Women with homicidal offences in forensic hospitals and in the regular penal system

Abstract

The aim of this study is to present the medical and life histories as well as characteristics of the offence constellations of severely mentally disturbed and mentally healthy women who have committed a homicide. The first author collected relevant data on all patients hospitalized in the Berlin Forensic Hospital. These included 12 female patients with attempted or completed homicide. Of these, 9 suffered from a schizophrenic disorder, 2 from a substance addiction and 1 was diagnosed with a personality disorder. These cases are described with respect to some relevant characteristics and casuistically outlined. At the same time, the cases of the 6 women who were serving a life sentence for murder in the Berlin prison system in 2013, i.e. who committed their offences while fully culpable, are briefly described. It is clear from this small group that the motivation for the offence and the social contexts are quite different from those of mentally disturbed offenders. In a gender comparison, the number of completed homicides among women was significantly lower, which could be due not only to differences in physical strength, but also in destructive determination.