Homicide's Ripple Effects: A Systematic Review into the Impacts on the Social Networks of Victims and Perpetrators

• In Event: Framing Victimization in a Digital Age

Abstract

Homicide is the intentional criminal act of violence that results in the death of an individual, and is considered one of the most damaging and costly crimes to society. The harms of homicide – e.g. psychological, social and economic - can ripple out to impact the social networks of both the victim and the perpetrator. For example, for each homicide victim, about 3 to 10 family members become ‘co-victims’ (Bastomski & Duane 2019), additionally close friends and family-in-law may become co-victims. Various studies have investigated homicide’s impact on co-victims– especially in the last two decades - whereas less is known about the impacts on the social networks of the homicide offenders, referred to as ‘homicide parallel victims’, which may also be significant. With some regularity, the social networks of homicide victim and offender overlap (e.g. within a family), resulting in combined co-victimization and parallel victimization. A greater understanding of psychological, social, and economic burdens associated indirect homicide victimization is needed for several areas of policy, practice and research. In this systematic review we examined the harms associated with indirect victimization of homicide. Our systematic search – aided by the Abstrackr AI algorithm- resulted in 133 manuscripts on impacts, harms or outcomes in indirect victims of homicide, spanning the following topics: mental health, antisocial behavior, physical health, cognitive and daily functioning, substance use, family functioning, living situation, social relationships, employment, education, finances, and criminal victimization. We will present the current state of the art on homicide co-victimization, parallel victimization and combined victimization, identifying areas for future research.

Authors

• Pascalle Spaan, NSCR: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement

• Alexandra Voce, Australian Institute of Criminology

• Arjan Blokland, NSCR