recidivism using Fisher’s Exact Tests for dichotomous variables and nonparametric tests for continuous variables. Major findings indicate that of those whose life sentence remained intact ( n = 360), 159 (43.3%) have been granted parole. Of those, only 9 (5.7%) were later convicted of a crime, none of which were of a violent nature. These findings challenge the common justification for life without parole as necessary to prevent future harm, suggesting that assumptions about the dangerousness of capital murder offenders may be overstated.
This is a study of difficult familial reintegration dynamics for individuals formerly serving LWOP, de facto life, or other lengthy sentences. The Supreme Court decisions of the past decades have provided potential opportunities for freedom to individuals who were sentenced as adolescents to life without the possibility of parole. Additionally, in Louisiana, there was an 8-year period in which individuals serving de facto life sentences were also given a window of opportunity for release. One of the most difficult challenges individuals faced after serving lengthy sentences was trying to reconnect to and reintegrate into families that never expected them to return home. This study uses 92 in-depth life history interviews with individuals formerly serving LWOP or other lengthy sentences to explore the impact of carceral separation on the deterioration of familial relationships.
According to the CDC, the rate of firearm-involved homicides for US men over age 50 increased 87% between 2010 and 2021. Despite this trend, little is known about these homicides as few studies examine homicide against older adults and even fewer focus on older men. This study seeks to identify the characteristics of firearm-involved homicides against older men and how they might vary across older men of different ages. To explore situational contexts of these incidents, this study uses a domain-centered framework. This study takes a mixed-methods approach that uses quantitative data from the 2022 and 2023 National Incident-Based Reporting System and qualitative data from the 2023 Gun Violence Archive. Clear distinctions are found between victims in their 50s and 60s as compared to those over 70 in terms of victim and offender demographics, relationships, and incident characteristics. By using a domain-centered framework to interpret the findings, this study emphasizes a need to expand prior home-focused explanations to account for active lifestyles including continued participation in the workforce and leisure activities among older men especially those in their 50s and 60s. This study provides the foundational knowledge necessary for future work on risk factors and tailored prevention strategies for this victim group.
This study examines the lived experiences of individuals incarcerated for homicide through in-depth interviews with approximately 301 participants across correctional facilities in one U.S. state. Moving beyond incident-level explanations of lethal violence, the analysis focuses on two interrelated dimensions of participants’ narratives. First, among individuals with prior incarceration histories, the study explores how they describe challenges encountered during reentry following earlier imprisonment, including employment exclusion, housing instability, supervision, and stigma. Second, the study examines participants’ reflections on what they believe could have altered the course of their lives and their interactions with the criminal justice system. By centering the voices and perspectives of those convicted and incarcerated for homicide, the study situates homicide within longer life-course trajectories shaped by social disadvantage, institutional contact, and labeling processes. Participants’ reflections on what they could have done differently help clarify how they understand their own choices, responsibility, and key turning points in their lives. Together, these findings advance understanding of homicide offending beyond incident-based frameworks and highlight the significance of early reentry experiences and institutional responses in shaping pathways to serious violence.
This article develops an integrated theory of structured redemption to explain how desistance unfolds after homicide under conditions of durable stigma, extended punishment, and institutional exclusion. While prior desistance research emphasizes individual change, little is known about how transformation becomes possible for individuals convicted of lethal violence. The analysis draws on autobiographical materials from my own experience serving over a decade in prison for a gang-related homicide, and life-history interviews with 12 formerly incarcerated individuals convicted of murder in Illinois. Using an abductive analytic approach, these materials were coded across life-course phases to identify recurring mechanisms linking institutional access, social recognition, and personal commitment across incarceration and reentry. Change unfolded through four empirically overlapping phases—baseline conditions of impossibility, emergent alignment, misalignment, and sustained alignment—defined by shifting relationships among structural access, relational recognition, and agentic commitment. Redemption became durable only when personal commitment converged with credible opportunities. Structured redemption frames desistance as a conditional, socially produced process rather than an individual accomplishment. The findings extend relational and structural theories of desistance and highlight how sentencing policies, reentry regimes, and institutional practices impact the durability of change after homicide.
