Guest speaker : Tamsin Higgs
Tamsin completed her doctorate in Forensic Psychology at The University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. She trained at Broadmoor Hospital, HMP Bronzefield, and in a private service for adolescents with sexually harmful behaviour, whilst carrying out research at the National Offender Management Service. Tamsin has published eight articles and co-authored three book chapters, most of which are on the subject of sexual homicide.
She is postdoctoral fellow at the CICC for the year 2017 under the direction of Franca Cortoni.
Summary
In some cases of sexual murder there is a direct link between sexual arousal and killing. For others, the factors that lead to a homicide being classified as sexual are indirect: killing is instrumental.
A research program that aimed to begin considering this issue empirically, with a sample of 350 sexual murderers, will be discussed. In particular, a study will be described which used post mortem sexual interference (PMSI) as a proxy to delineate sexual murderers into a ‘direct’ group. The study compared the developmental and criminal histories of a sample of 89 PMSI murderers, 92 sexual murderers not engaging in PMSI, and 72 rapists. Similarities and differences with previously identified patterns (e.g. Proulx, Beauregard, Cusson, & Nicole, 2007) will be explored, and a new differential model of sexual aggression with fatal and non-fatal outcomes will be presented.
Information
Conférence présentée par le Centre international de criminologie comparée
