SOC 2700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Filicide, Neonaticide, Child Murder

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2700
• Professor: Reza Barmaki

Document Summary

Bourget, dominique, jennifer grace, and laurie whitehurst: a review of maternal and paternal filicide. American academy of psychiatry and the law 35: 74-82. The terms filicide, neonaticide and infanticide have been used interchangeably in the literature on child homicide. Filicide is the murder of a child by a parent, where neonaticide specifies the killing of a child on the day of birth. Infanticide is the killing of a child under the age of 12 months by a mother who has not fully recovered from the effects of pregnancy and lactation and suffers some degree of mental disturbance. In canada in 2004, 27 children were killed by their parents. Mothers and fathers were equally responsible for killing their children. The parent committed suicide in over one firth of this incidents (22%) There is a classification to show why there is an impulse for a parents homicidal act.