Aggression homicide and rejection homicide: a communicative classification of homicide

Based on a 10-year sample of homicides (n = 50), the hypothesis was tested that it is possible to differentiate between aggression and rejection homicide. The aggression homicide results from the offender/victim relationship, which is no longer accepted for some reason. In contrast, in the rejection homicide the offender radically strives for a goal which can only be reached if the victim is eliminated. Based on forensic-psychiatric expert opinions (n = 50), the case analyses yielded 31 aggression homicides and 18 rejection homicides, one case could not be classified. Aggression homicides differed significantly from the rejection homicides with regard to their main motives. Hate in quarrel (n = 8), violent occupation of the victim (n = 7), delusions (n = 5), revenge (n = 3), self-defence (n = 2), and jealousy (n = 1) characterized the aggression homicides, whereas rejection homicides were dominated by economic motives (n = 14). Two offenders intended to get rid of the victim and one offender wanted to rescue a third person. From a forensic-psychiatric point of view, the pertinent statistical data (social data, diagnosis, criminal responsibility) are reported and the significance of the differentiation between aggression homicide and rejection homicide for medico-legal or criminological case profiling and for the prognosis of the risk potential is discussed.     

Wrongful birth in New Zealand

Wrongful birth cases have been a feature of the common law. In this article the author examines wrongful birth cases against the background of the New Zealand accident compensation scheme. Initially cases were accepted under the scheme, but after major changes to the legislation in 1992, wrongful birth cases were declined cover. The author argues that this should continue to be the case, and that, as a result, New Zealand courts will have to make the same policy decisions in this area as those made by other Commonwealth courts.     

Medico-legal secrecy in New Zealand

In the absence of the right to sue for medical negligence, the New Zealand Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (HPDT) have become the centrepieces of New Zealand's medico-legal system. This article examines the claim that for both bodies secrecy, by name suppression, is the default position and that the private interests of doctors are elevated above the legitimate public interest in the performance of medical professionals. In particular, it examines HDC's blanket policy of suppressing the names of complainants, practitioners, hospitals, District Health Boards and geographical locations, and HPDT's stated but wavering commitment to openness. The authors conclude that both bodies may have failed, albeit in different ways, to recognise the legitimate and significant public interest in the names of those few practitioners found in breach of professional standards.     

Mental health services in New Zealand

The development and reorganization of mental health services in New Zealand is underpinned by a national strategy, with increased funding from the government, and is occurring on a background of radical change in health service policy and delivery. The major challenge will be to sustain the developments to date, and increase the quality and quantity of services in a climate of ongoing change. A more integrated form of service delivery and funding would potentially enhance the development of population-based mental health services, which will allow the alignment of targeting specialty service to the 3% of the population with the highest need, with a more comprehensive approach to overall mental health service through the primary sector.     

Policing serious fraud in New Zealand

The discovery of a serious fraud problem in New Zealand is very recent. Prior to the 1980s, there had been only three prosecutions for serious fraud in the history of the country, and penalties for those convicted were small. But a corporate boom in the 1980s, followed by the sharemarket crash of 1987, revealed extensive serious fraud. Initial attempts to combat the problem through the Commercial Affairs division of the Department of Justice failed. But in 1990 a Serious Fraud Office was established, with powers greater than those ever given before to a New Zealand law-enforcement agency. Three years later, the SFO had been notified of possible frauds totalling $ 2.5 billion. This represents many times what is reported stolen in all other property crime, but the SFO budget is only 1% of that devoted to ordinary policing. Since 1990, only one prosecution out of the seventeen completed has failed. Prison sentences of up to seven years and averaging almost four years, have been awarded. As the SFO nears the end of its third year, and its net gradually widens, its influence on illegal business activity continues to grow.Adapted from a paper presented at the 44th annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, New Orleans, 4–7 November 1992.     

The New Zealand Family Group Conference Confidentiality Protections: Lessons Learned and an Application in U.S. Child Welfare Systems

With the adoption of statutes, policies and administrative guidance since the late 1980s, statutory child welfare agencies around the world have been implementing practice approaches to resolving and addressing child abuse and neglect concerns that involve extended family systems in decision making and planning. One such approach is the family group conference (FGC), enshrined in New Zealand law. This article provides a historical context and describes numerous provisions of the family group conference that protect participants and the proceedings. It then describes applications of FGC‐like approaches in the United States where practice models and policies—not laws—guide the implementation of such approaches.     

