CCJ4614 Chapter 10:

List risk factors for neonaticide in criminological research

- Low birth weight of the child - No prenatal care - Social and economic stresses - Mother lack formal education

List the characteristics of countries where homicides of children are the highest.

- Women may have more responsibility for raising children without the assistance of the children's father - High rates of illegitimacy - Higher numbers of births to teenage mothers - High divorce rates - Countries that lack social welfare programs - Large percentages of racial minorities - Greater poverty - Urbanization

List the characteristics of women who abandon their newborns.

- Young and single - Concealed her own pregnancy - Given birth alone, not in a hospital - Father is absent - Death of infant is non-violent (died of exposure)

List the characteristics of Filicide-suicides.

1.) Child victims and parents tend to be older than children and parents in other filicide cases 2.) It is far more likely that the offender is a biological parent than a stepparent 3.) The perpetrators tend to kill all of their children rather than leaving any of them alive

What are the most common methods of killing a baby within the first 24 hours of life?

1.) Strangulation and suffocation 2.) Head trauma 3.) Drowning 4.) Exposure 5.) Stabbing

Homicide is the ________ most common cause of death among boys in the age group of 13-17 years old

3rd

The homicide rate in Rio is ___________ times greater than the already high rate of child homicide in America

47

Homicide is the ____________ leading cause of death for teenage girls

4th

In the early 1990s the homicide rate for children in the United States was _________ times higher than that for children in the other 25 countries combined.

5

How many children are murdered in the U.S each day?

6

In the United Kingdom and Australia, infanticide is defined within the law as a crime committed by the mother during the first 12 months of her infants life. What does this essentially mean?

A father cannot by definition commit infanticide in these countries

When a child kills another child, it is most likely who killing who?

A teenage boy killing another teenage boy

Child homicide victims who are killed by other children are most likely to be _________.

Adolescents

Because neonaticide is seen as a common problem what have many states done?

Adopted laws that allow young parents to leave their newborn child at a fire station, hospital, or police department without any penalties.

Who drowned her five children early in 2001, and is believed by some to have been suffering from postpartum depression?

Andrea Yates

Most criminologists have not attempted to determine whether there is a difference in filicide between parents and stepparents. However, using Canadian data, Wilson and Daly (1988) found that stepchildren are what?

Are victims more often than expected - Stepchildren are overrepresented among child victims

Why would unmarried women in the United States and other countries kill their babies?

Because of the stigma associated with having children out of wedlock.

Why are children of school age likely to have increased risk for homicide in the summer?

Because they are out of school and have more opportunity to be victimized by both stranger and family members.

The homicide rates have remained higher for who?

Black children as compared to their white counterparts

What are the weapons most commonly used to kill children in the United States?

Changes from personal weapons such as hands, feet, and fists to firearms as the age of the children increases.

Parents who kill more than one of their children are more likely to _______ than those who kill only one of their children.

Commit suicide

Child homicides are higher during ________ hours and they tend to peak on _______________.

Daytime; Weekdays

Child homicide is _______ in the United States.

Decreasing

When is the risk for infanticide the greatest?

During the first 4 months of life and is most likely on the first day of life.

Many of these killings fit the category of gang violence. Thus many of these homicides may be classified as what?

Either acquaintance or stranger homicides

Define, "Refers to the killing of a whole family"

Familicide

Data from England, Wales, and Canada suggest that the percentage of children killed by gunshot is higher in ________ than the percentage of children killed by their parents or stepparents in ________________.

Familicides; Nonfamilicide incidents

Who is more likely to kill their own children when he child is under 5 years of age only?

Fathers - However, mothers commit neonaticide more frequently than fathers

It is rarer, however, to learn about stepmothers killing their stepchildren than stepfather killing their stepchildren. Why is this?

Fewer stepchildren live with stepmothers

What is a more common term for the killing of one's own children?

Filicide, which refers to the killing of one's own child (including a stepchild) and thus could include the killing of an adult child.

Some children are killed by their parents as part of a murder-suicide; otherwise known as _________________.

Filicide-suicide

However as children age, their risk for homicide by those other than their parents also increases, and we see that the most frequent weapon sued to kill those ages 5-8 were ________.

Firearms

Overall, when a child is killed in the United States, it is most likely that he or she was killed with a _______.

Gun

Firearm-related homicide for children younger than 15 years is far _________ in the United States than in other countries.

Higher

In October 2005, ____________________, a 21-year-old architecture student at the University of Southern California was charged with one count of murder and one count of child abuse in the death of her newborn baby.

Holy Ashcroft

As children age, the likelihood that they will be killed in the context of another crime _______.

Increases

As the age of child victims of homicide increases, the likelihood that they were murdered by a stranger _________, especially for _______.

Increases; males

Define, "The killing of an infant child who is generally less than 1 years old"

Infanticide

Define, "The killing of infants"

Infanticide

What is the most common ruling of filicide?

Manslaughter

Father's who commit filicide-suicide often kill their children in what context?

Marital separation or child custody disagreement with the child's mother.

Psychologists and psychiatrists are likely to label those who kill children, especially mothers who kill their own children, as what?

Mentally ill.

Infants are most likely to be killed by their ________ up until they are a week old and then they are more likely to be killed by a ___________________________________________.

Mother; Male- typically their father or stepfather

A 1994 California study examined whether abuse is a risk factor for homicide victimization among children. What were the results?

