Homicide suicide (HS) is rare phenomenon where an individual kills one or more people and then commits suicide, normally within a week or less. The suicide must be related to the homicide in order for it to be classified as a HS event. In South Africa, there is no national surveillance system tracking HS events which makes researching this phenomenon difficult. As a result, little research has been conducted in South Africa. This study aimed to determine, through media reports, the annual incident rates, the demographic profiles of the perpetrator and victims involved and the various features of HS in South Africa from 2002 to 2009. The findings of the present study are also compared to other international and national findings. This quantitative study analysed 328 HS events that were reported in nine national newspapers over an eight-year period. The results found that the typical South African HS perpetrator reported in the media is likely to be 37 years of age, male and black African. He would most likely be employed in the security sector and his victim would typically be a 25 year old, would be an intimate partner. Shooting was the most common method for the homicide and the suicide in HS events. The study concluded that the general demographics and patterns were similar to national and international studies. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

Thesis (M.A. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo / The aim of the current study was to explore and describe the views on child homicide by mothers. The qualitative research approach, and in particular the phenomenological method of inquiry was used. A sample of seventeen mothers (with ages ranging from thirteen to fifty three years) was drawn from four female correctional centres in South Africa, namely; Thohoyandou (Limpopo Province), Polokwane (Limpopo Province), Johannesburg correctional centre (Gauteng Province) and Durban Westville correctional centre (KwaZulu-Natal Province). The sample was obtained through purposive sampling. All the participants were interviewed using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the phenomenological method. The themes that emerged from data analysis were: a) Motives for child homicide; b) Type of methods used in child homicide; and, c) Pre- and post-homicidal ideations and behaviour. The study revealed that there were different motives leading mothers to commit child homicide. These included: child homicide as a result of everyday stressors that the mothers encountered;child homicide as an act of altruism; child homicide to gain acceptance; perpetrators of child homicide as victims of abuse; child homicide as accidental; child homicide attributed to witchcraft; and, mental illness as amotive for child homicide. The study also highlighted different types of methods used by the mothers to commit child homicide. The methods included: the use of weapons; hitting, dropping and strangling; suffocation; drowning; and, poisoning. The findings also suggested that pre-homicidal ideations and behaviour of the participants were associated with anger, depression, frustration and self blame. The participants showed post-homicidal ideations and behaviour such as remorse, regret and guilt, whilst others felt a sense of relief and were somehow hopeful about the future. The study is concluded by making recommendations for further research on child homicide based on larger samples.

Thesis (M. A. (Psychology)) --University of Limpopo, 2014 / The aim of the current study was to explore and describe the views on child homicide by mothers. The qualitative research approach, and in particular the phenomenological method of inquiry was used. A sample of seventeen mothers (with ages ranging from thirteen to fifty three years) was drawn from four female correctional centres in South Africa, namely; Thohoyandou (Limpopo Province), Polokwane (Limpopo Province), Johannesburg correctional centre (Gauteng Province) and Durban Westville correctional centre (KwaZulu-Natal Province). The sample was obtained through purposive sampling. All the participants were interviewed using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the phenomenological method. The themes that emerged from data analysis were: a) Motives for child homicide; b) Type of methods used in child homicide; and, c) Pre- and post-homicidal ideations and behaviour. The study revealed that there were different motives leading mothers to commit child homicide. These included: child homicide as a result of everyday stressors that the mothers encountered;child homicide as an act of altruism; child homicide to gain acceptance; perpetrators of child homicide as victims of abuse; child homicide as accidental; child homicide attributed to witchcraft; and, mental illness as amotive for child homicide. The study also highlighted different types of methods used by the mothers to commit child homicide. The methods included: the use of weapons; hitting, dropping and strangling; suffocation; drowning; and, poisoning. The findings also suggested that pre-homicidal ideations and behaviour of the participants were associated with anger, depression, frustration and self blame. The participants showed post-homicidal ideations and behaviour such as remorse, regret and guilt, whilst others felt a sense of relief and were somehow hopeful about the future. The study is concluded by making recommendations for further research on child homicide based on larger samples.

