Abstract
Female offenders of filicide have been found to receive more lenient legal handling than male offenders. We aimed to discover these possible gender differences in the legal outcome of filicide cases. This was a binational register-based study covering all filicide offenders in Austria and Finland 1995–2005. We examined the legal outcomes of the crimes of all living offenders (64 mothers and 26 fathers). Mothers received a conviction of murder and life imprisonment less often than fathers. Within psychotic and personality-disordered offenders, infanticides, and offenders convicted for life, gender differences were less evident. Even though there seems to be some gender differences within the legal outcomes of filicide, ruling seemed more consistent than expected within distinct subgroups of offenders. Gender-based assumptions should not hinder equal and just handling of filicide cases.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brookman F, Nolan J (2006) The dark figure of infanticide in England and Wales: complexities of diagnosis. J Interpers Violence 21:869–889. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260506288935
Charatan F (2002) Mentally ill mother escapes death penalty but faces life imprisonment. BMJ 324:694
Cheung PT (1986) Maternal filicide in Hong Kong, 1971-85. Med Sci Law 26:185–192
Cohen J (1998) Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences, 2nd edn. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey
Crew BK (1991) Sex differences in criminal sentencing: chivalry or patriarchy? Justice Q 8:59–83
Daly K, Bordt RL (1995) Sex effects and sentencing: an analysis of the statistical literature. Justice Q 12:141–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418829500092601
Dixon S, Krienert JL, Walsh J (2014) Filicide: a gendered profile of offender, victim, and event characteristics in a national sample of reported incidents, 1995–2009. J Crime Justice 37:339–355
Doerner JK (2009) Explaining the gender gap in sentencing outcomes: an investigation of differential treatment in U.S. federal courts. Graduate College of Bowling Green State University
Doralt W (ed) (2017) Kodex Strafrecht 2017/18 [Criminal code of Austria- criminal law]. 47th edn. LexisNexis, Vienna
d'Orban PT (1979) Women who kill their children. Br J Psychiatry 134:560–571
Eronen M, Seppänen A, Kotilainen I (2012) Forensic psychiatry in Finland. Nordic Psychiatrist 1:20–21
Flynn SM, Shaw JJ, Abel KM (2007) Homicide of infants: a cross-sectional study. J Clin Psychiatry 68:1501–1509
Flynn SM, Shaw JJ, Abel KM (2013) Filicide: mental illness in those who kill their children. PLoS One 8:e58981
Franklin CA, Fearn NE (2008) Gender, race, and formal court decision-making outcomes: chivalry/paternalism, conflict theory or gender conflict? J Crim Just 36:279–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crimjus.2008.04.009
Gurevich L (2008) Patriarchy? Paternalism? Motherhood discourses in trials of crimes against children. Sociol Perspect 51:515–539. https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2008.51.3.515
Howell DC (2007) Statistical methods for psychology. Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont
Kaspersson M (2002) Homicide and infanticide in Stockholm 1920-1939. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 3:135–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/14043850310010802
Kauppi A, Kumpulainen K, Karkola K, Vanamo T, Merikanto J (2010) Maternal and paternal filicides: a retrospective review of filicides in Finland. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 38:229–238
Laporte L, Poulin B, Marleau J, Roy R, Webanck T (2003) Filicidal women: jail or psychiatric ward? Can J Psychiatr 48:94–98
Levene S, Bacon CJ (2004) Sudden unexpected death and covert homicide in infancy. Arch Dis Child 89:443–447
Little J, Tyson D (2017) Filicide in Australian media and culture. Interactive Factory. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.182
Marks MN, Kumar R (1993) Infanticide in England and Wales. Med Sci Law 33:329–339
Marks MN, Kumar R (1996) Infanticide in Scotland. Med Sci Law 36:299–305
Meyer GJ, McGrath RE, Rosenthal R (2003) Basic effect size guide with SPSS and SAS Syntax. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/hjpa/resources/basiceffectsizeguide.rtf. Accessed 20 October 2010
Moran MD (2003) Arguments for rejecting the sequential Bonferroni in ecological studies. Oikos 102:403–405
Nakagawa S (2004) A farewell to Bonferroni: the problems of low statistical power and publication bias. Behav Ecol 15:1044–1045. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arh107
Oberman M (2003) Mothers who kill: cross-cultural patterns in and perspectives on contemporary maternal filicide. Int J Law Psychiatry 26:493–514. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-2527(03)00083-9
Orthwein J, Packman W, Jackson R, Bongar B (2010) Filicide: gender bias in California defense attorneys' perception of motive and defense strategies. Psychiatry Psychol Law 17:523–537
Paanila J (2004) Vaarallisten rikoksenuusijoiden uusimisriskiin vaikuttavat tekijät Suomessa 1971–1995. University of Kuopio
Perneger TV (1998) What's wrong with Bonferroni adjustments. BMJ 316:1236–1238
Putkonen H, Collander J, Weizmann-Henelius G, Eronen M (2007a) Legal outcomes of all suspected neonaticides in Finland 1980-2000. Int J Law Psychiatry 30:248–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2007.03.008
