The Act of Filicide. How offenders and motives differ from other murders

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Sociology - Law, Delinquency, Abnormal Behavior, grade: 2.1, University of Leeds, course: Criminal Justice and Criminology, language: English, abstract: This dissertation will address the complex definition of filicide and assess the problems that can arise from these complexities. The age range of victims and the incorporation of stepparents will be discussed in reference to the difficulties that they can pose. Filicidal notions will be drawn from historical and modern literature in a bid to highlight the prevalence of the subject, whilst moving on to consider who commits filicide and the motives for such an act. The work of Resnick (1969) will be explored and acknowledged for providing a significant turning point in the study of filicide, and his development of motive categories will be discussed. Once the act of filicide has been firmly established, the hidden aspect of this crime will be explored. This will include the apparent 'medicalisation' of filicide and draw upon Wilczynski's (1997) discussion of filicidal parents as being either 'mad' or 'bad'. Additionally, the moral dilemma surrounding the filicidal act is also discussed, with attention drawn to cultural differences of opinion and the cultural pressures that somewhat condone the presence of filicide within certain cultures. This will be followed by a discussion of filicide's route to 'medicalisation' and how the roots for this change may be embedded in the modernisation of criminal justice methods. This will lead to an acknowledgement of filicide as a criminal act and highlight the problems surrounding the Infanticide Acts of 1922 and 1938 that were raised by parliament. These problems mirror those that are found within the definition of filicide and include the problem with the age range and inclusion of stepparents. Recent homicide statistical data will be analysed and discussed in relation to their relevance and then explored further to highlight any problems that are visibly present when focus is placed solely on acts of filicide. At this point I will draw upon my own research, which was conducted in a bid to assess the knowledge level of filicide exhibited by students currently studying Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Leeds. The findings from this study will be analysed and conclusions will be drawn from the data received. The discussion will then be diverted to the media portrayal of filicide.