TY  - JOUR
PY  - 1996//
TI  - A survey of male homicide cases resident in an English special hospital
JO  - Medicine, science, and the law
A1  - Dolan, M.
A1  - Parry, J.
SP  - 249
EP  - 258
VL  - 36
IS  - 3
N2  - The study examines a sample of 120 male special hospital patients whose index offence was one of homicide. Demographic, criminological and psychiatric details are described and the characteristics of those committing psychotic and non-psychotic homicides are compared. The results generally confirmed most of the findings reported in international studies of abnormal homicide. Compared with other studies on in-patient populations we found a greater than expected proportion of non-psychotic homicide offenders, the majority of whom had a clinical diagnosis of personality disorder. Key factors distinguishing psychotic from non-psychotic homicide included a pre-offence criminal history, the objective relationship between perpetrator and victim and the behaviour after the offence. Psychotic men were less likely to have a prior history of criminality and substance abuse than their non-psychotic pears but they were more likely to have had previous contact with the psychiatric services and to have known their victims. Compared with the non-psychotic group the majority of psychotic offenders remained at the crime scene or summoned help. A marked age differential between psychotic and nonpsychotic offenders was not apparent in this study.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0025-8024
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -