The thesis is a descriptive study of female perpetrators of murder as viewed from the individual level, primarily focusing on the characteristics of the offender which could affect the murder, and the context of the murderous act. Following a theoretical examination, the empirical section presents the results of research in women's prison using an integrated research methodology of qualitative but also quantitative techniques of data collection and interpretation. The primary research analyzed prison's documents about murderers with the research sample consisting of all imprisoned women ie half of all incarcerated women in the Czech Republic. In-depth interviews were carried out with predominantly perpetrators of intimate homicides; other data collection techniques were used. The data detected the forms of murderous behavior of women, the typology of murder by motivation, mapping the social situation of female convicts in prison, selected attitudes of homicide offenders including the analysis of family murders. The results indicated that the prototype of homicides committed by women are intimate murders that fall within the largest group of intrafamily murder. The most common cause is a partner homicide conflict situations, long-term domestic violence and excessive alcohol consumption for both...

This thesis explores the discovery, investigation and prosecution of, as well as the men and women involved as suspects and witnesses in, cases of suspected new-born child murder and concealment of pregnancy in Scotland between 1812 and 1930. The study utilises pre-trial and other legal documents relating to these cases to outline both the continuities with other studies and aspects of the subject that are peculiar to Scotland during the period. An examination of the pre-trial documents not only reveals the various responses to suspicions of pregnancy and murder by the local community, it also shows that in a number of cases investigators harboured suspicions that members of the community were involved, either as an accessory to a crime, or withholding evidence. However, this information is largely ignored by prosecutors, and the vast majority of those tried were the victims’ mothers, an outcome that this thesis argues was a combination of a number of legal and medico-legal processes and procedures. This thesis also argues that the information provided by the pre-trial evidence can provide a more nuanced understanding of these ‘crimes’ – particularly at a local level – that is otherwise obscured by official statistics, that in turn can be used to challenge the prevailing historical consensus that has developed around certain aspects of the subject. The first chapter provides the legal and medico-legal contexts. Chapters Two and Three look at the discovery of, and responses to, the signs of pregnancy, recent delivery and of the bodies of new-born infants. Chapter Three argues that whilst communities were quick to observe the signs of pregnancy, they were less inclined to inform the authorities of their suspicions until after the signs of delivery, or a body, had been discovered. Chapter 4 looks at the profiles of suspects, and also at the geography of the ‘crimes’, and Chapter 5 looks at those men and women suspected of being an accessory to murder, and of helping to conceal a pregnancy or an infant’s death. This chapter reveals that the pretrial documents reveal that in a number of cases investigators suspected relatives, friends, the victims’ fathers, and in some cases even doctors and midwives, to be involved in various ways in cases of suspected new-born child murder. As such it provides a strong challenge to the historiographical consensus that new-born child murder was a sex-specific crime, carried out by the victim’s mother, acting alone. Chapters 6 and 7 explore the role of the police and medical witnesses respectively, both prior to a formal accusation, and during the official investigation. Chapter 7 also includes a detailed look at the medical reports pertaining to the examination of suspects and the post mortem examination of the victims. The final chapter looks at the witnesses and evidence presented at the trial, focusing in particular on the medico-legal issues that made it difficult for prosecutors to secure a successful murder conviction. The chapter argues that whilst these issues could be part of a wider culture of sympathy towards new-born child murder suspects, the evidence from the verdicts and sentencing can also demonstrate a hardening of judicial attitudes over the period.

The thesis "Methodology of Investigation of Murders (selected issues)" deals only with the selected aspects of the methodology of this crime. Since the topic is too broad, it is not within the author's possibilities to cover the topic completely while working on this thesis. For this reason, only selected points of view on the investigation of this serious crime are discussed in details. The thesis is divided into two main chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the introduction to this topic. The initial subchapter provides a wider view of crime murder from the perspective of criminal law. It also describes the legal regulation providing the basic human right, specifically the right to life, as stated in the Czech legal order, including the documents at European or international level as well. The second subchapter deals with the physical as well as fault elements of this crime. The whole chapter is interwoven with historical aspects and background, while the author also comes with the comparison of current legislation with the previous one. The following subchapter contains the comparison of this crime with the similar crimes, particularly manslaughter, infanticide, negligent homicide and also the participation in suicide. In the next section, current statistics about the quantity of murders in...

