Abstract
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 peers 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 non-psychotic offenders was not apparent in this study.
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