Murder and Serious Sexual Assault - Lancaster EPrints - Lancaster ...

1. Introduction
Aims and objectives of the research
INTRODUCTION
This study is an examination of the relationship between the previous criminal
history of an individual and the risk of (a) a subsequent first conviction for murder
and (b) a subsequent first conviction for serious sexual assault (SSA) of an adult
female. The critical component of this research was a comparison of the criminal
careers of convicted murderers against appropriate controls and a comparison of
the criminal careers of those convicted of SSA of an adult female against another
set of appropriate controls. Underpinning this is the idea of prediction and risk: the
intention was to identify risk factors in criminal histories that increase the risk of
an offender becoming a murderer or a serious sexual offender. A secondary
component is whether risk factors change according to the relationship between
offender and victim.
The aims of the research were to:
● identify a sample of recent murderers and serious sexual offenders and to compare
them to control groups to identify differences in criminal careers;
● consider the usefulness of summaries of criminal career measures in the
assessment of the risk of future convictions for murder and SSA, especially from
an intervention viewpoint; and
● estimate risk factors in the previous criminal career for sub-groups of convicted
murderers, in terms of the relationship between the offender and victim.
Background to the study
Most research that has explored the area of criminal careers has investigated very
different issues. First, research has often been grounded in the risk of future reconviction,
that is, after at least one offence of interest has been committed.
Research into murderers and those convicted of SSA has either tended to focus
on the risk of re-offending, particularly in the area of sexual offences, or has
attempted to provide descriptive accounts of these populations. Secondly, there
has been a tendency to focus on the criminal careers of high volume offenders,
that is, those who commit many offences, mainly property crime and motoring
offences (Rose, 2000). A third strand of criminal career research has sought to
throw light on the relationship between behaviours within serious offences and
previous criminal convictions (for instance, Davies, Wittebrood and Jackson
(1998) on stranger rapists).
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