Youth Who Kill in Turkey: A Study on Juvenile Homicide Offenders,Their Offenses,and Their Differences From Violent and Nonviolent Juvenile Delinquents

Abstract

This study aims to answer two major research questions: (a) What are the characteristics of the juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) and their offenses in Turkey? (b) How do different risk factors vary across the JHOs and other violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders? The data set was derived from the court records of a group of adjudicated youth (n = 546) in Turkey. These records were coded to include information on both the offense characteristics of the homicides committed by juveniles (i.e., motivation, weapon of choice, victims’ characteristics, etc.) and the individual and family-level risk factors available in JHOs and two other delinquent groups. Our findings indicated that most of the homicide cases committed by juveniles were motivated by a fight/argument and did not involve any criminal premeditation. The victims were mostly strangers and close in age to the offenders. JHOs were significantly different from other juvenile offenders in a number of aspects, such as age, number of siblings, effectiveness of intrafamilial communication, social mobility, having risky friends, being school dropouts, and working at a paid job. However, JHOs and other juvenile offenders were not significantly different in a majority of the assessed risk factors. The findings pointed out that the risks existing at JHOs were not reflecting the stereotypical perspectives about violent delinquents. For instance, JHOs had the lowest rate of having risky friends compared with other two groups of juvenile offenders. In addition, we found that a typical homicide committed by a juvenile in Turkey was not criminally motivated, in most instances, but the outcome of an instantly escalating personal conflict between youth. In light of the study findings, we proposed several policy implications such as keeping youth in a formal education system to prevent their exposure to culturally inherent adverse social values that promote violent and revengeful reactions to a personal conflict.

Keywords

delinquency homicide murder juvenile Turkey juvenile homicide offenders violent juvenile delinquents nonviolent juvenile delinquents

Homicide creates a greater level of concern and fear than other types of crimes. When the perpetrator is a juvenile, this concern and fear not only increases but also blends with frustration, anger, nervousness, and disappointment. In the case of a homicide perpetrated by a juvenile, a social reaction is raised not only to address the personal and public safety concerns, but also to address questions regarding how to protect children from becoming involved in such a heinous deviant act, which will not only ruin victims’ lives, but also those of the perpetrators and their families. In recent years, society has become much more sensitive and alert about juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs), with lives lost by mass shootings, violent killings, and terrorist/politic homicides by juvenile offenders and the extensive news coverage about these cases. In addition, the criminal justice system has been facing a serious dilemma about those young homicide offenders, a dilemma “over how the law should deal with juveniles who kill—e.g., whether they should be tried as juveniles or adults and whether they should be subject to capital punishment” (Rowley, Ewing, & Singer, 1987, p. 3). Many studies have examined these concerns and challenges to shed light on homicides committed by juveniles and the characteristics of these JHOs since the mid-1970s (Gerard, Jackson, Chou, Whitfield, & Browne, 2014; Heide, 1986, 2003; Lewis et al., 1985; Morgan, 1975; Myers, Scott, Burgess, & Burgess, 1995; Russell, 1973; Schmideberg, 1973; Shumaker & Prinz, 2000; Zenoff & Zients, 1979) although there are studies as early as 1940 (Bender & Curran, 1940).

These studies have, however, been mostly of Western societies, heavily of the United States, and do not provide much insight regarding the characteristics of and the risk factors for JHOs as well as the dynamics of their offenses. This study, hence, aims to contribute to the scientific efforts toward understanding the dynamics and nature of homicides committed by juveniles through a retrospective analysis of the adjudicated murder and attempted murder cases and their perpetrators in Turkey.

Turkish Justice Statistics (2016) indicated that the total number of homicides committed by juveniles in Turkey was 1,637, which is a 31.5% increase from the year 2007. When considered with the change in the juvenile population, there was a 28% increase in the juvenile homicide rate in the same time frame. This significant increase also warrants deeper analyses on JHOs and their offenses as intended by this study. In 2016, while the total homicide rate in the general population was 37.9 (per 100,000), the rate for juvenile homicides was only 2.05 (per 100,000) according to Turkish Justice Statistics (2016). In the United States, the rate of juvenile homicides was 2.6 in 2016 (per 100,000; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP], 2018). However, the rate of juvenile homicides in Turkey increases to 6.4 (per 100,000) when only the number of juvenile homicides and juvenile population is taken into account. In addition, in 2016, 5.4% of all homicides in Turkey were committed by juveniles. In comparison, approximately 6% of all homicides annually in England and Wales were committed by young people in previous years (Rodway et al., 2011a) and approximately 7% to 8% of all murders involved a juvenile offender in the United States between 2010 and 2014 (Baglivio & Wolff, 2017).

