Situational contexts of homicide: variations across homicide types

While it has been widely recognised by researchers that many homicides are reactions to immediate circumstances, there is little research that formally analyses homicide from the situational crime perspective. This study presents the quantitative results from structured interviews with 260 male and female homicide offenders who provided detailed information on the circumstances of their offence. Areas covered included their degree of planning, their emotions immediately prior to the offence, what they were doing with the victim beforehand, the weapon used and how it was obtained, and how they felt immediately after the event. We found that most homicides were unplanned and could be categorised as expressive crimes. The most common weapon was a sharp object, and almost half the weapons used were found at the homicide scene. Intimate partner homicides typically occurred in the home of the victim and were preceded by a verbal argument. Stranger homicides were more likely to be associated with drug and alcohol use, to occur in public and semi-public areas, and to be preceded by a physical fight. We drew on the concept of situational crime precipitators to integrate expressive homicides into the situational crime perspective. Our findings reinforce the preventative value of gun control and suggest the need to extend controls to access of dangerous knives. We suggest situational measures to help prevent intimate partner conflicts (e.g., personal duress buttons) and bar room fights (e.g., server intervention) escalating to homicide.