This work provides a statistical analysis and interpretation of homicide rates and patterns in South Africa for the years 1948 to 2003. Complied from data accessed from the South African Police Services, Mortuary Reports, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Non Government Organisations the patterns of homicide according to race, gender and age are analysed. This thesis proposes that the anomic condition of South African society is a key contributor to the creation and maintenance of the high levels of homicide found in this society. The normalisation of inter-personal violence through the collective conscious of communities and individuals has resulted in the growth of homicide and its continued high levels ten years after the end of Apartheid. This hypothesis is further supported through a survey conducted upon teenage subjects in Kwa-Zulu Natal province of their attitudes towards the use of violence. This work demonstrated strong positive support for interpersonal violence by members of the police and state. The survey also showed significant racial and gender differences in attitudes. The anomic conditions that continue to be present in South Africa will contribute to the weakness of the criminal justice system, and the willingness of individuals and communities to use their own resources to combat crime rather than rely upon the state and its agents for protection. The result being a continued high level of violence and a weak criminal justice system. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

M.A. / A sample population of nine men arrested in Johannesburg, for killing their female partners (former spouse or girlfriend) is analyzed in the context of their killings. The analysis approaches homicide as a Public Health problem and a preventable phenomenon. The analysis proceeds from Public Health and Bulhanian theoretical perspectives. These theories emphasize the relationship and interplay between the social, political, psychological and economic environments and the overall effect they have on individual processes. By contextualising the homicide event into pre-event, event and post-event categories, the study is able to identify risk factors which played a role in the homicide act. The tool of analysis employed in the service of this study is called the Haddon Matrix and is widely used in the Public Health domain as a means of identifying and considering, section by section, the risk factors associated with the injury, the relevant research and other knowledge available and what is needed for the future and the priorities for countermeasures. Analysis includes demographic and social characteristics of the perpetrator and the incident. The results indicate problems in education, communication and the concept of the nuclear family. In the Public Health-Bulhanian sense, the results indicate that the homicide incident originates and occurs within the context of the prevailing conditions of social structural constraint, in the experienced psychological strain of individuals and in the prevailing threshold of social tolerance. The lack of basic human needs, such as professional help, for example, is an indication of the impact that the cumulative effect of social structural constraint has on the family's health. The study also found that individuals experience trauma and pain in a context where objective social conditions affect the rights and privileges of individuals and there is a strain being created on the subjective world of perception, feeling and meaning. It is this wealth of information on the trauma points which presents opportunities for prevention. Among the proposed areas for interventions are: Change individual knowledge, skills or attitudes, such as conflict resolution education, for example. Change social environments, such as better housing, economic incentives for family stability and counselling centres. Change physical environments and agents of violence, such as the availability of dangerous weapons and the increased policing of high risk areas, for example. In conclusion, the study aspires to enrich existing debate in the area of homicide as a Public Health issue.

Thesis (M.Med. (Forensic Pathology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Introduction and background: Hanging deaths contribute to premature mortality locally and globally. Aim: The study aimed to provide a profile of hanging deaths in Polokwane and Lebowakgomo Forensic Pathology Service laboratories in the Limpopo Province. Method: A quantitative retrospective study was conducted using sample size of 141 hanging death victims that were selected using systematic random sampling from hanging deaths admitted to Polokwane and Lebowakgomo Forensic Pathology Service laboratories over a period of 2 years. Results: The study revealed that majority of hanging deaths were adults aged 20-29. There was male predominance and majority of the victims were unemployed. The hanging deaths victims were mostly discovered in the morning and the peak period was over the weekend. The peak season was summer. The post-mortem neck findings included visible ligature mark, located above the thyroid cartilage and there were few associated injuries on the internal neck structures. The alleged manner of death of the cases was predominantly suicide, few of the deaths were homicide hanging deaths and no there were no reported accidental cases. Conclusion: The profile of hanging deaths identified was similar to that of reviewed literature. .