The current study first reviews the previous studies’ findings on JHOs and their offenses. Following this initial section, we explain in detail the extent and the goals of the current research, as well as the legal conceptualization of murder and attempted murder offenses in Turkey. The “Method” section describes the data collection and analytical strategies as well as the variables in the data set. After the “Method” section, we present the findings from descriptive and bivariate analyses and comparisons of JHOs with other juvenile offenders on different measures. Next, we discuss the findings from the analyses and compare them with the relevant scientific literature. Finally, this study concludes with an overview of the contributions resulting from the findings of this research, recommendations for policy and further research, and the limitations of the current study.

What Do We Know About JHOs and Their Offenses?

Previous studies on juvenile homicides focused on personal, developmental, psychopathological, and social characteristics of the perpetrators (Botelho & Gonçalves, 2016). In addition, they compared JHOs with other juvenile offenders, (e.g., DeLisi, Piquero, & Cardwell, 2016; Myers, 2002) and examined case characteristics, such as victims’ demographics, weapon preferences, offender–victim relations, case characteristics, and crime scene characteristics.

First, the literature on JHOs consistently indicated that the majority of these offenders were male (Baglivio & Wolff, 2017; Farrington, Loeber, & Berg, 2012; Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Rodway et al., 2011a; Swart, Seedat, & Nel, 2015) and African American (in the United States; Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Loeber et al., 2005). In addition, Ahonen, Loeber and Pardini (2016) found that the majority of the homicide offenders in their study were in their late teens. JHOs also had criminal and prior arrest records from serious or nonserious delinquent activities, violence, gang membership, and drug-related issues (Ahonen et al., 2016; Farrington et al., 2012; Gerard et al., 2014; Myers, 2002; Rodway et al., 2011b; Vries & Liem, 2011). In addition, these studies indicated that JHOs previously experienced severe educational difficulties, cognitive and language deficits, learning disabilities (Heide, 2003), and they had low IQ levels (DeLisi et al., 2016). As a result, JHOs were more likely to be suspended (Farrington et al., 2012; Loeber & Farrington, 2011), held back (Farrington et al., 2012; Loeber et al., 2005), truant (Farrington et al., 2012; Hammond & Ioannou, 2015), and low in academic motivation and achievement (Ahonen et al., 2016; Gerard et al., 2014; Rodway et al., 2011b).

Second, several studies looking at clinical samples or case studies widely reported that alcohol and/or drug use/abuse was a common problem (Farrington et al., 2012; Heide, 1997, 2003; Moen, 2020; Rodway et al., 2011b; Vries & Liem, 2011) as well as high-risk and/or disruptive behavior, such as self-mutilation, violence, cruelty to people, and anger/aggression issues among the JHOs (Baglivio & Wolff, 2017; Farrington et al., 2012; Hammond & Ioannou, 2015; Heide, 1997, 2003; Myers, 2002). In addition, low self-esteem, inability to deal with strong feelings, boredom, poor judgment, prejudice and hatred, and interpersonal relationship problems were also common psychological problems identified among JHOs (Heide, 1997; Moen, 2020). Finally, several specific mental illnesses were identified, including personality disorder, conduct disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Heide, 2003), psychotic symptoms (Myers, 2002), major neurological impairment (Lewis et al., 1985), epilepsy (Gerard et al., 2014), lack of guilt (Farrington et al., 2012), depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation (Darby, Allan, Kashani, Harke, & Reid, 1998; Myers et al., 1995).

