Sex Differences in Criminal Homicide and Suicide in England and Wales and the United States

Abstract

This is an analysis of patterns of criminal homicide and suicide in England and Wales and the United States during recent decades. Special attention is given to the sex of homicidal offenders and victims and of suicide victims. Also stressed are age of offenders and victims, the familial and other role relationships of homicidal offenders and victims to each other, and the nature of homicide followed by the offender's suicide in the two countries. In England and Wales, the low violence country, females if they kill at all are much more prone to commit suicide than homicide, as compared to females in the United States, the high violence country. In England and Wales, female victimization rates for both forms of death much more nearly approach those of males than is the case in the United States. Homicidal offenders are more likely to victimize members of their own families in England and Wales than in the United States. This is particularly true of English-Welsh females and especially in regard to killing of their own children. Homicidal offenders are decidedly more prone to kill themselves in England and Wales than in the United States. Female offenders are extremely likely to do so in England and Wales and very unlikely to do so in the United States. These tendencies are tentatively related to the possible development of a subculture of self-directed violence in England and Wales, particularly among females.