🔎 INSIDE THE RESEARCH | Part 1
My Master’s research is titled:
“Parricide in South Africa: An Exploratory Statistical and Biopsychosocial Profile of Child and Young Offenders.”
But what exactly is parricide?
In simple terms, parricide is the killing of a parent by their child. Heide defines parricide as the “killing of one or both parents by a child.”
So, why did I choose this topic?
Well, people who know me probably aren’t surprised. 😅
I’ve always been drawn to abnormal behaviour and the atypical. I’m also an extremely curious person. I have a lot of questions about almost everything — and over the years, I’ve learnt how to channel that curiosity into something more useful: finding the facts behind the questions.
Which, as it turns out, is quite a useful trait for a researcher.
As I started reading about parricide, I became increasingly interested in what we could learn from looking at these cases collectively. What, if anything, might the data reveal? And I’m still familiarising myself with plenty of new terms and concepts along the way.
Parricide is an extreme and relatively uncommon form of violence, but the circumstances surrounding these offences can be incredibly complex, with the unusual dynamic of a family having both victim/s and an offender within it.
I was especially interested in the South African context, because relatively little research has been done on parricide in South Africa compared with the international literature.
I quickly discovered one reason researching this topic isn’t straightforward: there isn’t simply a database where you can type “South African parricide cases” and get your sample.
In fact, parricide isn’t a searchable offence category in the way you might expect in systems such as SAPS — something I’ll unpack in a future post.
I also love theory, and because murder is such a complex behaviour, I wanted a framework broad enough to consider the different spheres of a person’s life. This is why I’ve chosen a biopsychosocial framework, allowing me to consider biological, psychological and social factors and how they interact.
And this is where the research journey began.
My original idea has changed quite a bit since then. I’ve had to rethink definitions, age ranges, victims, data sources, variables and methodology — and I’m sure there will be more changes before it’s finished.
So, rather than only sharing the finished research one day, I’m going to share the process too.
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