Third, previous studies on JHOs identified several risk factors/characteristics existing in the social environment, especially in the families of these offenders. The JHOs’ families were, first, dysfunctional and characterized by discipline problems (Moen, 2020; Rodway et al., 2011b), single-parent status, and economic difficulties (low socioeconomic status [SES]; Farrington et al., 2012; Hammond & Ioannou, 2015; Loeber & Farrington, 2011; Loeber et al., 2005; Vries & Liem, 2011). In addition, several types of abuse that were commonly existing in the families where JHOs were raised (Ahonen et al., 2016; Darby et al., 1998; Dolan & Smith, 2001; Heide, 1997; Lewis et al., 1985; Moen, 2020; Myers, 2002; Rodway et al., 2011b) were most commonly reported. Besides abusive behavior toward children, general violent behavior and/or domestic violence were common in the families of JHOs (DeLisi et al., 2016; Heide, 1997, 2003; Rodway et al., 2011b). Multiple studies also reported mental illness, criminality, and substance abuse as common characteristics of the parents of JHOs (Baglivio & Wolff, 2017; Darby et al., 1998; Farrington et al., 2012; Gerard et al., 2014; Heide, 2003; Rodway et al., 2011b; Roe-Sepowitz, 2008). In addition to familial risk factors, several studies also reported that JHOs tend to associate with delinquent peers (Ahonen et al., 2016; Farrington et al., 2012; Loeber et al., 2005; Vries & Liem, 2011).

Finally, previous studies looking at case characteristics of the homicides committed by juveniles, first, reported that the victims were mostly strangers (Ahonen et al., 2016; Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Swart et al., 2015; Vries & Liem, 2011). In regard to the weapon of choice in these offenses, Ahonen et al. (2016), Cornell, (1993), Hemenway and Solnick (2017), Farrington et al. (2012), Heide, Roe-Sepowitz, Solomon, and Chan (2011), and Heide (1993) reported that firearms were the most common weapons used in the cases that they examined. Several other studies reported that sharp objects and knives were also used as weapons in the murder cases committed by juveniles (Chan & Heide, 2008; Rodway et al., 2011b; Vries & Liem, 2011). Finally, a limited number of previous studies reported that, in most of the cases, the motive was noncriminal, mostly a conflict or fight between the offender and the victim (Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Swart et al., 2015; Vries & Liem, 2011).

Juvenile Homicides in Turkey

Existing Knowledge on the Turkish JHOs

The review of Turkish scientific literature during the course of this study did not yield any specific publication in regard to the JHOs in Turkey. Most of the existing homicide studies in Turkey addressed issues such as the demographic characteristics, motivations, and weapon of choice for the adult homicide offenders (Aydın, 2015; Evcim, 2011; Rozant, 2010), whereas only one study (Gündoğan, 2009) focused on the determinants of these offenses. Evcim (2011), for instance, examined 351 adult homicide offenders, 338 of whom were male, in Afyon province’s penitentiaries and found out that the average age of the offenders was 35.4 at the time of the offense; 47.9% of these offenders were school dropouts, 5% of them were raised in nontraditional family settings, and 30,4% of them had their first criminal records before the age of 18. In addition, 35.6% of the offenders reported to be abused as a child in their families, 50.3% reported that they had limited communication within their families, and 23.4% had a family member with a criminal record when they were growing up. Rozant (2010) conducted a study in Istanbul province with 93 male adult homicide offenders and identified similar personal and familial characteristics. In addition, Rozant’s (2010) study indicated that 37.6% of these offenders had alcohol problems while 26.9% of them had drug addiction problems. Aydın (2015) reported that 37% of the offenders in his study group had psychological problems.

Whereas the abovementioned studies focused on the homicide offenders without differentiation between the motives behind those homicides, Gündoğan’s (2009) study focused specifically on honor killings in Turkey through a study conducted in 12 provinces and 22 penitentiaries. While 20.9% of the cases he examined were in the form of revenge killing (blood feud), the rest of them were related to chastity issues. He reported similar results in regard to the personal characteristics of the offenders. In addition, he identified that the average schooling among the male offenders in his study was 6.6 years.

In a more recent study, Elgin (2019) examined the panel data of all homicides in Turkey between 1997 and 2015. He found that several socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of education were important determinants of homicide rates at provincial level.

