Why Do Parents Commit Filicide?

In the news recently there are more incidents of filicide, the criminal acts that are committed by parents against their child. According to the FBI statistics about five infants under the age of 1 are killed each week in the United States. There is no particular geographical location for this type of crimes; however it is less likely to occur in wealthier families. It does not matter if it is summer, spring, winter or fall, weekend or weekday, but the crime usually occurs in the evenings. Researcher found that the most common methods of killing by parents were with “personal weapons,” such as choking, beating, or drowning. Caucasian men and women between the age of 20 to 30 middle and lower class parents are more likely to commit filicide.
Infanticide is the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months, and child homicide is the murder of a child in general. Northern University criminologist James Alan Fox collects data each year from the FBI supplemental Homicide Division to compile reports and record. More than three decades, FBI homicide data shows patterns that stand out when parents kills their children. Three out of four child victims are younger than 5 years old. While it is thought that women kill more record show that fathers (men) are most likely to kill. On an average, six children are killed by abuse from a parent or guardian in Memphis, TN every year. Scarborough was just 4-months old when police say her father beat her to death because she wouldn’t stop crying. Within the past month 4 children under the age of two have been killed by their parents, police says this is a problem that we must get a handle on. So far this year five children have been killed by abuse or neglect. The numbers fluctuate, last year (2014) it was four, in 2013 there were 13 and this is just in one city, one small corner of the United States. The deadliest year in the past decade was 2008 with 14 children
Most reports of abuse are inner- city, low income, less educated underprivileged children by parents. Psychiatrists and criminologist say parents who commit infanticide or filicide to their children generally fit into one of these categories; a parent suffering a psychotic break, frequent depression, psychosis, prior mental health treatment, and suicidal thoughts, and hallucinations to kill; a mother kills her child out of love; she believes death to be in the child's best interest; parent acting out of revenge against a spouse or partner; maltreatment, death is usually not the anticipated outcome; it results from child abuse, neglect, or Munchausen syndrome; an unwanted child, a mother thinks of her child as a hindrance; and the rarest, spouse revenge, when a mother kills her child specifically to emotionally harm the child's father. However, infanticide is often related to economic necessity of the inability to provide for the infant. The highest rate of victimization is in the children from birth to 1 year old and the children with disabilities. The victims of abuse are higher for African-American, multiracial, and American Indians/Alaska Native children (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families 2012) Abuse is more likely to occur in families where there is a lot of