Homicides in Norway: Exploring the Characteristics and Decline Between 1991 and 2015 Malin Sæth Hanset Spring 2019 Master’s thesis in Criminology Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law Faculty of Law University of Oslo Homicides in Norway: Exploring the Characteristics and Decline between 1991 and 2015 II Copyright Malin Sæth Hanset 2019 Homicides in Norway: Exploring the Characteristics and Decline between 1991 and 2015 Malin Sæth Hanset http://www.duo.uio.no Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo III Summary Title: Homicides in Norway: Exploring the Characteristics and Decline Between 1991 and 2015 Author: Malin Sæth Hanset Supervisor: Nina Jon Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law Faculty of Law University of Oslo Spring 2019 This thesis considers homicides in Norway between 1991 and 2015 and the decline that can be seen in this period. What it seeks to do is to look into what characterise homicides in this period, in which type of homicide can the decline be seen, has every type of homicide seen a decrease and lastly, has specific types of homicides disappeared or experienced a more dramatic decrease. This was done by looking at the Homicide Overview from the National Criminal Investigation Service Norway and by a content analysis of 82 judicial verdicts. It is quantitative content analysis as it counts variables, but it is mostly a qualitative analysis as it seeks to give a deeper understanding of the homicides. The homicides were divided into four categories; intimate partner homicides; homicides between friends, acquaintances and colleagues; familial homicides; and homicides between other relations (strangers, the perpetrators/victim used a service that the victim/perpetrator provided, and unspecified relations). The judicial verdicts were coded according to 17 different aspects, such as the sex of the perpetrator, whether the homicide took place during the day or night, whether the perpetrator or victim was under the influence of substances and if the victim experienced excessive violence (more violence than needed to take someone’s life). The most striking, or important, findings was that every type of homicide took place in a private residence, except for strangers which took place in public. For all the different types of homicides the IV majority of perpetrators were men ranging from young to middle-aged and their victims was also men, except for intimate partner homicides and homicides between strangers where the victim was female. In only used a service did the majority of victims not experience excessive violence. Substance use was an important aspect in which the majority of stranger perpetrators was under the influence of drugs, while friends/acquaintances/colleagues was under the influence of alcohol. The majority of intimate partner homicides was not specified, but when it was specified was the substance alcohol, this was also the instance for familial, but the substance of choice was alcohol/drugs and for not mentioned was this alcohol or mixed intoxication. The perpetrators bad mental health could be seen in the majority of intimate partner homicides, familial homicides, homicides between strangers and used a service. An interesting aspect that could be seen for intimate partner homicides was that a third of perpetrators was non-Norwegian, this high level was not seen in the other types of homicides. The number of peak years was used to uncover which types of homicides has had a decline as their frequencies has been fluctuating throughout the years. This was further separated by the median year of 2003 as the frequency prior to 2003 was compared to the frequency after 2003. The decline in peak years could be seen in intimate partner homicide, homicides between friends, acquaintances and colleagues and familial homicides. When looking at their actual numbers, it is evident that the decline can be only seen in familial homicides and homicides between friends, acquaintances and colleagues, as the rest has stayed relatively stable, and therefore not every type of homicide has experienced a decline. A dramatic decrease could be seen in intimate partner homicides as it halved in the number of peak years, but the actual numbers has been fluctuating. Familial homicides have experienced a decline in both its peak years and actual numbers, but the most dramatic decrease can be seen in homicides between friends, acquaintances and colleagues, as it decreased from seven to one peak year and from 204 before to 2003 to 168 homicides after 2003. There has also been a decline in the number of male perpetrators, male victims and perpetrators and victims that were under the influence of alcohol. From this it can be suggested that there has been a decline in drunken male on male homicides. V Acknowledgements A massive thanks to Nina Jon whose constructive criticism was much appreciated. It was nice to have a supervisor who I felt was on my side and understood the challenges that I faced with this thesis. Thank you for cheering me on when it was much needed. To Jalita Jacobsen who proofread this thesis, thank you for reading through the same grammar mistakes and correcting them time after time. Thank you Pål Stagnes for the numerous lunches and the chance to procrastinate when I was stuck. Last, but not least, Bengt Andre Brown Holm thank you for all the love and support through a very challenging year. It would had been considerably worse without you. May 2019, Oslo Malin Sæth Hanset VI Table of contents 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The different types of homicides .................................................................................. 2 1.2 Do more people survive? ............................................................................................. 5 1.1 Structure of this thesis ................................................................................................. 6 2 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 8 2.1 Literature review ......................................................................................................... 8 2.2 The Homicide Overview ............................................................................................... 9 2.3 Content analysis ........................................................................................................ 10 2.3.1 What it is ......................................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 Why this method ............................................................................................................. 12 2.3.3 The coding ....................................................................................................................... 12 2.3.4 Benefits and limitations .................................................................................................. 15 2.4 Judicial verdicts ......................................................................................................... 16 2.4.1 The General Civil Penal Code .......................................................................................... 17 2.4.2 The content in a judicial verdict ...................................................................................... 18 2.4.3 Changes in the judicial verdicts? ..................................................................................... 19 2.4.4 The data gathering .......................................................................................................... 21 2.4.5 The chosen judicial verdicts ............................................................................................ 23 2.4.6 Benefits and limitations .................................................................................................. 25 2.5 Practical and ethical issues ......................................................................................... 26 3 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 27 3.1 Weapons and firearms ............................................................................................... 27 3.2 Mental health ............................................................................................................ 29 3.3 Substance use/abuse ................................................................................................. 30 3.4 Violent tendencies ..................................................................................................... 32 3.5 Social problems ......................................................................................................... 34 3.6 Miscellaneous explanations ....................................................................................... 35 3.6.1 Homicides ........................................................................................................................ 35 3.6.2 Societal explanations ...................................................................................................... 36 3.7 Concluding remarks ................................................................................................... 36 4 Intimate partner homicide ...................................................................................... 38 4.1 The wider context .....................................................................................................