Homicide in the Turkish Criminal Code (TCC)

For the purposes of this study, understanding how the offense of homicide is legally defined in Turkey is important. The TCC (TCC—No. 5237), Article 81 defines felonious homicide or voluntary manslaughter as unlawfully killing another person, which is punishable with life imprisonment. Article 82 defines the conditions for the qualified (aggravated) version of this offense (Council of Europe, 2018) for which the punishment is implemented in a more severe format. For attempting to commit a homicide offense, the TCC requires a lowered level of the sentence. According to Article 35,

a person who acts with the intention of committing crime but fails to perform the acts necessary to commit the crime due to a cause beyond his control is considered to have attempted to commit crime. In case of an attempt to commit crime, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment from thirteen years to twenty years instead of severe life imprisonment according to the seriousness of the damage or danger; and imprisonment from nine years to fifteen years instead of regular life imprisonment. In other cases, the punishment is abated from one-fourth up to three-fourth.

In addition to the general provisions of the TCC, the Turkish Child Protection Code (CPC; No. 5395), has also implications in understanding the legal approach to the juvenile offenders. CPC defines the minimum age of criminal liability as 12; every person younger than the age of 18 is considered a child and is covered by the provisions of that particular legal regulation. Any delinquent activity committed by a juvenile between the ages of 12 and 18 is adjudicated by the juvenile courts. The CPC also requires a wide-ranging social examination report for every adjudicated juvenile. A court-appointed certified social worker uses a type of motivational interview to collect information from the juvenile regarding his or her life circumstances. This face-to-face interview with the juvenile aims to derive information about (a) his or her social, emotional, cognitive, and moral developmental characteristics; (b) social, cultural, and economic characteristics of his or her family, as well as his or her emotional attachment to the family members; and (c) his or her education and job status, previous delinquent involvements, and leisure time activities. The CPC requires juvenile judges to utilize this information for sentence determination and other purposes throughout the court process, as well as during planning of postadjudication services.

Current Study

This study explores the JHOs and their offenses as they came in contact with the largest juvenile court district between 2006 and 2017 in Turkey. We examined JHOs’ personal and developmental characteristics, family and social environments, psychopathological issues, and the characteristics of the cases that they were involved in. As reviewed above, the majority of information in regard to JHOs are based on the studies conducted in Western countries and the number of studies conducted in other countries is, at best, limited. Furthermore, this is the first study, to our knowledge, describing JHOs in the Turkish context. This contribution is expected to strengthen the scientific knowledge on the dynamics of juveniles’ involvement in the most violent type of delinquent behavior, homicide, with a comparative international perspective.

Second, this study compares the JHOs with other violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders who were also adjudicated within the same juvenile court district. A limited number of previous studies made similar comparisons in other countries (e.g., DeLisi et al., 2016). As most of the previous studies on JHOs are based on clinical samples (Cornell, 1993), a comparison between JHOs and other juvenile offenders provides a well-rounded understanding of how/if homicidal juveniles are different from other juvenile offenders in terms of various individual, family, and social-level risk factors.

In sum, there are two major research questions this particular study aims to answer:

Research Question 1: What are the characteristics of the JHOs and their offenses in Turkey?

Research Question 2: How do different risk factors vary across the JHOs and other violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders?

Method

Data

The data utilized in this study were developed by Erbay, one of the authors and an active social worker assigned to the Juvenile Courts of one of the largest judicial districts in Turkey. That judicial district covers a total population of approximately 3.5 million people residing in 11 different cities¹ surrounding that metropolitan area. The data are based on the information available in the court files, which included the social examination reports, regarding the murder and attempted murder cases involving youth offenders adjudicated by one of the juvenile courts in that judicial district. Baglivio and Wolff (2017) also included both completed and attempted murder cases, considering the fact that the actual intention of the offense does not vary between these two categories; rather, other factors such as the lethality of the weapon and wound, timeliness of paramedical help, and the nature/consequences of the medical help to the victim.

The authors developed a spreadsheet for each murder and attempted murder case adjudicated in that jurisdiction between 2006 and 2017, and the contents of each case file were examined, coded, and transferred to the digital data. The starting date for the inclusion of the cases corresponds with the enactment of the CPC in 2005, when the juvenile courts started to be established countrywide in Turkey. To check on the reliability of the coding process, 75 case files were randomly selected and recoded by another coder; the results from the reliability test were that the original coding and recoding were 98.7% consistent.

