Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Behav Sci Law. 2021 Apr;39(2):230-244. doi: 10.1002/bsl.2513. Epub 2021 Apr 16.
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.
“无意义”或“无动机”杀人现象是指缺乏客观外部动机的杀人案件。尽管这些杀人案件给警方带来了独特的挑战，但很少有实证研究对此进行探讨，而且现有的研究仅限于使用小样本的临床研究。为了克服现有实证研究的不足，本研究使用了一个 319 起杀人案件的样本，这些案件在调查过程中没有确定动机，以描述整个犯罪事件的“谁”（犯罪人和受害者的特征）、“什么”（作案手法、犯罪特征）、“何处”（遭遇、犯罪和尸体发现地点）和“何时”（犯罪时间）。研究结果深入了解了整个犯罪实施过程，并从之前文献中所描述的内容来看，提出了“无意义”杀人案件的不同动态。文章还讨论了这些发现对警方调查实践的意义。
