Presentations

System Failure and Children at Risk By Dr Elspeth Mc Innes

A presentation focused on family homicides that have resulted due to family court processes in Australia. It draws upon a variety of quality sources in reaching the conclusion that children are just not safe with the current laws that are focused upon appeasing fathers rights groups.

Articles

Why do men kill their wives? By Keith O'Brien The Boston Globe

Could some of these murders really be no more than "divorce substitutes"? The upcoming trials of Neil Entwistle and James Keown might provide some answers. A couple of years ago, Lisa Hartwick was riding in an elevator in Boston when she overheard a conversation between two men. One of the men was going through a divorce, and he was venting to his friend about lawyers and child support payments. At that point, Hartwick recalls, the man suggested, within earshot of everyone, that maybe he should just kill his wife, that it would be cheaper and easier that way. Hartwick, the director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Recovery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was stunned.

FAMILY LAW COMMITTEE IGNORES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DEATH TOLL By Dr Elspeth McInnes NCSMC

The annual domestic violence death toll in Australia was 76 adults and 23 children in the 2002-03 financial year, but proposed family law amendments seek to make it harder for mothers and children to achieve safety from violent ex-partners and fathers. The Convenor of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children, Dr Elspeth McInnes said the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee report into the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 prioritised fathers’ rights groups propaganda that mothers falsely allege violence and abuse, despite national and international research repeatedly confirming that violence was prevalent, severe and under-reported in family breakdown disputes.

Homicide in Australia : 2005-06 National Homicide Monitoring Program annual report Megan Davies and Jenny Mouzos

This report presents tabulated information on the circumstances and characteristics of homicide in Australia for the fiscal year 2005-06. In addition, the report contains jurisdictional breakdowns for comparative purposes and some long-term trend data across the sixteen-year NHMP data collection period. In 2005-06, there were 283 incidents of homicide, resulting in 301 victims and committed by 336 offenders. Since 2001-02, there has been a downward trend in the incidence of homicide, however during the current year, it has increased by 14% compared to 2004-05. This represents an increase of 34 homicide incidents. The overall trend in the incidence of homicide has remained stable over the 17-year period since the Australian Institute of Criminology began monitoring in 1989. Attention is paid in the report to identifying changing factors in homicide in Australia. It also includes an additional section that gives an overview of the types of homicidal encounters in Australia: intimate partner violence, child homicide, homicide between persons known to each other, and stranger-related murders.

Family Homicide in Australia By Jenny Mouzos and Catherine Rushforth

The family is viewed by most people as providing a nurturing and loving environment. But for some, the family environment can be deadly. In Australia, almost two in five homicides occur between family members, with an average of 129 family homicides each year.
The majority of family homicides occur between intimate partners (60 per cent), and three-quarters of intimate partner homicides involve males killing their female partners. On average, 25 children are killed each year by a parent, with children under the age of one at the highest risk of victimisation.
The less common types of family homicide include children killing their parents (12 incidents per year), homicide between siblings (six incidents per year), and homicides between other family members (11 incidents per year).
This paper explores the differences in the characteristics of the various types of family homicides in Australia and highlights the need for specific prevention strategies to target these homicides.

2007 Femicide Report from the Minnesota Centre for Battered Women

We remember our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers, our daughters, our sons, our wives, our husbands, our intimate partners, our family members, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, our fellow Minnesotans...

NSW Domestic Violence Committee Coalition Black & Blue Campaign 2008 Understanding why women die: Domestic Violence Homicide Review. Compiled by the Centre for Women’s Health

Domestic violence-related homicide in Australia1 • During 2005–06, a total of 74 intimate partner homicides occurred, up from 66 in 2004–05. • 80% of intimate partner homicides involved a male offender killing his female partner (n=59). • 78% of intimate partner homicides occurred in residential premises (n=58). • 65% of intimate partner homicides were associated with some form of domestic violence, indicated by the presence of legal intervention orders or a recorded history of domestic violence (n=48). • Out of the 74 intimate partner homicides, 24% involved an Indigenous victim or offender (n=18), while 16% involved both an Indigenous victim and offender (n=12). • 35 children under the age of 15 years were killed in 2005-06. 11 of these homicides involved the death of infants aged less than 12 months. 80% percent of the child homicides occurred in a residential location (n=28), • The overwhelming majority (92%) of child homicides were committed by a family member, usually a parent (32 out of 34 recorded family relationships). 1

Fathers Who Kill By Kathryn Ramsland

No one guessed that when Ronald Gene Simmons, 47, gunned down several people on the morning of December 28, 1987 in Russellville, Arkansas, he was actually winding down. What appeared to be a contained incident of workplace violence was far worse. Indeed, it set a record. His story is told in Zero at the Bone, by Bryce Marshall and Paul Williams, as well as in Charles Patrick Ewing's Fatal Families, and in newspaper articles and several Internet sites devoted to crime. With a .22-caliber pistol, he shot Kathy Kendrick, a receptionist at a law office, a half dozen times in the head, and then moved on down the street to the Taylor Oil Company. He shot two men there and then went into a convenience store, where he once was employed. He had quit a week before, and here he pulled out his gun and shot two more men. He ended his 45-minute spree in the Woodline Motor Freight Company, where he wounded a woman and took another hostage, telling her he was done with his mission. He assured her that since she had never done anything wrong by him, he was not going to hurt her. He urged her to call police.

Fatal Families By Charles Patrick Ewing

For most Americans regardless of where they live the risk of being murdered is much greater in their own homes than on any main street on which they are ever likely to walk. Every year, nearly half of the more than 20,0000 homicide victims are related to or acquainted with their killers. Alcohol abuse, mental illness, and criminality figure largely in intrafamilial homicide. But, whatever the scenario behind the murder, murder within families is the most chilling and frightening of all crimes. Fatal Families examines the nature, causes, and consequences of family homicide in modern American society. Using a case study approach, author Charles Patrick Ewing explores the social, cultural, and psychological forces that lead people to kill members of their own families. Drawing on his professional background in both law and psychology, he points the way to measures that can be taken to halt the steady pace of murder within families. Examining a horrifying but necessary topic, Fatal Families will be vitally important to professionals and students in family studies, criminology, interpersonal violence, psychology, social work, and urban studies.