Criminology Research Council grant ; (1/81)
This was essentially a study of all homicides known to the police in New South Wales over the fourteen-year period 196881. There were 1393 cases. The study followed and made use of two earlier studies covering 1933-57 and 1958-67. Thus, for some analyses, data covering forty-nine years were available. The report developed a typology of homicide, the most important aspects of which related to: spouse killing, child killing, other domestic homicides, homicides beyond the family and murder-suicide. The enormous differences between these types in motivation, method, circumstances and culpability make a mockery of homicide as a unitary concept. The typology also demonstrated the inappropriateness of dealing with all homicide cases in the same way.