Mass Homicide and Suicide

Prevalence of Homicide-Suicide Incidents in Greece over 13 Years

Prevalence of homicide-suicides is difficult to determine in Greece due to the lack of a national tracking system. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of the homicide-suicide incidents in Greece over the past 13 years, and to determine the circumstances under which they occurred, as well as the characteristics of perpetrators and victims. Two Internet search engines (google and yahoo), as well as the search engine of the major national news websites, were surveyed to identify the number of homicide-suicide cases that occurred in Greece from January 2008 to December 2020. Over the study period, 36 homicide-suicide incidents occurred in Greece, resulting in 36 suicides and 41 homicides. The above incidents reflect an annual homicide-suicide rate of 0.02 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Most perpetrators were male (88.9%), whereas most victims were female (80.6%). Spousal-consortial cases accounted for 52.7% and familial cases for 41.7% of the total number of incidents. The use of firearms (mostly shotgun) was the most common method of homicide and suicide (58.3% and 63.9%, respectively). Women killed only their children, while men committed homicide and suicide mainly in the context of a former or current intimate partnership with the victim. Our results are in line with international homicide-suicide data. The establishment of a national surveillance system for homicides-suicides would be of paramount importance as it would facilitate accurate recording, identification of risk factors and characteristics of potential victims and perpetrators and it could ultimately be an aid to the prevention of such tragic events.

Deconstructing an Epidemic

The excessive media coverage of mass gun violence has contributed to the public perception of an epidemic. These senstionalized media accounts highlight statistics suggesting a dramatic rise of the phenomenon. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis and comparison of open-source datasets to identify methodological weaknesses and clarify the prevalence of the problem. Findings illustrate the definitional, temporal, and data collection issues impacting the accuracy of assessment. This deconstruction of research counters the perception of a substantial rise in mass gun violence and suggests rates will vary depending on the typological phenomenon being investigated. A discussion of findings illustrates the importance of continuing the examination of mass gun violence and provides comprehensive guidelines for future research assessing the frequency of the phenomenon.

The Port Arthur massacre and the National Firearms Agreement: 20 years on, what are the lessons?

The 20th anniversary of the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) offers lessons for mental health and public health. Along with similar international legislation, the NFA exemplifies how firearms regulation can prevent firearm mortality and injuries. The gun lobby claims that mental illness underpins gun violence and should be a key site for intervention. A modest but significant link exists between mental disorders and community violence. However, the vast majority of mentally ill individuals are not violent. Despite media portrayals of their dangerousness, they are more likely to be victims of violence and of suicide. Most violent individuals do not have mental illness, and most mass murderers do not have identifiable severe mental illness. Many have maladaptive personality configurations. Gun availability and gun ownership, not severe mental illness, determines most gun homicides. Following recent gun massacres in the United States, there have been calls for better resourcing of mental health services to help identify and respond to those at risk and to regulate firearms access. Screening mentally ill populations for violence risk is misguided. However, clinicians can play a key role in working with legal authorities to monitor and assist regulation of firearm access, especially among high risk populations. Clinician involvement must be complemented by wider gun control measures. The gun lobby's turning the firearms availability debate into a question about whether people with mental illness histories should access such weapons is a calculated appeal to prejudice.

The mass murderer history: modern classifications, sociodemographic and psychopathological characteristics, suicidal dimensions, and media contagion of mass murders

Multicide and other mass killings are sufficiently dramatic to excite great interest from clinicians, criminologists and behavioral scientists. This paper revisits the history of the mass murderer, an entity that has progressively distinguished itself from the serial killer. The functional difference between mass and serial homicide is quite obvious, particularly in setting, time, victim status and modus operandi. Classification of these acts requires a number of parameters. The causes of mass murders are multiple and complex: although they rarely seem to be related to psychotic mental pathologies, they are always an expression of suffering that manifests itself in a psychological crisis that is both homicidal and suicidal. Several research teams have studied the sociodemographic and etiopathogenic characteristics of mass murderers and, in particular, the perpetrators of school killings. In addition to prevalent personality traits, these actions often jointly include suicides and homicides, which are brought together in the same psychic crisis. In keeping with the theory of little identity support, previous crimes influenced some mass murderers. Suicides and mass-murders are likely to be imitated. The media appears to play a crucial role in preventing the occurrence of imitation or copycat tragedies. The WHO recommendation regarding how to transcribe suicide and by extension, homicide, in the media is necessary.

Murder-Suicide in Workplace Violence

In an analysis of 105 incidents of workplace violence in the USA from 1982 to 2002, the murderers who killed themselves after the incident killed more victims than those arrested. The workplace violence occurring at schools resulted in significantly more injured victims, but not more deceased victims.

Which serial killers commit suicide? An exploratory study

In a sample of 483 serial killers, 6.2% were documented to have committed suicide. Those who committed suicide were found to come from more dysfunctional homes characterized by more psychiatric disturbance in the parents. The sexual acts involved in the murders by the suicides seemed to be more deviant in some aspects, such as committing more bizarre sexual acts or more often taping the murder.

Possible Relation of Suicide Rates of Elderly with Societal Crime: A Cross-National Study

There are few studies examining the relationship between elderly suicides and societal crime. Therefore, a cross-national study examining the relationship between suicide rates of elderly persons and the percentage of the population victimised by different categories of crime was undertaken by using cross-national data from the World Health Organisation and United Nations databases. The main finding was a negative correlation between suicide rates in elderly men age 75+ years and women in both the elderly age-bands with the percentage of the population victimised by the crime of robbery. The findings were at variance with the study's hypothesis and may be explained by several factors, including methodological issues. Individual-level case-control or cohort studies of suicides and attempted suicides by elderly persons are suggested to examine the relationship of suicides by elderly and experience of being victimised by crime.