July 5 juillet 16:00 – 17:45
Room NCDH–201
Chair:
Robert Cormier
, Department of the
Solicitor General, Canada
Discussant: Bernard Grenier
, Cour du Québec
The
criminological literature has episocially focused on the crime of sexual
homicide (or rape-homicide), with the leading intial study by Ressler, Burgess
and Douglas (1988). Further work followed by others associated with criminal
profilng studies, for example, Hazelwood and Burgess (1995). Other contributions
include those of Langevin on sex killers and Meloy’s (2000) Rohrshach-based
studies. A newer line of studies have addressed juvenile and adolescent
perpetrators, such as Hunter et al (2000) in The FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation) Law Enforcement Journal, by Myers (1994) and Myers, Burgess and
Nelson (1998). A useful perspective for the law enforcement, correction and
mental health systems may be to study the extent or absence of prior criminal
record,–for sex crimes as well as for non-sex crimes–of offenders
incarcerated for sexual homicide, as well as prior mental health system
involvement. Suggestions are offered for further research studies of such
offenders.
Although
many studies have investigated the relationship between psychopathy and criminal
behavior, little is known about the relationship between psychopathy and
homicide, and in partciular, sexual homicide (a homicide that includes sexual
activity before, during or after the commission of the offense). The purpose of
the present study was to examine the characteristics of a large sample of
Canadian homicides as a function of psychopathy.
One hundred and
twenty-five offenders who had perpetrated a murder were investigated for several
characteristics regarding the nature of, and possible motivations behind, the
offense. Results indicated that homicides committed by psychopathic offenders
(N=34, as catergorized by a score of 30 on The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised,
Hare 1991) were significantly more instrumental (planned, goal-oriented) or
“cold-blooded” than those committed by non-psychopathic offenders (N=91)
whose homicides were more often spontaneous “crimes of passion”. In
addition, psychopathic offenders were found to exhibit more gratuitous, sadistic
and sexual violence in general (54.5%), in the context of their homicides than
non-psychopathic offenders (22.5%). Weapon choice and other variables relating
to the modus operandi of the homicide offenders will also be discussed
Recent
findings concerning sexual sadism among sexual offenders will be presented. The
first focus will be on a review of the literature on this emerging topic.
Subsequently, the findings of a study of sexual offenders who were defined as
sadists or non-sadists by clinicians will be discussed. The non-sadists scored
worse on aspects that are supposed to define sadism, and discussion will be
offered on such findings. Finally, data will be presented on a study of
inter-diagnostician (N=24 psychiatrists) agreement (or
inter-rater reliability) of the sadism diagnosis of 12 sexual offenders. The
findings of the literature review and the two
aforementioned studies will be integrated in order to offer suggestions for
further needed research.
This
paper examines the sex killer from a sexological, psychological and biological
perspective. Little is known of this group of dangerous offenders. A model,
which compares this group to sexually aggressive offenders, in general, and to
violent non-sex offenders, will be discussed.. Data on a small sample of cases
will be presented.
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