Citation

Adinkrah M, Jenkins E. Int. J. Offender Ther. Comp. Criminol. 2019; 63(8): 1265-1288.

Affiliation

Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0306624X18814169

PMID

30477364

Abstract

Sororicide has received scarce attention in the homicide literature. This is particularly the case for sororicide incidents occurring in the nonindustrialized, non-Western world. To help address this gap in the literature and extend the study of sororicides, the current exploratory, descriptive study examined the major characteristics of 18 media-reported sororicides that occurred in Ghana from 1990 to 2017, including the sociodemographic characteristics of victims and offenders, victim-offender relationship, incident location, modus operandi, motive, and criminal justice outcomes. The results show that sororicide represents a minuscule proportion of all homicides that occur in the country annually. Brothers were overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sororicide, accounting for 17 of the 18 killings. The findings indicate that a substantial proportion of the sororicides occurred in the context of disputes over money, land, property, or inheritance. Two brothers killed sisters they suspected of maleficent witchcraft.

Language: en

Keywords

Africa; Ghana; fratricide; homicide; siblicide; sororicide