Fathers and Murders: a retrospective study of paternal filicide in Italy

Background. An amount of literature has heavy focused on homicidal mothers. Nevertheless, due to the lower frequency of these events, yet little is known about the paternal filicides. Aim. The purpose of this study was to identify the spatio-temporal coordinates, authors and victims characteristics, and the context in which these murders take place, in order to identify specific patterns. Methods. We analyzed 76 events occurred in Italy, between 1996 and 2012 involving 134 victims. The data were collected through a careful and thorough review of the daily press and encoded on a Excel ® sheet specially designed for data collection. Results. Findings show a significant incidence of psychiatric disorders, history of violent behavior, employment problems and low-skilled professional roles. In particular, violence seems to be determined by the fear of loss which is more common among the common law partner and among youngest male, especially when son is far. Conclusion. The in-depth analysis of the phenomenon may contribute to its best knowledge and to identify the areas on which psycho-social intervention, based on prevention best practices, are required

Gli omicidi familiari commessi dai migranti in Italia (1996-2009)

The authors highlight the scarcity of attention paid to criminal and violent acts that occur within groups of minority immigrants and which can be traced to their precarious life conditions, in particular the upheaval of being uprooted and conflict deriving from having to fit into a very different culture from the one of origin; factors that inevitably reverberate within the dynamics of the family. Under this perspective, we studied all cases of family homicides committed by immigrants in Italy from 1 January 1996 to 5 May 2009. The data were collected by conducting a thorough search of the daily newspapers and were studied by monovariate, bivariate and trivariate analysis using the statistical software SPSS 15.0.Gli AA sottolineano la scarsa attenzione dedicata alle forme di criminalità e violenza che si producono all’interno delle minoranze immigrate e che sono riconducibili alla precarietà delle condizioni di vita di questi soggetti e soprattutto alle condizioni di sradicamento e di conflitto derivanti dall’inserimento in contesti culturali assai diversi da quelli di provenienza, che inevitabilmente si riverberano sulle dinamiche interfamiliari. In questa ottica sono stati studiati tutti i casi di omicidio familiare commessi in Italia da soggetti immigrati fra il 1 gennaio 1996 ed il 5 maggio 2009. I dati, rilevati attraverso una puntuale e accurata rassegna della stampa quotidiana, sono stati studiati attraverso l’analisi monovariata, bivariata e trivariata utilizzando il programma statistico SPSS 15.0