Comparison of Personality Traits of Offenders Who Committed Homicide Against Family Members and Non-family Members Personality Traits of Murder Offenders

Homicide is one of the oldest crime types. The aim of this study is to investigate the personality traits that might have been considered triggering effects on homicide. Investigating personality traits that leads to crime is the key to reveal the dominant traits of different individuals who committed the same crime by different methods. Our hypothesis is based on the suggestion that the personality traits of individuals who commit homicide against their family members are different than of those who commit homicide against non-family members. In this context personality traits of those who committed homicide against family members were compared to personality traits of those who committed homicide against non-family members. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was used in order to identify the personality traits. Sociodemographic data of the convicts and criminological factors was also evaluated. The subject group consisted of 93 male prisoners convicted for homicide and murder and were inmates of the Maltepe (Istanbul Turkey) Penitentiary for the last 10 years. Data about socio-demographics, economics, criminological attributes of the subjects convicted or not, criminal tools, the time and place of crime, the identity of the victim, the reasons that lead to homicide according to perpetrator and the familial structure of the perpetrator, were collected by survey and then were evaluated. 70% of against family members homicide perpetrators were over the age of 36 while 70% of homicide perpetrators against non-family members were under the age of 35. Perpetrators of homicide against family members were originated from the Eastern part of Turkey. The mean values of sub MMPI test were evaluated for both subject and control groups. Both groups showed the Sc value as maximum whilst the minimum were at the level of Pa. The difference between the arithmetical means of familial and non-familial homicide is significant for p