Research suggests that the longer firearms remain in circulation following their first known use in a crime, the more likely they are to be used in multiple offenses. However, little is known about how repeat-use firearms journey in time and space from one crime to another. This study uses spatially and temporally referenced crime data from Houston, Texas, to address four questions: 1) How far do repeat-use firearms travel between crime incidents? 2) How many days elapse before the same firearm is used again in another crime? 3) Is there a relationship between time and distance for repeat-use firearms? 4) What factors are associated with the distance and time between repeat-use firearm incidents? Results from spatial analysis indicate that the median straight-line distance between matched gun crime cases is 4.33 mi, with a median traveling time of 59 days. Results show a significant relationship between time and distance for repeat-use firearms, even after accounting for initial offense type, including homicide, assault, deadly conduct, robbery, and criminal mischief. Exploratory findings reveal that guns journey faster from one crime to another in more densely populated neighborhoods and when the initial offense is robbery, and that guns first used in robberies tend to travel greater distances between crimes relative to other offense types. Overall, these findings suggest that repeat criminal gun use occurs within a relatively short time frame, that firearms move only short distances between incidents, and that both offense type and local population context are associated with the spatiotemporal movement of repeat-use firearms.
This study addresses whether the age-crime curve for homicide differs by race and ethnicity in the United States. Although the aggregate age distribution of arrests for some offenses appears to have shifted older in recent years, this has not been the case for murder and non-negligent manslaughter; arrest rates for murder still peaked during teen years in 2024. However, when examining offending (and victimization) by race and ethnicity, it is apparent that the peak age of non-Hispanic White homicide involvement is considerably older than for Black and Hispanic accused offenders. Accused homicide offending for non-Hispanic Whites peaks at age 31 within the 2022 to 2024 Supplementary Homicide Reports, more than a decade later than for Black and Hispanic accused offenders (19 and 18, respectively). The distinct non-Hispanic White age-crime curve has several implications for on-going debates about the nature of age and crime patterns.
The gay and trans panic defense is a long-standing legal strategy that "heterosexual" men have employed in criminal courtrooms to excuse or justify lethal violence against gay men or transgender women. While studies have investigated this defense for 35 years, research has yet to analyze a large sample of gay and trans panic defense court outcomes. This study addresses this gap by conducting a descriptive and bivariate analysis of 587 defendants who raised panic defenses in homicide cases within the United States from 1970 to 2023. Specifically, this work analyzed the gay and trans panic defense, as well as individual, situational, and legal variables, across four criminal court outcomes: dismissal of charges versus prosecution, plea bargain versus continue to trial, acquittal versus conviction, and leniency versus conviction on the original charge(s). Drawing on research on homicide case processing and focal concerns theory, this work explores whether court outcomes align with variables suggestive of defendant/victim culpability. This study found no statistical association between lenient court convictions and victim gender. However, bivariate analysis found that lenient convictions were associated with defendants who negotiated plea bargains, raised self-defense claims for trial, and utilized legal counsel who criminalized the victim's sexual orientation or gender.
Intimate partner homicide (IPH) accounts for a large proportion of Latina homicides, however, research in this area is limited. Due to histories of collective trauma and distrust of formal institutions, such as courts or police systems, Latine communities often turn to informal support networks instead. These informal support networks bridge the gap to get survivors life-saving support and access to resources. The current qualitative study involved the analysis of 15 listening sessions and 13 key informant interviews, focusing on IPH prevention and the role of informal support networks. Participants (n = 90) included Latina survivors of intimate partner violence, advocates, and organizational leaders. Results from the listening sessions and key informant transcripts discuss the use of informal support networks, including their positive and negative aspects among Latina women. Findings suggest that, as part of the help-seeking process, survivors seek support from friends, family, and community leaders first and point to specific recommendations for engaging these informal networks in practice and improving the ways we engage community members for survivor support and response.
