TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2017//
TI  - Homicide-suicide in China: an exploratory study of characteristics and types
JO  - Asian journal of criminology
A1  - Densley, James Andrew
A1  - Hilal, Susan M.
A1  - Li, Spencer D.
A1  - Tang, Wei
SP  - 199
EP  - 216
VL  - 12
IS  - 3
N2  - This study explores 63 homicide-suicide cases that include two or more homicide victims, in the People's Republic of China. This is the first study to examine homicide-suicide in the Chinese context, following calls to develop a research strategy outside of the USA and Europe. Data are derived from a content analysis of Chinese news sources from 2000 to 2014. <br><br>FINDINGS show homicide-suicide offenders are likely to be married males living in rural cities who kill their intimate partners and/or children inside a residence using knives. Intimate partner conflict and extramarital affairs are precipitating factors in almost half of the incidents. Patterns of homicide-suicide in China are comparable to those in high-income countries, except that firearms are not the primary means in China and there is no evidence of "mercy killing" among older persons, as described in western homicide-suicide studies. <br><br>FINDINGS are related to the social and economic structure of Chinese society. Clinical and policy implications include the need for greater transparency and a nationwide homicide and suicide tracking system in China, stricter domestic violence laws, postmortem studies of the brains of homicide-suicide offenders, and psychological autopsies on homicide-suicide perpetrators.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1871-0131
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11417-016-9238-1
ID  - ref1
ER  -