Consequently, the data collection process yielded both individual-level variables regarding the JHOs, based on their self-reported information during these social examination interviews, and case-level variables regarding the case characteristics derived from the other documents available in the case files. Out of 2,482 juvenile offenders who came in contact with the juvenile courts in that district during that 11-year time frame, only 186 (7.49%) were JHOs (those convicted of murder and attempted murder offenses). Perpetrators were females in only four of these cases, so we excluded these cases from the data set. Hence, out of these 186 JHOs, 182 JHO were included in the final data set. To compare this group with other types of juvenile offenders adjudicated in the same district, we randomly selected and analyzed 182 nonviolent male offenders’ and 182 nonhomicidal violent male offenders’ case files from the list of adjudicated cases in the same time frame. Collected information on the same risk factors then let us make comparisons between these cases and JHO cases. In total, 546 cases were included in the final study data set.

Variables

The most important variable in this study is the “offense type”: homicide, nonhomicide violent, and nonviolent offense. The first category, “homicide” included the completed and attempted felonious homicide/voluntary manslaughter offenses as defined in TCC Article 81. Offenders and offenses in this category were analyzed in service of the first research goal, describing JHOs in the Turkish context. The second category, “non-homicide violent offense,” included offenses such as robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault. The last category, “non-violent offense,” included offenses such as burglary, drug trade, and verbal assault.

There were two groups of other variables included in this study: offender-level variables and offense (case)-level variables. Offender-level variables were collected for all three different types of offenses, while offense-level variables were collected only for the JHOs. The first group, offender-level variables, included information about the age, psychopathological issues, SES, and family/social environment of the offenders for all three groups of the offenders. These risk factors were determined based on several risk assessment tools and previously utilized for another study by the authors (Buker & Erbay, 2018) and they were utilized only for the comparisons of these three groups of offenders. The second group, offense (case)-level variables, included information only for the homicides offenses. These variables included information regarding the weapons, victims, offender–victim relations, impact of drugs during the commission of the homicide, and motives for the homicides. These variables were utilized only when describing the homicide offenses. Table 1 includes information regarding all of these variables.

Table 1.

Categorization of the Independent Variables Included in the Analyses.

	Variable	Measure	Explanation
Offense level (only for homicide cases)	Reason/motivation	Categorical	Argument/fight, gang dispute, commission of robbery or other crimes, honor killing, other
	Victim’s relation with offender	Categorical	Stranger, acquaintance
	Age of the victim	Continuous	How old the victim was
	Victim adult	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the victim was an adult or not
	Substance influence	Categorical	Whether the JHO committed the offense under the influence of any drug, alcohol
	Weapon	Categorical	Whether the choice of weapon was a knife, handgun, or any other weapon
	Age	Continuous	The age of the JHO at the time of the offense
	Income	Continuous	Monthly household income
	Number of siblings	Continuous	The number of siblings of the juvenile
Offender level	Family type (conventional)	Categorical (Y/N)	Live with biological parents—conventional. All others—unconventional
	Mother’s crime history	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the juvenile’s mother had been in prison, or tried in court, or investigated by prosecution office
	Father’s crime history	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the juvenile’s father had been in prison, or tried in court, or investigated by prosecution office
	Sibling’s crime history	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the juvenile’s sibling had been in prison, or tried in court, or investigated by prosecution office
	Sibling’s drug abuse	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the juvenile’s sibling uses drug, including a onetime use
	Domestic violence in family	Categorical (Y/N)	Domestic violence mentioned by the children in social examination process
	Share problems with family	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether or not the child shared problems with family members
	Migrated domestically	Categorical (Y/N)	Born in another province and moved to the current province
	Home ownership	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the family of the juvenile lives in its own property
	Risky friend	Categorical (Y/N)	Having friends who use drugs or have criminal records
	Dropout	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether or not dropped the juvenile out of a formal education system
	Drug abuse	Categorical (Y/N)	Any drug use, including a onetime use
	Self-harm	Categorical (Y/N)	Intentionally cutting or burning one’s own body
	Runaway history	Categorical (Y/N)	Leaving home without parents’ knowledge and spending the night outside
	Paid job	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether or not having part-/full-time job
	Recidivism	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether or not having previous crime record
	Previous psychological disturbance (only for JHOs)	Categorical (Y/N)	Whether the offender had previous recorded psychological disturbance

Note. JHO = juvenile homicide offender.

