Patterns of Middle and Upper Class Homicide
![handle is hein.journals/jclc70 and id is 182 raw text is: 9901-4169/79/7002-0172S02.00/0
THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY
Copyright © 1979 by Northwestern University School of Law
PATTERNS OF MIDDLE AND UPPER CLASS HOMICIDE
EDWARD GREEN* AND RUSSELL P. WAKEFIELD
INTRODUCTION
The study of crime has traditionally focused
upon the conventional criminal behavior patterns
of the lower classes. Not until Sutherland's seminal
work on white-collar crime did researchers improve
the representativeness of the subject matter of crim-
inology by studying the crimes of the rich as well
as those of the poor.' This development shows that
predatory crime is not exclusively, necessarily, or
even primarily a product of lower class character
structure. It also proves that social class differences
in the conditions of life give rise to different kinds
of opportunities and methods for criminal gain.
The investigation reported here initiates a similar
effort in the area of criminal homicide. Because it
occurs rarely, middle or upper-class homicide has
largely eluded systematic analysis. Nevertheless,
information on the circumstances of its occurrence
is essential to the development of a comprehensive
theory of homicide. This study, therefore, explores
how patterns of criminal homicide in the middle
and upper-class differ from those of the lower-class.
The research literature displays relatively con-
sistent findings regarding the circumstances of
criminal homicide. The characteristics of offenders
and their victims, the motives of the killers, the
patterns of interaction between the offender and
victim, the methods and techniques employed, and
the accompanying temporal and spatial patterns
all tend to remain somewhat constant. Collectively
summarized, the leading American studies2 show
that:
* Professor of Sociology, Eastern Michigan University;
B.A. 1948, M.A. 1949, Ph.D. 1959, Sociology, University
of Pennsylvania.
** Lecturer, Sociology, Eastern Michigan University;
B.A. 1975, M.A. 1976, Sociology, Eastern Michigan Uni-
versity.
'E. SUTHERLAND, WHITE COLLAR CRIME (1961).
2 R. BENSING & H. SCHROEDER, HOMICIDE IN AN URBAN
COMMUNITY (1960); L. CURTIS, CRIMINAL VIOLENCE (1974)
[hereinafter cited as Curtis]; M. WOLFGANG, PATrERNS IN
CRIMINAL HOMICIDE (1958) [hereinafter cited as Wolf-
gang]; Block, Homicide in Chicago: A Nine-year Study (1965-
1973), 66 J. CRIM. L. & C. 496 (1975) [hereinafter cited
as Block]. Block & Zimring, Homicide in Chicago, 1965-
1970, 10J. RESEARCH IN CRIME & DELINQUENCY 1 (1973);
Cassidy, Personality Study of 200 Murderers, 2 J. CRIM.
1. Black males from 15 to 30 years of age kill more
frequently than any other racial age-sex cate-
gory.
2. As many as 64% of offenders and 47% of victims
have prior criminal records.
3. From one-half to two-thirds of homicides are
unpremeditated crimes of passion arising out of
altercations over matters which, from a middle
class perspective, hardly warrant so extreme a
response. Robbery, the next most frequent in-
teractional context, accounts for 8 to 19% of
homicides.
4. The victim provoked the attack upon himself
by an overt act of aggression in from 22 to 38%
of the cases.
5. Almost one-half of the killings of married
women are perpetrated by their husbands and,
when a man is killed by a woman, the offender
is most likely to be his wife.
6. Homicide followed by suicide accounts for 2 to
9% of the cases and it usually involves members
of the same family.
7. Firearms are most commonly the instrument of
death, followed in order of frequency by pierc-
ing instruments and beating with fists, feet, or
a bludgeon of some sort.
8. Homicide is alcohol-related in 40 to 65% of
Cases.
9. The incidence of homicide reaches its peak from
8:00 P.M. Friday to 12:00 midnight Saturday.
10. The place of occurrence of homicide is almost
evenly divided between incidents taking place
in the home of the victim or the offender and
those occurring outside the home.
The data on which the above findings are based
consist of cases involving almost entirely persons of
lower socio-economic status. Very few studies have
focussed on middle or upper status levels. Wolfgang
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 296 (1941); Frankel, One Thousand
Murderers, 29 J. CRIM. L. & C. 672 (1939) [hereinafter
cited as Frankel]; Harlan, Five-hundred Homicides, 40 J.
CRIM. L. & C. 736 (1950) [hereinafter cited as Harlan]:
Pokorny, A Comparison of Homicides in Two Cities, 56 J.
CRIM. L.C. & P.S. 479 (1965) [hereinafter cited as Po-
komy]; Schmid, A Study of Homicides in Seattle, 1914 to
1924, 4 Soc. FORCES 745 (1926) [hereinafter cited as
Schmid]; Voss & Hepburn, Patterns in Criminal Homicide in
Chicago, 59 J. CRIM. L.C. & P.S. 499 (1968) [hereinafter
cited as Voss & Hepburn].
72
Vol. 70, No. 2
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