Module 2 When Men Kill Men Flashcards
Masculine (male-on-male) homicide general characteristics
- mainly acquaintances and strangers or friends/family members
- young (avg 33yrs victim, 29yrs offender)
- 1/3 unemployed
- when employed often manual labour/semi-skilled
- alcohol often involved - both victim + offender
Masculine homicide - scenarios
Confrontational killings
Revenge/grudge killings
Confrontational homicide characteristics
Face-to-face spontaneous honour contests
Offender + victim engage in a dispute
Leads to death of one (sometimes victim-precipitation)
Just as likely to occur among strangers as among friends/acquaintances
Alcohol common
Revenge homicide characteristics
Planned attacks
Offender plans to kill victim due to a perceived wrongdoing
Weapons common
Victim has little opportunity to engage in altercation
Often history of conflict
Victim-precipitation
Refers to where the ultimate victim is the first person to resort to violence
Locations for confrontational homicides
Take place in a range of locations:
- victim or offenders home
- pubs and clubs
Unintentional victims - revenge killings
Where the victim was the unintended target - either got in the way or mistaken identity
Explaining confrontational homicide - Luckenbill’s 6-stage model
1 - opening move (precipitating event)
2 - interpretation (takes offence)
3 - offender response
4 - victim response
5 - working agreement (commitments to battle)
6 - aftermath (victim dies, offender stays or flees)
Pros of Luckenbill’s model
Recognises both offender and victim have the opportunity to disengage
Cons of Luckenbill’s model
Fails to tackle gendered nature of this form of violence or the importance of social class and age
Masculine theories of confrontational homicide
Tosh - Self-image promoters/defenders
Polk - violence used as a problem-solver by economically marginalised males (‘doing masculinity’)
Explaining revenge homicide
Polk - committed by most marginalised, different types of homicide tap into class distribution at different points