Analyses

Initially, we conducted a descriptive analysis on the JHOs group toward the first research goal of this study: describing the characteristics of the JHOs and their offenses. This descriptive analysis provided information on the prevalence of several risk factors among these offenders, as well as the characteristics of the homicide cases, using offense-level independent variables. This part of the analyses corresponds with the majority of the studies regarding the JHOs where the offender and the offense characteristics were described either through the clinical samples or the official case statistics/reports. The results are provided in Table 2.

Table 2.

Descriptive Analysis of the Juvenile Homicide Offenses.

	n	%
Causes of homicide cases
Argument/fight	115	63.2
Gang disputes	20	11
During robbery or other type of crimes	13	7.1
Honor killing	14	7.7
Others	20	11
Victims’ relation to the perpetrator
Stranger	131	72
Acquaintance	51	28
Victims’ age groups
0-18	82	45
19-25	49	27
26 and above	51	28
Mean age	23.63
Victims’ gender
Male	179	98
Female	3	2
Weapons involved in homicide cases
Knife	138	75.8
Firearm	39	16.5
Others	5	7.7
If the perpetrator was intoxicated during the homicide
No	143	78.6
Drug	20	11
Alcohol	19	10.4

Following this initial descriptive analysis, we run a two-sample t test and a cross-tabulation to check for differences between the JHOs and other juvenile offenders in our study group. The findings from these analyses are reported in the following section.

Findings

Toward the first research question in this study, we first described the homicide cases committed by juveniles, as presented in Table 2. Accordingly, we found that the majority of the cases (n = 115, 63.2%) in our data set was precipitated by an argument and/or a fight following that argument. Gang disputes were the second most common known causes of homicide cases in our study (n = 20, 11%). Only 7.1% (n = 13) of all homicide cases in our study were committed along with or during the commission of another crime, most commonly a robbery. The last common cause of the juvenile homicides was the honor killings, which constituted only 7.7% (n = 14) of all of the cases in our study.

The majority of the victims (98%, n = 179) were males and not an acquaintance of the perpetrator. Three females were killed during the honor killings. Of the victims, 72% (n = 131) were 25 years of age or younger, and the average age of the victims was 23.63, which is in close proximity to the offenders’ average age (16.04). The majority of the homicide cases in our study were committed by a knife (75.8%, n = 138) followed by handguns (16.5%, n = 30) and others, such as hammers and rifles (7.7%, n = 14). Finally, the case reports indicated that only 11% (n = 20) of the homicide cases were committed under the influence of an illicit drug, and 10.4% (n = 19) were committed under the influence of alcohol.

Following the case descriptions, we analyzed the demographic characteristics of the JHOs, as well as the presence of several risk factors among them. The average age of the JHOs in this study was 16.04, their reported monthly household income was 2,627.72 Turkish Liras,² and they had 4.45 siblings, on average. Almost 67% (n = 121) of the JHOs were living in a conventional (with both biological parents) family environment. A great majority of them did not have criminally active fathers (91%, n = 166), mothers (99.5%, n = 181), or siblings (77% n = 140). The majority of their families did not own their residence (57%, n = 104). In addition, almost 34% of the JHOs were exposed to domestic violence and a majority of them could not share their problems with their families (65%). The analysis indicated that the majority of the JHOs migrated from another city (67%, n = 121), along with their families, to where they committed homicide. The majority of these juveniles reported having risky friends (54%, n = 98), being school dropouts (83%, n = 151), and working in a paid job (64%, n = 117). A total of 34% (n = 62) of them reported self-harming behavior (self-mutilation) and 21% (n = 39) of them reported having a known previous psychological disturbance (see Table 3 or Table 4).

Table 3.

Comparison of JHOs and Other (Nonhomicide) Violent Delinquents.