Aging and homicide rates

There are no published studies concerning the effect of mortality rate on the rate of homicide by habitually violent offenders. On the basis of nation-wide statistics in Finland, the frequency of homicide is 61% lower among 50-year old males than among 30-year old males. However, when the 4.9-fold mortality of habitually violent offenders is taken into account, the homicide rate is only 43% lower among 50-year old males than among 30-year old males. This is an important issue in forensic psychiatry and that requires further attention, as age is used a predictive factor when assessing the risk of violent behavior.     

Infanticide, physicians, and the law: the "Baby Doe" amendments to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act

Infanticide, like most other species of homicide, is probably coeval with the human race itself. In modern Western civilization, what were formerly the most powerful incentives to infanticide have virtually disappeared. As with other social problems that affluence has seemed to solve, however, infanticide has reappeared in a new form that seems to have been made possible by affluence itself. This "new infanticide" occurs in a place whose very existence is the result of a tremendously wealthy society's devotion to its most vulnerable and least "useful" members. The modern neonatal intensive care unit, which treats, and often saves, extremely ill newborn children, who during most of history would surely have died, has proven to be a setting where many of the age-old incentives for infanticide have begun to operate again. The "new infanticide" consists of withholding food or needed medical treatment from selected infants who suffer from one or more serious, though treatable, medical problems. The national government has now enacted legislation designed to curtail the practice of infanticide by the medical profession. This paper traces the genesis of that legislation, explores the problem to which it is addressed, and evaluates its prospects for success.     

Execution publicity and homicide in Georgia

A requisite of both general deterrence and brutalization theories of capital punishment is citizen awareness of executions. Yet this dimension is frequently left unmeasured in the literature on executions and homicide. Further, the current literature utilizes nationwide data, which introduces aggregation bias. The present study deals with these issues, testing the brutalization theory with data on publicized executions in the state of Georgia. Monthly data are used in order to capture any short-term brutalization effect. The results of a multivariate time-series model find that a publicized execution is associated with an increase of 2.6 homicides, or 6.8%, in the month of the publicized execution. Publicized executions were associated with an increase of 55 homicides during the time period analyzed. The results provide no support for the deterrence, victim mobilization, and normative validation perspectives on homicide. The findings can be interpreted, however, from several different varieties of brutalization theory.     

African-Americans and serial homicide

African-Americans are usually over-represented among offenders arrested in “normal” homicide cases, making up a considerably larger proportion than would be expected from the Black presence in the population at large. Among serial murderers, however, African-Americans are much less in evidence—perhaps one-fifth or less of known American serial killers are Black. It may be that African-Americans are in fact less involved in serial murder activity than are Anglo Whites or Hispanics; but it must also be asked whether this is simply an impression gained from the ways in which serial murder activity is identified and investigated. For a number of reasons, law enforcement agencies might be less likely to seek or find evidence of serial murder activity where the victims are Black. As homicide is primarily an intra-racial crime, this would then mean that Black serial killers would be far more likely to escape detection.     

Institutional Change and Legislative Vote Consensus in New Zealand

In this research note, I discuss results from a recent study assessing the impact that New Zealand's electoral and legislative system reforms had on levels of vote consensus achieved in the House of Representatives. Using a new legislative vote data set spanning from 1987 to 2007, I find evidence that the institutional changes fostered an increase in consensual legislative vote outcomes. I also provide a brief theoretical explanation of the developments and address a few issues concerning the measure of consensus used and the interpretation of the data.     

Community Solutions for the Community's Problem: An Evaluation of Three New Zealand Community-Based Treatment Programs for Child Sexual Offenders

The recidivism rate of 203 people mandated by the courts to attend three community-based child sexual offender treatment programs (175 treatment cases and 28 assessment-only cases) was assessed and compared with a probation comparison group. The recidivism rate was 8.1% for all participants treated in the community-based programs and 5.2% for participants who completed treatment. The recidivism rate for program attendees was approximately half that of those in the probation comparison group. The drop-out rate for treatment appears to be relatively high (45%) and noncompletion was associated with higher recidivism. These results indicate significantly better outcomes for offenders receiving specialized treatment and are consistent with, and toward the lower end of, recidivism rates reported in local and international evaluation studies.