NCJ Number
225674
Journal
Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Volume: 18 Issue: 5 Dated: 2008 Pages: 268-278
Date Published
2008
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The purpose of this paper was to test trends in homicide by women in Finland by conducting a nationwide register-based study of female homicide offenders comparing two cohorts, 1982 to 1992 and 1993 to 2005.
Abstract
Results of the study indicate a small increase in the proportion of homicides committed by women over time, but the most striking difference between the cohorts was in the significantly higher frequency of alcohol abuse/dependence in the later cohort and of being under the influence of alcohol during the crime. The victims of the earlier cohort were emotionally closer to the offender than those of the later one. In Finland, there have been changes in characteristics of women who commit homicide and their crimes over time, with the apparent development of a subgroup of women who kill who are much more like men who kill than women in the 1980s and early 1990s. Women seem to commit approximately one-tenth of homicides in many countries. In the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, and Finland, the rates have been between 10 percent and 11 percent. During the past 20 years, the percentage of convicted female homicide offenders in Finland has increased slightly. The aim of this paper was to investigate possible changes in the population of Finnish female homicide offenders during the past decades. A nationwide register-based study of female homicide offenders compared two cohorts, one from 1982 to 1992 and the other from 1993 to 2005, and confirmed differences between them. It was hypothesized that, in a climate of increasing alcohol consumption in society generally, alcohol-related homicides would have become more common among women who had killed in the later period. Figure, table, and references