	JHO (n = 182)			Other (Nonhomicide) Violent Delinquents (n = 182)
	Yes		M (SD)	Yes		M (SD)	t (df)	χ² (df)
	n	%	M (SD)	n	%	M (SD)	t (df)	χ² (df)
Age			16.04 (1.23)			15.48 (1.59)	−3,717 (362)*
Income			2,627.75 (1829.15)			2,383.87 (2046.6)	−2,510 (362)**
Number of siblings			4.45 (3.15)			3.65 (2.90)	−1,177 (348)
Family type (conventional)	121	67		117	64			0.194 (1)
Mother crime	1	1		4	2			1.929 (1)
Father crime	16	9		20	11			1.433 (1)
Sibling crime	42	23		32	18			1.186 (1)
Sibling drug abuse	19	10		25	14			1.267(1)
Domestic violence in family	61	34		60	33			.012 (1)
Sharing problems w/ family	64	35		76	42			1.900 (1)
Domestic migration	60	33		83	46			5.897 (1)**
Home ownership	78	43		72	40			.200 (1)
Risky friends	98	54		112	62			2.206 (1)
Drug abuse	65	36		79	43			2.252 (1)
Self-harm	62	34		72	40			1.181 (1)
Running away from home	65	36		73	40			0.747 (1)
Paid job	117	64		67	37			27.476 (1)*
School dropout	151	83		123	68			6.183 (1)**
Recidivism	80	44		95	52			2.476 (1)
Previous psychological disturbance	39	21		N/A	N/A

Note. JHO = juvenile homicide offender.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 4.

Comparison of JHOs and Nonviolent Delinquents.

	JHO (n = 182)			Nonviolent Delinquents (n = 182)
	Yes		M (SD)	Yes		M (SD)	t (df)	χ² (df)
	n	%	M (SD)	n	%	M (SD)	t (df)	χ² (df)
Age			16.04 (1.23)			14.87 (1.64)	−7,675 (362)*
Income			2,627.75 (1,829.15)			2,256.16 (2,054.250)	−1,811 (357)
Number of siblings			4.45 (3.15)			4.23 (2.92)	−0.69 (362)
Family type (conventional)	121	67		124	68			0.112 (1)
Mother crime	1	1		4	2			2.022 (1)
Father crime	16	9		28	15			5.542 (1)**
Sibling crime	42	23		45	25			0.337 (1)
Sibling drug abuse	19	10		26	14			1.580 (1)
Domestic violence in family	61	34		59	32			0.035 (1)
Sharing problems with family	64	35		92	51			9.086 (1)**
Domestic migration	60	33		94	52			12.714 (1)*
Home ownership	78	43		71	39			0.154 (1)
Risky friends	98	54		124	68			7.806 (1)**
Drug abuse	65	36		93	51			8.768 (1)**
Self-harm	62	34		71	39			0.960 (1)
Running away from home	65	36		68	37			0.107 (1)
Paid job	117	64		90	49			8.165 (1)**
School dropout	151	83		135	74			1.378 (1)
Recidivism	80	44		98	54			3.562 (1)
Previous psychological disturbance	39	21		N/A	N/A

Note. JHO = juvenile homicide offender.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

How Are the JHOs Different From Other Juvenile Offenders?

The second major goal of this study was to determine if the JHOs were different from other violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders in terms of several risk factors. Initially, we compared JHOs with nonhomicidal violent offenders (Table 3). The results of that comparison indicated that the JHOs were significantly different from other violent delinquents in terms of age, household income, being domestically migrated, being a school dropout, and having a paid job. JHOs were older, less likely to be migrated from another province, more likely to be school dropouts, more likely to have a paid job, and more likely to have a higher household income compared with the other violent delinquents included in this study.

The comparison between the JHOs and nonviolent delinquents (Table 4), on the contrary, indicated that the juveniles in these groups were significantly different in terms of age, father’s criminality, being able to share problems with parents, being domestically migrated, having risky friends, abusing drugs, and having a paid job. JHOs were older, less likely to have a father who had a criminal record, less likely to be able to share their problems with parents, less likely to be domestically migrated, less likely to have risky friends, less likely to have drug abuse problems, and more likely to have a paid job compared with the nonviolent delinquents included in this study.

