Female homicide offenders have greatly increased mortality from unnatural deaths

The mortality of Female homicidal offenders has scarcely been studied. Our aim was to examine the mortality of homicidal women in Finland using a repr esentative nation-wide material. The data consisted of all 132 women Mho un derwent forensic psychiatric examinations after committing homicide or atte mpted homicide in 1982-1992. We analysed their rate and cause of death duri ng follow-up using standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) and the official cl assification of death. The mean follow-up rime for dead subjects was 7 year s (S.D. 4). and for the rest 11 years (S.D. 3). There were 22 observed deat hs. the expected value being 1.3 (SMR 17.4). The SMR for unnatural deaths w as 226 and for suicides 425. The SMRs for women below 40 years were over 22 0. In conclusion. homicidal women have an over 200-fold risk of unnatural d eath, rising to over 400-fold for suicide. This should be taken into consid eration in planning discharge programmes for homicidal offenders. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.