Final Activity Report Summary - HOSUEC (Homicide-Suicide in European Countries)
Homicides followed by the suicide of the perpetrator (hereafter HS) are a rare yet very serious form of interpersonal violence which occurs mainly in partnerships and families. There has been very little systematic research on HS in Europe. The aim of the study is to collect total samples of familial HS in Germany and other European countries (the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Poland, England and Wales, Switzerland) for a period of 10 years backwards from newspaper archives and official sources and to combine a micro-level, psychological approach with a macro-level, sociological approach in the analysis of this data. The macro-level part focuses on social contexts and norms which increase the likelihood of HS events, following Durkheim's idea that some forms of violence are fostered by 'too much' social integration and a prevalence of collectivistic spirits.
The primary aim of improving the understanding of the causes and 'risk factors' of HS will be approached on two levels. A psychological part will analyse in-depth information from the files, and in addition from qualitative interviews of imprisoned perpetrators who survived a suicide attempt (PhD project related to this project). The macro-level looks at the contextual influences. Official (census) and survey measurements on social integration and social values will be employed to explain regional and national variations in the HS rate, following Emile Durkheim's theory of social integration which assumes that societies with an emphasis on traditional, collectivist norms tend to foster rather than reduce violence. In this perspective, certain types of domestic violence could be a downside of strong social integration.
With the universal rise of IT in publishing and media, full text searches in digital media archives more and more evolve into a new and powerful way of information gathering for certain crimes, and social science topics more generally. This study makes extensive use of this method and develops and tests tools to systematically retrieve information from media archives. By validating the collected data, the project will demonstrate its feasibility.
The first step of the project was to collect and store information on all FHS cases in the selected countries uniformly, using media and official archives. Fresh data collections were started in Germany, Spain, and Poland, whereas existing databases could be used in England and Wales, Finland, and the Netherlands. The emerging database will be the largest on its type world-wide. Thus, the basis for international comparative analyses has been laid, and this project has grown into an international collaborative research project involving scholars from four European countries.
Among the research questions to be answered in the continuing analyses are the frequency of HS cases, the demographic and social profiles of perpetrators and victims, the type of relationships between perpetrators and victims, the circumstances of the offences, and their geographic distribution. Local and regional variations in the likelihood of HS events will be linked to the socio-economic structure of these areas, cross-nationally and within countries. First results of this project were presented at a special panel at the European Society of Criminology Conference in Bologna, 2007.
The primary aim of improving the understanding of the causes and 'risk factors' of HS will be approached on two levels. A psychological part will analyse in-depth information from the files, and in addition from qualitative interviews of imprisoned perpetrators who survived a suicide attempt (PhD project related to this project). The macro-level looks at the contextual influences. Official (census) and survey measurements on social integration and social values will be employed to explain regional and national variations in the HS rate, following Emile Durkheim's theory of social integration which assumes that societies with an emphasis on traditional, collectivist norms tend to foster rather than reduce violence. In this perspective, certain types of domestic violence could be a downside of strong social integration.
With the universal rise of IT in publishing and media, full text searches in digital media archives more and more evolve into a new and powerful way of information gathering for certain crimes, and social science topics more generally. This study makes extensive use of this method and develops and tests tools to systematically retrieve information from media archives. By validating the collected data, the project will demonstrate its feasibility.
The first step of the project was to collect and store information on all FHS cases in the selected countries uniformly, using media and official archives. Fresh data collections were started in Germany, Spain, and Poland, whereas existing databases could be used in England and Wales, Finland, and the Netherlands. The emerging database will be the largest on its type world-wide. Thus, the basis for international comparative analyses has been laid, and this project has grown into an international collaborative research project involving scholars from four European countries.
Among the research questions to be answered in the continuing analyses are the frequency of HS cases, the demographic and social profiles of perpetrators and victims, the type of relationships between perpetrators and victims, the circumstances of the offences, and their geographic distribution. Local and regional variations in the likelihood of HS events will be linked to the socio-economic structure of these areas, cross-nationally and within countries. First results of this project were presented at a special panel at the European Society of Criminology Conference in Bologna, 2007.