BRIEF

News, April 2. 1975. p 1 Huston PE. Locher LM: when treated and untreated Psychiatry 60:37-48, 1948 4. Nystrom S: On the relation 3.

of ECT

in depression.

Acta

8. Manic-depressive with electric

psychosis shock. Arch

course Neurol

between clinical factors and efficacy Psychiatr Scand 181 (suppl):l-140,

1965

Unilateral

versus

bilateral

ECT.

Acta

7. Geoghegan II: J 55:54, 1946

Manic

Psychiatric BY

phase

and electroshock.

Illness

MARtiAN

Can

Med

in Homicide

HERJANIC,

M.D.,

AND

INCREASE

areas has tion and homicide

recently concern, indicates

Dr. Herjanic Washington sistant

is

presented Association,

Associate

University

DAVID

Superintendent,

at the I 28th annual Anaheim, Calif.

Professor,

School Malcolm

Department

ofMedicine,

A. MEYER.

Bliss

Mental

,

of

St. Louis,

study

was

supported

tal Health Administration tute of Mental Health.

in part

grant

by Alcohol,

MH-05938

Psychiatry.

Health

Drug

from

meeting of May 5-9,

Mo.,

Abuse,

and As-

Center,

Grattan St., St. Louis, Mo. 63104. When this work was Meyer was a medical student. Washington University Medicine; he is now a resident in psychiatry, Washington School of Medicine and Malcolm Bliss Mental Health Louis, Mo. This

13.

GH:

Manic-depressive Psychiatr

The

Q

prevention

disease: 17:642-654,

prognosis 1943

of recurring

following

manic-depressive

illnesses. Can Med Assoc J 54:198-200, 1951 Bowman-B#{225}r#{225}ny M: On the treatment of mania ly-induced convulsions. Nord Med 15:2535-2536.

with electrical1942

Ziskind E. Somerfeld-Ziskind E. Ziskind L: Metrazol and electric convulsive therapy of the affective psychoses. Arch Neurol Psychiatry 53:212-217, 1945 Feighner J, Robins E, Guze S. et al: Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Arch Gen Psychiatry 26:57-63, 1972 Morrison J. Clancy J. Crowe R, et al: The Iowa 500. I. Diagnos-

tic validity

in mania,

Psychiatry

27:457-461,

depression

and

schizophrenia.

Arch

Gen

1972

Victims

in the number of homicides in urban attracted a great deal ofpublic attenand the voluminous literature on that social scientists as well as the

Revised version of a paper the American Psychiatric 1975.

12.

Assoc

The authors studied the demographic characteristics and history ofpsychiatric treatment of 214 homicide victims and 67 suicide victims. Thirty-two (15%) of the homicide victims and 12 (18%) ofthe suicide victims had a record ofpsychiatric care; these rates ti’ere higher tha,z the treatment rate of the general population. The authors suggest that there ma)’ be a connection between the occurrence of homicide and the increased frequency of psychiatric disorders among victims ofthis crime.

THE

10.

Psychiatr

Scand 240(suppl):l-65. 1973 6. Cronin D, Bodley P. Potts L. et al: Unilateral and bilateral ECT: a study of memory disturbance and relief from depression. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 33:705-713. 1970

TAC: treatment.

9. Stevenson

II.

5. Str#{246}mgren LS:

Rennie shock

COMMUNICATIONS

1420

done, Dr. School of University Center. St. and

the National

M.D.

public have a great interest in this crime. In St. Louis, the homicide rate increased from 8 per 100,000 in 1942 (1) to 33 per 100,000 in 1973, and other large cities have experienced similar or larger increases. Early literature on murder focused on the offender, but Von Hentig (2) shifted the emphasis to the victimoffender relationship, and Wolfgang (3) pointed out that one-fourth of homicide victims had clearly precipitated their own deaths. Houts recently went even furthen by stating that ‘in a great many cases, the murderens are rather reasonable normal people, whereas the victims were the discordant individuals-at least, they possessed strange quirks of personality and character that contributed mightily to their demise” (4, p. 230). This suggestion of psychological aberrations in homicide victims raises the issues of psychiatric illness among victims and the potential for a contribution by mental health workers to the prevention ofcnimes. Because we were unable to find any systematic studies of psychiatric illness in homicide victims, we decided to examine the circumstances in which homicides occur and the general characteristics of victims, with special emphasis on victims who had received psychiatric care. We contrasted our findings about homicide victims with the characteristics of a well-studied group of individuals who also suffer violent deaths-suicide victims. ‘

Men-

Insti-

The authors would like to thank Dr. A.C. Meyers, Jr.. Chief Statistician, and Col. Norman Jacobsmeyer, Chief, Homicide and Arson Division, St. Louis City Police Department, for their advice and cooperation.

METHOD

There were 220 homicide Louis in 1973. Since we were studying psychiatric treatment Am

J Psychiatry

victims in the city of St. primarily concerned with of homicide victims, 4 133:6,

June

1976

691

BRIEF

COMMUNICATIONS

victims whose names were unknown were dropped from the study. Two other victims, children 18 months and 9 years old, were also dropped; thus the final study group contained 214 victims. The circumstances of each crime were studied and coded. To find out about psychiatric cane received by homicide victims, a list containing the name, sex, race, and date of birth of each victim was compared with a list of patients treated at two large state-supported institutions (Malcolm Bliss Mental Health Center and St. Louis State Hospital) that provide psychiatric cane for the city of St. Louis. Victims’ medical records discovered by this method were reviewed systematically and data were recorded. Data were gathered by a similar method on all persons (N=67) who committed suicide in St. Louis in 1973. This group was used for comparison purposes.

TABLE 1 Characteristics

Victims

Homicid Item

and 67 Suicide

e Victims

Suicide

Table I gives a summary of the study results. Men predominated in both the homicide and suicide victim groups. There were significantly more black homicide victims than suicides (p