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  • Title: Psychopathy in Italian female murderers.
    Author: Carabellese F, Felthous AR, Mandarelli G, Montalbò D, Tegola D, Rossetto I, Franconi F, Catanesi R.
    Journal: Behav Sci Law; 2019 Sep; 37(5):602-613. PubMed ID: 31762094.
    Abstract:
    Over the years, the number of homicides in Italy has progressively decreased, ultimately becoming one of the lowest rates in Europe (357 = 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, according to ISTAT). The number of homicides committed by women was about 9% of the total number of homicides during our study period. The percentage has increased in recent years because the total number of homicides has decreased without a proportionate decrease in the number of female homicides. Indeed, murder is an unusual type of crime for a woman and is often associated with a mental disorder, so when a woman committed a homicide, a psychiatric assessment was often performed. A forensic psychiatry expert was assigned to investigate the offender's psychopathology and mental state at the time of the offense. The root causes of the crime remained unexplained, however, due to the lack of a psychiatric precedent to justify this kind of assessment. The role of psychopathy in homicide has seldom been studied in female offenders, even though psychopathy has an important role in violent crimes. The investigators examined, clinically and historically, a sample of women who committed murder with different levels of criminal responsibility (female homicide offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity, having partial criminal responsibility, and convicted as criminally responsible and sentenced to prison) to identify the prevalence of the psychopathic dimension and its possible role in this sample. Prevalence and degree of psychopathic traits were examined in these female offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. This study showed that females who had committed homicide were likely to suffer from mental illness; most of the homicidal acts were committed impulsively; and most female homicides occurred within the family, especially among women who were psychotic, but less so if they were psychopathic. Psychopathy tended to co-occur more with personality disorders than with psychotic psychopathology. Psychopathy was more evident among female homicide offenders who had been abused or traumatized. Psychopathic women who killed had high factor F1 scores and low antisocial component of factor F2.
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