Putkonen H, Weizmann-Henelius G, Collander J, Santtila P, Eronen M (2007b) Neonaticides may be more preventable and heterogeneous than previously thought—neonaticides in Finland 1980-2000. Arch Womens Ment Health 10:15–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-006-0161-9
Putkonen H, Amon S, Almiron MP, Yourstone Cederwall J, Eronen M, Klier C, Kjelsberg E, Weizmann-Henelius G (2009) Filicide in Austria and Finland—a register-based study on all filicide cases in Austria and Finland 1995-2005. BMC Psychiatry 9:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-9-74
Putkonen H, Amon S, Eronen M, Klier CM, Almiron MP, Yourstone Cederwall J, Weizmann-Henelius G (2010) Child murder and gender differences—a nationwide register-based study of filicide offenders in two European countries. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology 21:637–648
Putkonen H, Amon S, Almiron MP, Yourstone-Cederwall J, Eronen M, Klier CM, Weizmann-Henelius G (2011) Gender differences in filicide offense characteristics—a comprehensive register-based study of child murder in two European countries. Child Abuse Negl 35:319–328
Putkonen H, Amon S, Weizmann-Henelius G, Pankakoski M, Eronen M, Almiron MP, Klier CM (2016) Classifying filicide. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health 15:1–13
Resnick PJ (1970) Murder of the newborn: a psychiatric review of neonaticide. Am J Psychiatry 126:1414–1420
Rodriguez SF, Curry TR, Lee G (2006) Gender differences in criminal sentencing: do effects vary across violent, property, and drug offenses? Soc Sci Q 87:318–339
Sentencing Advisory Council (2010) Gender differences in sentencing report released. https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/gender-differences-sentencing-report-released. Accessed November 6 2017
Shelton JL, Muirhead Y, Canning KE (2010) Ambivalence toward mothers who kill: an examination of 45 U.S. cases of maternal neonaticide. Behav Sci Law 28:812–831. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.937
Sidebotham P, Retzer A (2018) Maternal filicide in a cohort of English serious case reviews. Archives of Women's Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-018-0820-7 [Epub ahead of print]
Spinelli MG (2004) Maternal infanticide associated with mental illness: prevention and the promise of saved lives. Am J Psychiatry 161:1548–1557. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.9.1548
Spohn C (1999) Gender and sentencing of drug offenders: is chivalry dead? Criminal Justice Policy Review 9:365–399. https://doi.org/10.1177/088740349900900305
Statistics Finland (2005) Crime statistics, Rikokset ja niiden selvittäminen 1995–2004 http://www.stat.fi/tup/tilastotietokannat/index_en.html. Accessed Nov 6, 2007
Steffensmeier D, Kramer J, Streifel C (1993) Gender and imprisonment decisions. Criminology 31:411–446. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1993tb01136.x
Steffensmeier D, Ulmer J, Kramer J (1998) The interaction of race, gender, and age in criminal sentencing: the punishment cost of being young, black, and male. Criminology 36:763–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01265.x
Wiest JB, Duffy M (2013) The impact of gender roles on verdicts and sentences in cases of filicide. A Critical Journal of Crime, Law and Society 26:347–365
Wilczynski A (1997) Child homicide. Greenwich Medical Media, (Chapter 5),
World Health Organization (2005) Core health indicators from WHO sources. http://www.who.int/whosis/en. Accessed August 28, 2008
Yarwood DJ (2004) Child homicide. Review of statistics and studies. Dewar Research. http://www.dewar4research.org/docs/chom.pdf
Yourstone J, Lindholm T, Grann M, Svenson O (2008) Evidence of gender bias in legal insanity evaluations: a case vignette study of clinicians, judges, and students. Nord J Psychiatry 62:273–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/08039480801963135
Acknowledgements
We thank Markku Eronen, Maria P. Almiron, and Jenny Yourstone for their contributions to the European Collaboration of the Understanding of Filicide (E.C.U.F.).
Funding
The Austrian Project was funded by the Austrian National Bank (Jubiläumsfonds AP 12200 ÖNB).
The Finnish research team did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical approval
Ethical approval was granted in Austria by the Austrian Ethics Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Medical University of Vienna and in Finland by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of the Interior, the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman, the Ethics Committee for Pediatrics, and the Adolescent Medicine and Psychiatry of Helsinki University Central Hospital.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no financial interests associated with the funding sponsor for this research, and thus, the authors declare that no conflict of interest exists with respect to this work.
Additional information
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Filicide
Guest Editor: Claudia Klier
Highlights
• A general gender difference did prevail in the legal outcomes of the offenders in the present study.
• Within the subgroup of infanticide, judges seemed to rule more consistently than previously thought.
• Neonaticide legislation, which is only pertinent to mothers, affects the rulings.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Amon, S., Putkonen, H., Weizmann-Henelius, G. et al. Gender differences in legal outcomes of filicide in Austria and Finland. Arch Womens Ment Health 22, 165–172 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-018-0867-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-018-0867-5