Counting the days: Exploring the post-mortem interval factors in sexual homicides.

This study explores the offender, victim, and environmental characteristics that significantly influence the number of days a sexual homicide victim remains undiscovered. Utilizing a sample of 269 cases from the Homicide Investigation Tracking System database an in-depth analysis was conducted to unveil the factors contributing to the delay in the discovery of victims' bodies. The methodological approach involves applying a negative binomial regression analysis, which allows for the examination of count data, specifically addressing the over-dispersion and excess zeros in the dependent variable - the number of days until the victim is found. The findings reveal that certain offender characteristics, victim traits, and spatio-temporal factors play a pivotal role in the time lag experienced in locating the bodies of homicide victims. These findings have crucial implications for investigative efforts in homicide cases, offering valuable insights that can inform and enhance the efficacy and efficiency of future investigative procedures and strategies.

Sadistic Sexual Crimes Against Children: Comparing the Manifestation of Sexual Sadism and Crime-Commission Process.

Individuals who commit sexual offenses against children have been shown to be distinctive from adult offenders across both individual and crime characteristics. However, an examination of the literature shows that there are gaps in the research related to whether sadism manifests differently between those who target child compared to adult victims. The current study therefore aimed to explore the differences in the characteristics, crime-commission process, and the dimensions of sadism between sadistic crimes of children (n = 101) compared to those of adults (n = 433). Sexual sadism was assessed with the Sexual Sadism Scale (SeSaS) and binary logistic regression analysis and multidimensional scale analysis (MDS) were performed to examine differences between these two groups. Our results showed that sadistic fantasies manifested into four dimensions for both adult and child victims. In terms of differences, sadistic sexual offenses involving children appear to be reflective of deviant fantasies related to overlapping paraphilias (e.g., sadism and pedophilia). Conversely, sadistic crimes involving adult victims involve a crime-commission process that involves a greater degree of structure to control their adult victim and decrease their risk of identification. Implications for clinical assessment and police investigations are discussed.

Manifestations of sexual sadism in child sexual assault and the associated victim, offender, and offense characteristics: A latent class analysis.

BACKGROUND: Although sadistic child sexual abuse (SCSA) is rare, existing typologies of child sexual abuse have identified the existence of sadistic subtypes in child molestation, as well in the sexual homicide of children. Nonetheless, no study has sought to determine whether there is heterogeneity in the manifestation of sexual sadism between sadistic child abusers. OBJECTIVE: The present study seeks to examine how SCSA manifests differently between offenders, and whether these differences are associated with specific victim, offender, and offense characteristics. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The current sample includes adult males (N = 101) who were involved in a child sexual assault and scored at least a 4 on the Severe Sexual Sadism Scale (SeSas). All offenses take place in France between 1990 and 2018. METHODS: Latent class analysis was used to analyze the sample for heterogeneity. Bivariate analyses were conducted to identify external variables associated with each of the latent classes. RESULTS: Three distinct latent classes were found: the sadistic kidnapper; the sadistic torturer; and the sadistic ritualist. External validity testing also revealed distinctive characteristics associated with each class. CONCLUSIONS: SCSA involves a heterogenous population with distinctive sadistic behavioral manifestations that vary in severity and relate to differences in crime-commission processes and offender characteristics. These findings offer important insights for crime prevention and correctional practice.

Expert Versus Novice: Criminal Expertise in Sexual Burglary and Sexual Robbery.

Although there has been considerable variation in the application of expertise to offending populations, one aspect that is widely agreed upon is that expertise is best represented on a continuum from novice to expert. The present study, therefore, investigated criminal expertise in 877 hybrid offenses that involve sexual assault and robbery (i.e., sexual robbery) or burglary (i.e., sexual burglary). Specifically, we analyzed the crime-commission processes of both these offenses using latent class analyses to determine the heterogeneity of criminal expertise among each domain. Results showed an expert to novice continuum in both domains, including a "domain-specific" expert sexual burglary subgroup who was characterized by a high degree of offense-related competencies relevant to sexual burglary. We also found an expert subgroup in sexual robbery who had more general skills (i.e., overlapping expertise) relevant to violent offending. Implications for offender decision-making, treatment, and practice are discussed.

Variants of psychopathic personality in Korean and UK incarcerated offenders: Using latent profile analysis and discriminant analysis.

Since the popularization of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), research on the construct of psychopathy has drastically increased. However, there has been little research examining the extent to which psychopathy varies across different cultures. This study is the first to use latent profile analysis to examine cultural variations in psychopathic traits between large samples of male inmates in Korean (n = 1102) and UK (n = 1316) prisons. Supplementary discriminate analysis was also used to validate the classification profiles and determine which items of the PCL-R were most important in defining the differences or similarities between each of the classes in the two large samples. Based on the analysis, two variants of primary psychopathy could be distinguished in the Korean sample but not in the UK sample. Conversely, only secondary psychopathy was identified in the UK sample. This result was also confirmed by supplementary analysis, which verified classification accuracy and also provided structure matrixes listing the correlations between each PCL-R item and the two discriminant functions. Our results point to the possibility of cultural differences in the structure of psychopathy and provide practical implications for clinical assessment and diagnosis.

Criminal Expertise and Sexual Violence: Comparing the Crime-Commission Process Involved in Sexual Burglary and Sexual Robbery.

Criminal expertise relates to the notion that some individuals may develop domain-specific offending skills that differentiate them from those with less skills or experience (i.e., novices). In the expertise literature, burglary has emerged as a distinct type of "expert" offense, therefore the current study sought to determine whether criminal expertise is more evident in the crime-commission process of sexual burglary compared to sexual robbery. We used binary logistic regression to compare the pre-crime, crime, and post-crime behaviors of 870 cases of hybrid sexual assault that occurred during the commission of either a burglary (N = 319) (or) robbery (N = 479), both of which involved personal theft from a stranger victim. Findings suggest that the crime commission process of sexual burglary involves a more sophisticated modus operandi and greater expertise in detection avoidance (e.g., strategies to protect their identity and destroying and removing evidence) compared to sexual robbery.

Making sense of senseless murders: The who, what, when, and where?

The phenomenon of "senseless" or "motiveless" homicide refers to homicides that lack an objective external motivation. Despite the unique challenges these homicides pose to police, few empirical studies have been conducted on the topic and existing studies are limited to clinical studies using small samples. To overcome existing empirical shortcomings, the current study used a sample of 319 homicide cases where no motive was established during the investigation to describe the "who" (offender and victim characteristics), "what" (modus operandi, crime characteristics), "where" (encounter, crime, and body recovery associated locations), and "when" (time of the crime) of the entire criminal event. Findings provide insight into the entire crime-commission process and suggest a different dynamic to "senseless" homicide from what has been described in previous literature. Implications for police investigative practice are discussed.