The theory that a serial murderer is drowning men from Austin's Rainey Street District has been advanced by social and mainstream media for 3 years now, repeatedly fueled by speculation set off by the recovery of bodies from nearby Lady Bird Lake. We conducted an evidence-based study to detect any existence of a serial murderer. A search of police data produced 189 drowning incidents. From these, a target sample of 58 cases matching the general modus operandi and victimology of the alleged killer was identified for analysis. Our study found neither direct evidence nor indirect warning signs of a serial murderer. The frequency of drowning incidents is consistent with historical patterns, average drowning risk, and population growth. Several prior years experienced more drownings than 2023, when allegations of a serial killer began to escalate. We found a number of similar claims of mysterious drowning serial killers in other jurisdictions, suggesting an issue with social media apophenia and crime linkage illusions. Online forums exaggerate numbers of deaths by invoking longer time periods, larger geographic areas, and vaguer definitions of "suspicious." Such allegations have costs in the real world, wasting valuable resources that could be used to help solve real crimes.
This research note introduces the Bias Homicide Database (BHDB), a relational, open-source dataset with information on bias murders committed in the United States since 1990. We first describe the limitations of official bias crime data and how the BHDB overcomes obstacles to empirically studying one type of bias crime-bias murder. Second, the multi-step process for open-source data collection is described in detail along with potential issues of reliability and selectivity. Finally, and third, we provide some descriptive results to demonstrate the contributions of the BHDB and how researchers may use the dataset moving forward.
This study investigates whether lethal violence can serve as a reliable indicator for assessing characteristics of non-lethal violence. Using police administrative data from Australia, the research examines violent incidents occurring between 2018 and 2022, categorizing them into three groups: non-lethal violence (n = 61,813), near-lethal violence (attempted murder, n = 211), and lethal violence (completed homicide, n = 362). Employing multinomial regression analyses, the study identifies significant differences across these violence categories, highlighting variations in characteristics of offenders and their offending histories (such as prior history of property, weapons, and drug offences) and situational factors (including the use of firearms, location, and timing of the incidents). These findings suggest that the dynamics leading to lethal or near-lethal outcomes are distinct from those associated with non-lethal violence. Lethal and near-lethal violence was more commonly associated with offending history, weapon use, private settings, and night-time incidents, whereas non-lethal violence was more commonly associated with offender alcohol use and domestic violence indicators. Consequently, the study advises caution in assuming that characteristics of lethal (or near-lethal) violence can accurately reflect those of non-lethal violence. It underscores the necessity for tailored approaches in understanding and addressing different forms of violence, given their divergent underlying factors.
The current study draws upon crime trends and social change scholarship to situate the United States homicide boom from 2014 to 2020 in a sociohistorical context, and assess the social demography of the recent homicide boom in comparison to those of the past. Using a Supplementary Homicide Reports, we describe three contemporary U.S. homicide booms: (1) 1976 to 1980, (2) 1984 to 1991, and (3) 2014 to 2020. We examine relative percent change ratios for each of several demographic and geographic groups. We also use logistic regression models to estimate the change in the probability that a firearm was used in a homicide incident. Our findings indicate that a much broader segment of the population was swept into the most recent homicide increase than in the 1984 to 1991 boom. Additionally, while firearm and non-firearm homicides contributed in similar measure to the 1970s boom, firearm killings were responsible for nearly all the increase during the most recent homicide boom. The groups and places with the highest rates of homicide during booms are not always those suffering the largest relative increases. Certain groups, however, are consistently vulnerable to booms. Firearm killings are increasingly dispersed throughout the population during homicide booms.
