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

MURDERERS AND SERIOUS SEXUAL OFFENDERS WITH A CRIMINAL HISTORY
Murderers
Table 6 identifies the 25 statistically significant differences between murderers and
the general control group in terms of their previous criminal history. A little over
half of the differences indicate in which ways a previous criminal history reveals a
significantly greater likelihood of becoming a murderer (those with a relative risk
score significantly greater than 1). The remaining differences indicate where a
previous history reveals a significantly lesser likelihood of becoming a murderer
(those with a relative risk score significantly lower than 1). In medical terms the
latter variables would be called ‘protective’ factors (Farrington [2000] uses this term
when referring to social factors in a criminological context).
Taking the variables that indicate high relative risk scores, there are some
anticipated outcomes. For example, increased risks exist for offenders with previous
manslaughter and wounding (endangering life). Murder is 19 times as likely for
those with a previous conviction for the offence of manslaughter compared to those
active criminals without such a conviction, while a previous conviction for
wounding (endangering life) more than doubles the risk. There are also some
surprising findings. The offences of ‘soliciting by a man’ and ‘adulteration of
food/drugs’ have high relative risks of subsequent murder. However, for each of
these, only two of the cases had a previous conviction for the offence, with none of
the controls having such a conviction in their criminal history.
Table 6 shows that where the relative risk was above one and statistically
significant, measures of custody at any previous conviction and custody at the
previous conviction, came into the ‘frequent’ category. Three offences (criminal
damage, other wounding and robbery) also came into this category. Arson, theft
from automated machines and wounding (endangering life) came into the ‘sizeable’
category, while absconding from custody came into the ‘rare’ category. Five
offences were in the ‘unusual’ category – kidnapping; manslaughter; blackmail;
soliciting by a man; and, adulteration of food and drugs; these are considered in
more detail in Chapter 5.
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