Child homicide in United States is one of the leading causes of death amongst children younger than 15 years old. In age group 1 to 14 deaths by murder are on 4th place after deaths by unintentional injuries, congenital defects and infectious diseases. Child homicide is the only major cause of childhood deaths that had increased over the past three decades. In most cases, children are the victims of many of the same crimes that victimize adults. They also are the subject to other crimes, like child abuse and neglect that are specific to childhood. The impact of these crimes on young victims can be devastating and the violent or sexual victimization of children can often lead to an intergenerational cycle of violence and abuse. Homicides of young children (age 4 and younger), children in a middle childhood (ages 5 – 9) and late childhood (ages 10 – 14) differ on a number of dimensions, suggesting that they should be analyzed separately.
Statistical data represented in three charts (each for specific age group) reflects numbers of child homicides in period from 1999 to 2007.
AGES 1-4. TOTAL DEATHS – 3,462 ALL RACES, BOTH SEXES
In most occurrences, children of this age group have been murdered by their relatives. 61% were murdered by their parents. 30% murdered by mothers, and 31% by fathers. Homicidal deaths of infants and toddlers were usually the result of parental attempts to control child behavior. These deaths appeared to be unintended and related to the physical vulnerability of the child who is smaller than the attacking adult. Another leading cause of death is typical for this age group - filicide. Altruism, acute psychosis, unwanted child, and spousal revenge are the most common motives for parent’s homicidal behavior. Altruistic filicide is characterized by the motive of relieving the child of real or imagined suffering and includes murder associated with suicide. Acutely psychotic filicide involves parents who kill under the influence of severe mental illness or drugs. In unwanted-child filicide, the victim was never or is no longer desired by the parents. These filicides are usually committed due to uncertain paternity. Accidental filicide is unintentional death due to child abuse, generally following battered child syndrome, and spousal revenge filicide describes children who are killed to retaliate against or punish the parent's mate. Mothers who commit filicide tend to be married and to report high levels of stress and a lack of support and resources at the time of the offense.
AGES 5-9. TOTAL DEATHS – 1,250 ALL RACES, BOTH SEXES
Middle childhood is a time when a child’s homicide risk is relatively low. Although children of this age group can face substantial violence, in a form of both parental assaults at home and peer aggression in their school and neighborhood, relatively little of its lethal. Apparently, the homicide rate is low for children of this age group because this period is a time of transition. Children ages 5-9 have outgrown some of the characteristics that make very young children vulnerable to force of adults, but they have not begun to engage in the activities that drive up the homicide rate of children of older age group. It takes more force and energy to inflict lethal injury on a child age 5 to 9 than on a younger child. At the same time, children in middle childhood are protected from some of the dangers that affect adolescents. They are usually under adult supervision and protection, and most have not yet gained and access to weapons, drugs and cars.
AGES 10-14. TOTAL DEATHS – 1,965 ALL RACES, BOTH SEXES
Compared with homicides of children younger than 10-12 years, homicides of children in this group more closely resemble homicides of adults. Like homicides of adults, homicides of teenagers mostly involve a male victim killed by offender using a firearm or a knife or other sharp object. Unlike homicides of children under age 10, relatively few homicides of teenagers are committed by family members. The number of homicide victims killed by other juvenile offender is much larger for children of this age group. Nonetheless, two-thirds of teenage homicide victims are killed by adults. The increase in number of teenagers the late 1990s and early 2000s has been attributed to various factors, including expansion of gang activity, drug market competition, and increased availability of firearms. The growth in the number of homicides of children in this age group was almost entirely in category of firearm homicides.
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