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

Relationships – family, acquaintance and stranger murders
More detailed analysis of the murder cases was undertaken by relating specific OI
murder conviction cases to the relevant details recorded on the HI. Important
differences were found to exist between different types of murder. Hence, while the
proportions of those having any previous conviction did not differ significantly
between the different types of murder, the profiles of the previous criminal history
were far from uniform across the types of murder. Hence:
● Those convicted of a murder of a family member were found to have very
different risk factors from the general run of offenders and other types of
murderer. Those with the comparatively rare offence of threats/incitement to
murder were nearly 12 times as likely as general offenders to be convicted of the
murder of a family member. This was the only previous conviction that
significantly increased the risk of subsequent conviction for a family murder.
However, when compared with ‘violent’ controls, it emerged that a conviction
for this offence was a risk factor for a subsequent violence conviction rather than
specifically for the murder of a family member.
● The offence of ‘robbery and assaults with intent to rob’ was found to be a
significant risk factor that doubled the risk of a subsequent conviction for murder
of a male stranger and trebled the risk of an acquaintance murder. This was also
the only offence to significantly increase the risk of murder of a female stranger
(by four and a half times), but very small numbers in this category may act
against other differences emerging.
● Convictions for wounding and blackmail were found to distinguish violent
offenders rather than murderers from general offenders.
Discussion
This study has revealed that convictions for certain types of offence appear to
increase the relative risk for subsequent convictions for very serious offences. In
particular, the study has highlighted a number of ‘unusual’ offences which appear to
significantly increase the likelihood of a subsequent criminal conviction of murder
or serious sexual assault. The limitations of this approach are clearly acknowledged.
The process of attrition means that only a proportion of all offences result in
convictions (and indeed changes in disposal policy, such as the move towards
greater use of cautioning, means that the picture alters over time). Furthermore,
within the broad offence categories for both target and previous convictions are
many different varieties of offending behaviour.
(vii)