NCJ Number
190235
Journal
Criminal Behavior and Mental Health Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: S55-S60
Date Published
2001
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This editorial examined the knowledge and understanding of homicide as research through the mixed reactions and emotions felt from those who had experienced homicide through crime novels and journalistic papers to those who were victims or suffered from its effects and its impact on the knowledge and/or understanding of homicide.
Abstract
Across fiction, journalism, and professionalism writing there was an acknowledgement of a near universal voyeuristic fascination with homicide. For victims, books had been more prominent in advancing knowledge on homicide. In addition, prior research suggested that psychiatrists were all too ready to criticize journalists for exciting public fears about the mentally ill, presenting the mentally ill as dangerous. Two reports were identified has having advanced the knowledge of homicide, one within the mental health field and one has wider applications to it. In this editorial, homicide evinces mixed reactions and emotions. For anyone who is touched more closely by homicide than through journalism or crime fiction, only a balanced knowledge which extends beyond the immediate details of the crime will allow advances in prevention on the one hand and on the other amelioration of the impact of homicide on all who suffer from its effects.