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Matricide and Patricide
A father is riddled with bullets; a mother is stabbed multiple times; a family of four—father, mother, and two of their children—is slaughtered by a son, a daughter, acting alone or with others. Crimes like these are universally viewed as abhorrent and have been for centuries. Literary themes involving such figures as Oedipus, Orestes, Alcmaeon, and King Arthur reflect that society has reacted to the killing of one's parents with horror for thousands of years.
In the early 1980s, attention in the United States began to focus on several cases of adolescents who killed one or both parents under harrowing circumstances. From that time on, the term parricide, while technically referring to the killing of a close relative, has become increasingly identified in the public's mind with the killing of a parent. Patricide and matricide are the precise terms used to refer to the killings of a father and a mother, respectively.
Incidence and Victim and Offender Characteristics
During the last two decades in the United States, on average, four to six parents have been killed weekly by their children. Despite interest in this phenomenon, only one comprehensive study of parricides committed in the United States currently exists. Analysis of all homicides for the period 1977 to 1986, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplemental Homicide Report, revealed that the typical parent or stepparent slain was white and non-Hispanic and was killed in a single-victim, single-offender situation. The typical father killed was in his early 50s; the mother, in her late 50s; the stepfather, in his mid-40s; and the stepmother, in her late 40s or early 50s.
The typical offender who killed a parent or stepparent was also white and non-Hispanic. Sons were the killers in 85 percent to 87 percent of homicides involving fathers, mothers, stepfathers, and stepmothers. The percentages of males arrested for committing these types of parricides was approximately equal to their 87 percent representation among all homicide arrestees during this period. There were no significant differences in the percentages of parents and stepparents killed by juvenile and adult sons and daughters (Heide, 1993a, 1995).
In contrast to media depiction and public perception, the overwhelming majority of children who killed fathers, mothers, and stepparents in the United States between 1977 and 1986 were over age 18. Involvement of youth in parricide, however, was fairly significant given their proportionate representation in the population. Analysis of single-victim/single-offender parricides indicated that 25 percent of fathers and 15 percent of mothers were slain by biological children less than 18 years of age. The percentages of stepparents killed by youths under 18 was even higher: 34 percent of stepfathers and 30 percent of stepmothers were slain by youths under 18 (Heide, 1993a, 1995).
Types of Parricide Offenders
Adolescent parricide offenders (APOs) are typically presented in the popular and professional literature as prosocial youths in fear of their lives, often killing to protect themselves or others from death or serious physical injury or to end the chronic abuse they and other family members suffer (Heide, 1993a).
In these cases, an extensive history of abuse is often easily corroborated by interviews with relatives, neighbors, and friends. These youths increasingly come to perceive that their physical well-being is threatened or their psychological survival is at stake. They kill in response to terror or in desperation. From their perspective, there is no way out other than murder.
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- Delinquency Theories and Theorists
- Albert Cohen
- Biological Theories
- Clifford Shaw
- Cycle of Violence
- Edwin Sutherland
- Fredrick Thrasher
- Henry McKay
- James Short
- Joan McCord
- Lamar T. Empey
- Lloyd Ohlin
- Marvin Wolfgang
- Psychological Theories
- Richard Cloward
- Ruth Shonle Cavan
- Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck
- Sociological Theories
- Solomon Kobrin
- Stanley G. Hall
- Thorsten Sellin
- Travis Hirschi
- Walter Miller
- Walter Reckless
- Historical References: People and Projects
- Delinquent Behavior
- Treatment and Interventions for Delinquency
- Aftercare
- Alternative Schools
- Assessment
- Boot Camps
- Boys and girls Clubs
- community action boards
- Culturally Specific Programming
- curfews
- DARE
- Detention Facilities
- family therapy
- Group Homes
- group therapy
- mediation
- out of home placement
- police responses to delinquency
- Prevention strategies
- probation
- Scared Straight
- Teen courts
- victim offender
- Wilderness Programs
- Juvenile Law and Legislative Initiatives
- California Street Terrorism Enforcement & Prevention
- California Youth Authority
- Death Penalty
- Diversion
- Foster Care
- Guardian Ad Litem
- Juvenile Courts
- Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act
- Juvenile Law
- National Council of Juvenile & Family Court Judges
- National Council on Crime & Delinquency
- Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
- parens patriae
- Parental liability laws
- Waivers to Adult Court
- Juvenile Issues and Public Policy
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