Murdered children were 3.14 times more likely to have come to the attention of social service professionals because of abuse than those who died from unintentional injuries. Still more than half of the murdered children (57.3%) in this study had no official history of abuse or maltreatment. It is likely that many children who are abused never come to the attention of social service agencies, and thus their deaths may not be recorded as child abuse deaths. Additionally, some child fatalities caused by abuse may be incorrectly recorded as injuries or as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Define, "Fictitious symptoms or, worse, cause symptoms in a person they are taking care of so they can gain attention"

Münchhausen syndrome by proxy (factitious disorder)

Define, "The murder of a newborn within the first 24 hours of his or her life."

Neonaticide

Women are more often the offenders in what type of cases?

Neonaticide and infanticide

More frequently, however, Filicide refers to the killing of a minor child and thus could include both __________________ and ____________.

Neonaticides and Infanticides

Is postpartum depression a defense in the United States?

No

What age are children most at risk for child homicide?

Older teens - Very young children, age birth to 4 years, follow teens in the most likely risk for homicide - Elementary school-age children (5-12) are least at risk

Who determined that the homicide rate for the first day of life was ten times greater than the rate during any other time of life?

Paulozzi and Wells

Victims younger than 5 years were most often killed by what?

Personal weapons such as the killer's hands, feet, or fists.

Define, "A serious depression that occurs in approximately 10% of mothers following the birth of their child."

Postpartum depression

Define, "The killing of one's offspring and includes both infanticide and the killing of a fetus in utero"

Prolicide

The sudden death of a child younger than 1 year is labeled ______ if an extensive investigation of the eath finds no viable explanation.

SIDS

Define, "In Michigan, it stipulates that a parent can anonymously leave a newborn with an emergency service provider, including police, firefighters, and hospital personnel."

Safe delivery of newborns law

School-age girls are more likely than boys of the same age to be victims in ___________.

Sexually motivated abduction homicides

The homicide of children ages 5-14 is higher in the ___________.

Summer

When is the risk for homicide greater for a child than in any other year of life before the age of 17 years?

The first year of life

Why are infants more likely to have an increased risk for homicide in the winter?

The winter months may be more stressful for parents who are more likely to feel trapped alone in the house with their small children and perhaps even with small children who are suffering from winter colds and thus less pleasant to be around than usual.

Two-thirds of children who are killed in the first 6 days of life are killed by whom?

Their mothers

When women kill who are they most likely to kill?

Their parents or their children; they rarely kill both their children and their spouse in one incident

A final characteristic that most strongly s filicide-suicides by men and women is that fathers who kill their children and themselves are far more likely than suicidal homicidal mothers to also kill _______.

Their spouses

How did Wilson and Daly come to the conclusion that stepchildren are overrepresented among child victims?

They consider how many stepchildren there are who reside with a stepparent and determine that the ratio of stepchild homicides to stepchildren is much higher than the ratio of biological child homicides to biological children.

Mothers who commit filicide-suicide tend to kill their children because...

They fear their children will not have anyone to care for them once the other commits suicide.

Why is the previous statement likely?

This is likely because many children who are killed by their parents in these countries are beaten to death or otherwise die at the hands of their parents as opposed to the parents using a weapon.

In 1741, in London, infanticide was so common that _________ established a foundling home to provide refuge for infants and young children cast away by their mothers because he found it disturbing to see babies dying in the gutters and rotting on trash heaps.

Thomas Coram

True or False Although not commonly accepted in the United States, postpartum depression is recognized as a legal defense in more than 25 countries. These countries have infanticide laws that state a woman who kills her infant child cannot be charged with any charge greater than manslaughter if she can prove the "balance of her mind is disturbed" by reasons relating to giving birth.

True

True or False. Child and infant victims were most often killed by offenders of the same race.

True

True or False. Child homicide is frequently committed by women

True

True or False. Children in each age category were also killed with knives, blunt objects, fire, and by asphyxiation

True

True or False. Children of younger, poorly educated mothers who were unmarried at the time of their birth and who lived in a metropolitan area were found to be at greater risk for homicide as were African American children and those children who were low birthweight

True

True or False. Daly and Wilson have noted that familicide is a very uncommon crime among men and almost unheard of among women offenders

True

True or False. Experts believe, however, that battered children are not necessarily killed deliberately. Rather, the murder of an abused child is frequently an impulsive act on the part of a parent or babysitter who just wishes to make a child behave or stop crying. Often but not always, mothers who are stressed by unfavorable life conditions such as poor housing, marital stress, and financial problems easily lose their tempers and strike out against their children, accidentally killing them.

True

True or False. Familicide is more often used to define a multi-victim homicide in which the offender kills his or her spouse or former spouse and at least one or more of either of their children.

True

True or False. Far more children are killed by their family members than by the strangers we fear

True

True or False. However, because an autopsy cannot reveal whether a death is caused by SIDS or asphyxiation with a pillow or other soft object, some SIDS death may actually be homicides

True

True or False. In the United States in the early 1990s there were great increases in adolescent homicide.

True

True or False. In very severe cases of postpartum depression mothers have reported feeling they have wanted to kill their children.

True

True or False. Infanticide refers to the killing of infants without regard to who the offender is or how the offender may be related to the victim.

True

True or False. Infants have also been sacrificed for religious reasons, as a method of population control, or because their parents could not afford to raise them.

True

True or False. Many young children who are killed die as a result of child abuse by their caretakers

True

True or False. Parents and others who care for children sometimes kill children in the process of abusing them

True

True or False. The murder of children is far less common than the murder of adults

True

True or False. The rate of homicide does not differ significantly for boys and girls at YOUNGER ages.

True

True or False. Young children, are far more likely to be killed by their parents than all other categories of perpetrators added together

True

When was the peak of juveniles murdered?

Was 2,880 in 1993

When do we see increases in the homicide of children who are younger than 2 years?

Winter