Maternal Filicide - Patterns Motive and Diagnosis
2019 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
When a child is murdered, the most frequent perpetrator is the child’s parent and
if the age of the victim is below 12 months the offender is more likely to be the
child’s mother. The overall purpose and aim for the current study is to, in terms
of motive and mental illness, describe the occurrence of different kind of
psychiatric and/or personality disorders, to map and identify the offender profile
of women who are prosecuted for committing fatal violence against their
children. The data and material for this was gathered from The National Board
of Forensic Medicine where the offenders have gone through a forensic
psychiatric examination between the years 2000 and 2014. The cases of 28
female offenders prosecuted for fatal violence against their children were
included and underwent thorough examinations and assessments. The findings
depict, among other things, how diagnoses of depressive disorders were
overrepresented, and especially if the victim was older. The altruistic motive was
overrepresented in older victims but in younger victims it was more common
with a motive characterized by delusional thoughts or the victim being
unwanted. Future research needs to focus on risk factors for this specific offender
group and aim its preventive contributions within maternal care and childcare
centers.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Hälsa och samhälle , 2019. , p. 29
Keywords [en]
Filicide, infanticide, child homicide, child victim, forensic psychology
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-24644Local ID: 30348OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-24644DiVA, id: diva2:1486064
Educational program
HS Criminology
Supervisors
Examiners
2020-11-022020-11-02Bibliographically approved