This study examines the phenomenon of intimate partner homicide-suicide (IPHS), specifically, how it differs (or not) from intimate partner homicide without suicide (IPH), and how the ages of victims and perpetrators shape the risks, vulnerabilities and contextual features of cases. A mixed methods document analysis of 232 domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) was undertaken, using bivariate analysis to compare 37 IPHS to 195 IPH-without suicide, and a gendered, thematic analysis to gain deeper, contextualized insights into IPHS structured by victim and perpetrator age. IPHS victims and perpetrators were older, and in the case of perpetrators, more likely to be white. Risks and vulnerabilities also differed, with less substance use, criminality, and violence, but greater physical and mental health difficulties. Themes of "Separation and loss," "Dependency," and "Mental health and suicidality" ran through the 37 IPHS, but with IPHS involving older adults appearing as phenomenologically distinct, shaped by gendered contexts of care and a loss of autonomy due to chronic, degenerative illness. Our findings highlight the key role for physical and mental health services-particularly General (Medical) Practitioners-alongside the need for comprehensive support systems and coordinated care to manage the complex interdependencies in elderly couples.
Using a non-random convenience sample of 71 homicides involving the use of fire, we examined victim, offender, and incident characteristics, with an emphasis on differences between arson homicides (death resulting from incendiary fire) and homicide crime concealment (incendiary fire set to conceal/obfuscate the homicide, victim's identity, or evidence), offenders with convictions for domestic violence, and multi-offender and multi-victim incidents. Arson homicides and homicide crime concealment were similar in incident characteristics, location, and victim-offender relationships. Child victims were more likely to be present in multi-victim arson homicides and were likely collateral rather than the targeted victim. The presence of an offender with domestic violence or stalking-related convictions was not associated with manner of death or incident characteristics. However, these homicides tended to involve a single victim and not include child victims. As anticipated, current/former intimate partners were overrepresented in homicides perpetrated by offenders with domestic violence convictions. Multi-victim homicides were more likely to occur in the victim's residence, whereas multi-offender homicides were more likely to involve strangers, occur in roadways, and use an accelerant. Collaboration with certified fire investigators or others specializing in fire investigations is discussed; these subject matter experts are under-utilized.
Investigative decision-making, vital for homicide investigations and the justice system, lacks research in Brazil. We interviewed 15 experienced homicide detectives, and Thematic Analysis was used to analyze the data. Four themes were identified: Experience, Training, and Method; Decision-making Support; Decision-making Obstacles; and Biases and Heuristics. Specific training and methods favor decision-making, but experience can have an ambiguous effect. Biases and heuristics were identified in detectives’ investigative decisions. These findings have theoretical and practical implications, contributing to a better understanding of the subject.
Despite known links with intimate partner femicide (IPF), rates of detection avoidance (DA) in IPF are unknown. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken using data compiled by the Domestic Violence Death Review Team (DVDRT). DA was evidenced in 43% of 100 IPF cases examined from Queensland Australia, between 2006 and 2019. DA IPFs were perpetrated by males between the ages of 36 and 45 years, in urban locations and more often involved unknown causes of death and escalating violence prior to the homicide. Offenders had histories of abuse, coercive control and other criminal behavior. Themes uncovered include DA offenders using isolation, discrediting the victim and monitoring her prior to the IPF as both abuse and DA. Offenders planned the homicide and DA, falsified the narrative of the death, and obstructed the police investigation. Results imply DA is common and impactful, even when revealed. Implications for practitioners include recognizing high rates of DA in IPF cases.
Housing instability has become increasingly important to the study of crime and homicide. Merging Eviction Lab, census, and crime data, we regress multiple measures of housing instability on homicide rates in large U.S. cities, and then comparatively with violent and property crime rates. After finding that evictions and rent burden are distinct indicators, we find that rent burden is directly related to homicide but also has a moderating relationship with economic deprivation. Evictions and other housing indicators are largely unrelated to crime. We conclude by discussing the implications of housing instability in the crime literature and directions for future research.
This study explores the role of gender in sentencing in Russian homicide cases, particularly the “female discount” phenomenon. We use regression analysis on a dataset of 20531 court decisions acquired via text mining techniques. Our research indicates that female defendants in Russia tend to receive more lenient sentences than their male counterparts do. Crimes against intimate partners and family members result in more lenient sentences than those against nonrelatives and strangers. The gender of the judge does not significantly influence the sentencing of female offenders; however, male judges are generally tougher on male defendants. The findings show that the “social costs theory” functions differently for male and female offenders.
