Pre‐offense characteristics of nineteenth‐century American parricide offenders: an archival exploration
| Published date | 16 March 2012 |
| Date | 16 March 2012 |
| Pages | 51-66 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20093821211210495 |
| Author | Phillip Chong Ho Shon,Shannon M. Barton‐Bellessa |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Public policy & environmental management,Sociology |
Pre-offense characteristics of
nineteenth-century American parricide
offenders: an archival exploration
Phillip Chong Ho Shon and Shannon M. Barton-Bellessa
Abstract
Purpose – Previous criminological research has examined the causes and correlates of violent juvenile
offending, but failed to explore the developmental taxonomies of crime throughout history. Theoretically,
developmental trajectories of offending (i.e. life-course persistent and adolescence-limited offenders)
should be identifiable irrespective of time and place. This study aims to examine the pre-offense
characteristics of nineteenth-century American parricide offenders.
Design/methodology/approach – Using archival records of two major newspapers (New York Times,
Chicago Tribune), the study examines 220 offenders who committed attempted and completed
parricides during the latter half of the nineteenth century (1852-1999).
Findings – Results reveal that a small group of adult parricide offenders displayed antisocial
tendencies at an early age that persisted into adulthood. These findings are consistent with the
developmental literature, thus providing support for identification of pre-offense characteristics of
parricide offenders across historical periods.
Originality/value – The findings reported in this paper are of value to psychologists, historians, and
criminologists, for they illuminate the similarities in predictors related to violent behaviors in a small
subsection of adult offenders across two centuries.
Keywords Criminal psychology, Parricide, Offender profiling, Developmental criminology,
Life-course-persistent offender, United States of America, Modern history, Criminology, Young adults
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Over the past two decades, a plethora of research has examined the developmental
pathways of youth leading to participation in violent and delinquent offending (Chung and
Steinberg, 2006; Dembo et al., 2008; Nagin et al., 1995; Nagin and Tremblay, 1999; Simons
et al., 2007, 1994; White et al., 2001). More specifically, criminological research has explored
the roles of individual factors – including biological and psychological influences – and
social factors that shape the trajectory of crime (Hawkins et al., 2000). Findings from this
research have led to the classification of a group of offenders known as
life-course-persistent offenders, their predisposition towards offending identifiable at birth
(Moffitt, 1993a,b; Tibbetts and Piquero, 1999). Research that explores the causes of
parricide has also systematically examined the origins of homicidal tendencies of youth
toward their parents as almost a distinct phenomenon; the causes and correlates of such
homicidal behavior encapsulated in the canonic classification of adolescent parricide
offenders:
Bseverely abused children;
Bmentally ill children; and
Bdangerously antisocial children (Heide, 1992; Mones, 1991).
DOI 10.1108/20093821211210495 VOL. 2 NO. 1 2012, pp. 51-66, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2009-3829
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JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
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PAGE 51
Phillip Chong Ho Shon is
based in the Faculty of
Social Science and
Humanities at University of
Ontario Institute of
Technology, Oshawa,
Canada.
ShannonM. Barton-Bellessa
is based in the Department
of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, Indiana State
University, Terre Haute,
Indiana, USA.
While such a typology implicitly explains the motivation of adolescent offenders, it neglects
to integrate the findings from broader criminological theory into its framework, thereby
overlooking parallels in the offense trajectories of those who kill their parents with those who
go on to offend throughout the life course. The current paper attempts to remedy that gap in
the parricide literature.
Despite the parallels in the trajectory of violent offending in the literature on parricide
(i.e. dangerously antisocial children) and developmental criminology (i.e. life-course
persistent offenders), these two sets of literature have failed to link the developmental
pathways that converge in the most serious offense: homicide. Parricide research usually
examines the correlates of homicidal offenders and the effects of situational factors (e.g.
DiCataldo and Everett, 2008) while developmental criminologists focus on the contours of
general offending, the bulk of the offenders and offenses scrutinized being property crimes
committed by teenagers (e.g. Moffitt, 1993a). While developmental and life-course
perspectives acknowledge that persistent offenders may evolve from property crimes to
interpersonal ones over time for a select few (Stouthamer-Loeber and Loeber, 2002; Loeber
et al., 2007; Stouthamer-Loeber et al., 2004;), the two frameworks fail to treat the actual
behaviors, offense dynamics, and offense histories of persistent offenders who have
committed homicides. That is, scholars have neglected to integrate and synthesize the
findings from the parricide literature and the well-established literature on developmental
criminology under one cogent theoretical framework, despite the obvious parallels in the
parricide offender typologies (e.g. Heide, 1996) and developmental taxonomies (e.g. Moffitt,
1993a). Synthesizing the findings from the two bodies of knowledge thus may enrich the
understanding of parricides, its correlates, and parallels in offense trajectory. This paper
attempts to remedy that gap in the literature by inscribing the behaviors of parricide
offenders onto a developmental perspective.
Another limitation of parricide research and general criminological theory is the failure to
explore these characteristics historically. Although enhanced methodological rigor provides
for greater collection and analysis of large longitudinal datasets, the typologies and
characteristics of offending patterns have not been examined across time periods. That is,
forces that are deemed to be related to rule-breaking behavior are assumed to be applicable
across historical periods without having actually examined periods others than the twentieth
century. To remedy that historical gap, this study examines the pre-offense characteristics of
nineteenth-century American parricide offenders. Results from this study provide insight into
the early correlates of parricidal behavior, taking into consideration the historical shift in the
role of childhood, and the effects of industrialization on parricides during the latter half of the
nineteenth century in America. Implications for parricide research and criminological theory
are discussed.
Reconciling theory of crime and theory of parricide
The reflexive character of the self and society is both explicitly and implicitly mirrored in early
and contemporary sociological theories of crime. For example, Durkheim (1997)
hypothesized that city life would be punctuated by a state of chaos, anomie, and crime
as the mode of production changed from an agricultural one to an industrial one, as
industrialization radically reconfigured social customs and norms (see also Durkheim,
1979). While such views still resonate with sociologists and criminologists (Hawkins et al.,
2000; Pratt and Cullen, 2005; Sampson and Groves, 1989; Shaw and McKay, 1969),
historians of crime and recent works have challenged such canonic views (Adler, 2006;
Lane, 1979; Stowell et al., 2009).
Just as industrialization fundamentally changed the migration and labor patterns in America
during the nineteenth century (Lane, 1979; Roediger, 2005), its declination in the middle of
the twentieth century has also reconfigured the social organization patterns of cities,
occupations, families, and crime (Western, 2007). Sociological theories have posited
segregation as a primary cause of inequality and poverty, which lead to crime (Massey and
Denton, 1993; Pratt and Cullen, 2005; Wilson, 1997). Research has shown that there is a
general decline in collective supervision, residential participation, and meaningful social
networks in segregated spaces (Anderson, 1990, 1999). Such patterns have been
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