Threats to Kill - Some Answered Questions and Some Unanswered Ones

• In Event: Special Types of Homicide and Homicide Threats

Abstract

Making threats to kill has been a neglected topic in criminological research. We examine England and Wales data and identify what is known and what is yet to be known about this offense.
What is known is that there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of ‘threats to kill’ offenses recorded by the police in England and Wales since the early 1980s, but this has not been matched by a similar increase in convictions. Figures from the Crime Survey of England and Wales also suggest that the majority of threats to kill instances are not reported.

Another focus of this paper is to consider the extent to which persons convicted of threats to kill subsequently go on to be convicted of homicide. This will focus on the 10,792 males and 781 females who were convicted at least once for ‘threat or conspiracy to murder’ between 1963 and 2001. Of these, 7.8% of the males and 7.7% of the females had convictions for ‘threat or conspiracy to murder’ on more than one occasion.
The follow-up will assess the likelihood of homicide of those convicted of threats to kill compared with some other types of serious offenders.

Author

• Brian Francis, Lancaster University, UK