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Maternal Filicide
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- 2. Maternal Filicide: Causesand Risk Factors DEFINITION : Filicide is the act in which parents kill their child or children. The word filicide comprised of two Latin words filius and filia which mean son and daughter respectively, and cide from caedere which means to kill.
- 3. Mothers are morelikely to commit filicide than fathers.
- 4. Why do somany women direct their most violent impulses toward their own children? Altruistic filicide: a mother takes the life of her children out of what she believes is love. (Susan Smith) Psychotic filicide: a mother kills her child without any logical motive (a mother may follow command hallucinations to kill). (Andrea Yates) Fatal maltreatment: this means that death is generally not the anticipated outcome but it results from cumulative child abuse, neglect, or Munchausen syndrome by proxy. (Hedda Nassbaum)
- 5. Unwanted child filicide:where a mother thinks of her child as an hindrance. Spouse revenge filicide: takes place when a mother kills her child purposely to emotionally or mentally harm the father of the child.
- 6. Jail or PsychiatricWard?
- 7. COMMON FACTORS Crimelocation Victim characteristics Filicidal method Confession after arrest
- 8. Additional factors tobe taken into consideration. Age Level of education Developmental history Relationship status Social circumstances
- 9. Prevention Plan Earlyscreening and identification of mental illness both antenatal and postnatal. Help mothers at risk find significance in their existence. Help mothers at risk find a sense of meaning in love and family. Understand the motives and stressors of mothers who commit filicide.
- 10. CONCLUSION It isnot possible to determine if a mother will commit filicide due to elements and characteristics that differ from woman to woman. Further research is needed in order to determine the causes and risk factors of maternal filicide.
Editor's Notes
- #2 Maternal Filicide: Causes and Risks Factors. Luana Palermo, Argosy University. The following slides will discuss the phenomenon of filicide and its correlation with mental illness.
- #3 Meaning of the word filicide and its origins.
- #4 Statistics show that mothers commit filicide more often than fathers. In the United States, women commit only two crimes equally to men. The first is shoplifting; the second is the murder of their child/children. Although women only commit less than 13 percent of all violent crimes in the United States, they are responsible for 50 percent of all parental murders. The study presented in this slide shows that filicide is 27.3% of the time attributed to mothers, compared to a 14.8% attributed to fathers.
- #5 Philip J. Resnick began to study the phenomenon of filicide in 1969. He found five main reason for a mother to commit such act. Each of this reasons is explained in this slide accompanied by a case of filicide that follows in the same category.
- #7 This study has been conducted on a sample of 34 women. Women who commit filicide are for the most part hospitalized or treated, while men who commit the same crime are usually jailed, or even executed. This is a proof of the presence of mental illness in women who commit filicide.
- #8 Throughout the studies conducted on maternal filicide researchers found reoccurring factors that could be useful with understanding the motives behind filicide. The findings show that the location where the crime most often occurs is at home where mother and child live; the victims often shows signs of physical or mental weakness; most of the children are killed by strangulation or drowning; at the time of confession mothers are in denial and do not refer to themselves as the killer.
- #9 Additional important factors when determining the cases at risk. Most of the women who commit filicide are found to be very young, have poor education , have a history of abuses, are married and daily deal with social disadvantages .
- #10 To reduce the risk for a mother to commit filicide, researchers and mental health professional suggested early screening and identification of mental illness. Helping mothers finding meaning in love and their families could as well result to be helpful in preventing filicide.
- #11 Studies on the causes of filicide are not definitive. More research needs to be conducted.