The extant South African literature base on male homicide is relatively small and reveals a paucity of qualitative studies. This study aimed to elicit discourses embedded within the narratives of men involved in homicidal encounters, and to analyse them from a social constructionist perspective. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 30 male prisoners who were convicted of murder. An analysis of narrative forms, followed by a critical discourse analysis of the narrative contents, was conducted and aimed to assess the social and ideological significance, functions and effects of these discourses. Participants' talk included masculine performances that allowed for positive self-presentation and ways of constructing meaning of their actions for themselves, the interviewer and an `invisible audience'. Narrative forms of stability/continuity, decline, and transformation/growth that relied on normalising, reifying, tipping point, propitiatory and rehabilitatory lexical registers were deployed as a means to position participants as reasonable, normal, rehabilitated, and as `successful' men. Within the narrative contents, participants constructed homicide through exculpatory and justificatory discourses to rationalise and minimise their agency, and drew on essentialist, moral and deterministic notions of male violence. Discourses of spectacular and instrumental violence were also evident. References to male honour, status and power; a defence against emasculation; the assertion of control over commodified female partners; the maintenance of referent familist and ageist discourses; and the normalisation of male violence as a utilitarian tool to access resources in unequal social contexts, underpinned these discourses. The homicidal acts thus represented adapted performances of hegemonic masculinity in a noxious context where this dominant form of masculinity is often unattainable. While participants' talk reproduced hegemonic constructions of masculinity within broader social contexts, it also contested hegemonic orders of moral discourses that govern the legitimacy or illegitimacy of violence. The findings reveal how contexts of discoursal production have a contradictory response to violence - denouncing it, but also simultaneously acting as a pernicious incubatory environment for male homicide. It concludes that the prevention of male homicide must involve the de-linking of masculinities and violence at material, structural and institutional levels, but also within systems of signification, if non-violent masculinities are to gain ascendancy. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil.(Psychology)

The extant South African literature base on male homicide is relatively small and reveals a paucity of qualitative studies. This study aimed to elicit discourses embedded within the narratives of men involved in homicidal encounters, and to analyse them from a social constructionist perspective. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 30 male prisoners who were convicted of murder. An analysis of narrative forms, followed by a critical discourse analysis of the narrative contents, was conducted and aimed to assess the social and ideological significance, functions and effects of these discourses. Participants' talk included masculine performances that allowed for positive self-presentation and ways of constructing meaning of their actions for themselves, the interviewer and an `invisible audience'. Narrative forms of stability/continuity, decline, and transformation/growth that relied on normalising, reifying, tipping point, propitiatory and rehabilitatory lexical registers were deployed as a means to position participants as reasonable, normal, rehabilitated, and as `successful' men. Within the narrative contents, participants constructed homicide through exculpatory and justificatory discourses to rationalise and minimise their agency, and drew on essentialist, moral and deterministic notions of male violence. Discourses of spectacular and instrumental violence were also evident. References to male honour, status and power; a defence against emasculation; the assertion of control over commodified female partners; the maintenance of referent familist and ageist discourses; and the normalisation of male violence as a utilitarian tool to access resources in unequal social contexts, underpinned these discourses. The homicidal acts thus represented adapted performances of hegemonic masculinity in a noxious context where this dominant form of masculinity is often unattainable. While participants' talk reproduced hegemonic constructions of masculinity within broader social contexts, it also contested hegemonic orders of moral discourses that govern the legitimacy or illegitimacy of violence. The findings reveal how contexts of discoursal production have a contradictory response to violence - denouncing it, but also simultaneously acting as a pernicious incubatory environment for male homicide. It concludes that the prevention of male homicide must involve the de-linking of masculinities and violence at material, structural and institutional levels, but also within systems of signification, if non-violent masculinities are to gain ascendancy. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil.(Psychology)

For decades there has been growing interest into the crime of child murders. Emphasis was placed on victims and those at risk. Not much focus was placed on perpetrators and their families. Evidence suggests that the family and social systems play a vital role in determining adult violent behaviour. This qualitative study aims to explore the experiences of convicted child murderers in their family and social system. Data was collected and analysed, using genogram interviews and analysis. Themes were highlighted using hermeneutic thematic analysis, within a post-modern paradigm. Results were presented in the form of genogram analysis and thematic content analysis. Prominent themes that arose were separation, rejection, abuse, neglect and substance abuse. These life experiences together with poor education are some of the characteristics that may have contributed to the child murderers actions towards children. / Psychology / M. A. (Clinical Psychology)

For decades there has been growing interest into the crime of child murders. Emphasis was placed on victims and those at risk. Not much focus was placed on perpetrators and their families. Evidence suggests that the family and social systems play a vital role in determining adult violent behaviour. This qualitative study aims to explore the experiences of convicted child murderers in their family and social system. Data was collected and analysed, using genogram interviews and analysis. Themes were highlighted using hermeneutic thematic analysis, within a post-modern paradigm. Results were presented in the form of genogram analysis and thematic content analysis. Prominent themes that arose were separation, rejection, abuse, neglect and substance abuse. These life experiences together with poor education are some of the characteristics that may have contributed to the child murderers actions towards children. / Psychology / M. A. (Clinical Psychology)