This diploma thesis addresses the issues of the murder investigation methodology. It is divided systematically into four chapters. First three chapters may be perceived by the reader as the fundamentals of the thesis aiming at contextualizing and highlighting the final chapter which bears the core ideas and findings. Chapter One deals with crime against life from the perspective of the criminal law in the Czech Republic. An account of legal definitions of murder, manslaughter and murder of a new-born infant by its mother, as defined in the Criminal Code, is offered in the chapter. Certain features of the constituent elements of those crimes are compared and commented on in greater detail. Chapter Two presents murder in view of criminology and includes the statistical data regarding the intentional homicide rate within the Czech Republic. As for the statistical data, it is predominantly recent and up-to-date. However, there may also be included statistical data gathered over an extended period of time which better demonstrate the dynamics of crime development. To enable the reader to understand the data, a series of graphs and charts is provided as well. Chapter Three looks at criminology per se and at its classification into subcategories. This chapter also considers the methodology of...

The diploma thesis deals with the "Methods of investigation of murders (selected topics)". Within the theoretical part, the first charter describes the legal point of view of criminal acts against the life with the emphasis on murders. The following chapter is dedicated to general features of the methods of investigation of individual kinds of criminal acts. Criminology and its system were specified, together with the terms such as the methodology of investigation. Furthermore, the components of individual methodologies were defined. The deeper description of selected components of the methods of investigation represents the fundamental and comprehensive part of the thesis. The statistics and prognosis which present the numbers of murders, their trends and their homicides of the last decade are included. The statistics present the relations between homicides and the levels of their acquired education, the percentage of homicides with academic education and the percentage of women among homicides. The final part of the thesis deals with criminal case studies. The murders committed in passion and motivated by human conflicts were selected. One of the main reason for the selection of this criminal motive was the fact that it is the most frequent motive in the last decade as it was revealed from own...

The theme of the thesis is the Methodology of Investigation of Murders. According to the scope of that theme the author concentrated only on selected issues. The first chapter includes the overview of the Czech and foreign literature related to the theme of the thesis. The second chapter covers some of the legal aspects of crimes against live, as they are enumerated in the Czech Criminal Code. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the link between the investigation of muders as a criminalistic discipline and the criminal law. This chapter concerns crimes as murder, manslaughter, infanticide, killing of negligence and participation on suicide, including current statistical data with regard to the quantity of murders within the area of the Czech Republic. The third chapter concerns the criminalistic characteristic of the murder, which consists of the modus operandi, the character of the perpetrator, the character of the victim and the motive. The next chapters follow the specifics of particular phases of the metodology of investigation of murders, as they are described in the leading Czech professional literature, concretely typical traces, typical investigation situations, specifics of the object of the investigation and specifics of the impetuses for investigation. The core of the thesis lies...

This paper thoroughly examines the production of the thesis film, Covered. Writing, production design, cinematography, editing, sound, technology, workflow, and direction are discussed with attention to how each uniquely contributed to the story. In an effort to objectively critique the finished film, feedback from test audiences will be examined.

The methodology of investigation of crimes against life (selected problems) Abstract The topic of this thesis is the methodology of investigation of crimes against life. Due to the fact that this is undoubtedly a very wide topic and the investigation of all crimes against life follows the same principles using similar methods, this diploma thesis is focused on the method of a murder investigation as the most serious crime against life, if not the most serious criminal action of them all. The first chapter of my diploma thesis is devoted to the substantive regulation of all crimes against life according to § 140 to 144 of the Criminal Code. In this part of the thesis, I describe the obligatory signs of their facts, ie. their object, subject, objective side, and a subjective aspect. In the second chapter of this thesis, I deal with the criminalistics characteristics of the crime of murder, whose typical components are the way of committing, the personality of the perpetrator and the victim as well as the motive. As part of the thesis, I use examples from practice, namely cases of serial murders on which these typical characters can be shown. In the third chapter of the thesis, I describe the general division of traces, including the typical traces that criminalists can find in investigating murders. The...

Systems of classifications are socially created and historically contingent. New classifications lead to the creation of new categories, new objects and new kinds of people. Over the last thirty years, some of the most successful categories have emerged from the study of seriality. This thesis examines the emergence of three categories of seriality, including serial murder, serial monogamy and serial arson through a genealogical analysis. This thesis argues that seriality is a complex category that involves a host of important attributes, traits, characteristics, social, legal and medical categories, institutions, expertise and knowledge. Combined, these factors shape our understandings and highlight the complexity of seriality by considering important aspects that are too often taken for granted. The focus on three diverse groups of seriality highlights the interdisciplinary nature of seriality and its growing dominance among both public and private discourse.

Attitudes of guilt, deserved punishment, and character of terrorists and mass murderers are examined in a hypothetical written scenario of a murder involving several casualties. The researcher hypothesizes that terrorists will be given harsher punishments. It is also hypothesized that White suspects will receive the least harsh punishments compared to the other suspects. The researcher also hypothesized that terrorists would be found guiltier than mass murderers. Results found that there were no significant differences in the punishments given to terrorists and mass murderers or between the races of the suspects. Results show no significant differences in the levels of guilt assigned by participants. Limitations and future research suggestions are discussed.