Differences Between Firearm-Involving Homicides and Other Homicides Committed by Juveniles

Upon finding that firearms were less of a choice of weapon for most of the homicides committed by juveniles, we conducted a further analysis, first, to compare the characteristics of the homicides committed by a firearm with the homicides committed by other types of weapons (knife, blunt object, etc.). This comparison indicated that the two groups of cases significantly differed only in terms of the causes/motivations of the offenders (p < .001) and the (adult) status of the victims (p < .01). Firearms were most likely to be used for the homicides committed due to a gang dispute and victims killed with firearms were more likely to be adults (above age 18). Second, we compared the risk factors for the JHOs who used firearms, and for the JHOs who preferred other types of weapons. This second set of comparisons indicated that the JHOs who used a firearm were significantly different from the other JHOs in terms of prior criminal record (p < .05), father’s criminality (p < .05), and being a school dropout (p < .05). JHOs who used a firearm were more likely to have a prior criminal record, to have a father with a criminal history, and to be a school dropout compared with JHOs who used other types of weapons.

Discussion

The findings from our analyses, first of all, provided a comprehensive description of the JHOs and their offenses in the Turkish context for the first time. Accordingly, the most common cause/precipitator of the homicides committed by Turkish youth was an argument (mostly in the form of a verbal assault) or a fight. These findings were consistent with several previous studies’ findings, which indicated that most of the homicides committed by juveniles were motivated by a noncriminal act. (Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Swart et al., 2015; Vries & Liem, 2011). However, we did not conduct a structured content analyses on the case files and have not been able to determine precisely the dynamics of these fights and arguments in further detail. A follow-up study should conduct a qualitative analysis of the case reports to provide further insight in regard to juvenile homicides in Turkey. Yet, during the data collection process, we were able to track a common pattern indicating that these fights/arguments were mainly resulting from a conflict or an assumed assault to one’s dignity, pride, or honor. More specifically, the JHOs justified their aggression toward the victims by indicating that the victim swore to their mothers/partners, stared at their girlfriends/partners, or tried to establish a romantic relationship with their partners. This anecdotal pattern concurs with the honor-based cultural values of the Turkish society, which is similar in many other Eastern cultures (Gündoğan, 2009; Osch, Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, & Bölük, 2013; Uskul, Cross, Sunbay, Gercek-Swing, & Ataca, 2011). In only five cases, the perpetrators indicated a fight resulting from a material dispute, such as borrowing money but not returning it. Conclusively, we found that most of the JHOs’ homicidal acts in Turkey were not premeditated deviant acts but likely to result from the heat of the moment and instantly elevating to the highest level of violence.

Along the same lines, 4.4% (n = 8) of the homicide cases in our study were motivated by a perceived assault to the perpetrator’s honor. These cases were induced by almost the same types of cultural values as mentioned above, but they were more likely to be related to a direct assault to the perpetrator’s female relatives (sister, mother, sister-in-law, etc.). Our unstructured review of the case files indicated that these cases were more likely to be planned by the elders of the juvenile’s larger family who might have forced, motivated, or, at least, encouraged the perpetrator to conduct the homicide to save the family’s so-called dignity/honor. Hence, we can argue that in most of the honor killings, the juvenile offender was dragged into that crime by other family members, most probably due to the limited criminal liability of the juveniles provided by the law.

Another important finding of the descriptive analysis of the cases was in regard to victim–perpetrator relationship. In the majority of the cases included in this study, the victims were strangers (72%, n = 131). This result, again, is parallel with the findings of the previous research in other countries (Ahonen et al., 2016; Hemenway & Solnick, 2017; Swart et al., 2015; Vries & Liem, 2011). When we examined that relationship based on the motivations of the offenders, we found that in honor killing cases the great majority of the victims were acquaintances, while in fights/arguments, acquaintances constituted only the 28% (n = 51) of the total victims. In the same vein, the perpetrator–victim age proximity was also another important finding of the descriptive analyses. Supporting the general pattern in the motivations of the cases, as discussed above, we found that the great majority of the victims were also of a younger age.

The descriptive analysis indicated that the majority of the JHOs in our study group used a knife as their weapon (76%, n = 138) of choice. In only 16% (n = 30) of the cases a firearm was involved. The literature provided mixed findings in this regard. However, our finding clearly contradicted with the studies that were mostly based on U.S. samples and which found firearms as the most prevalent weapon of choice among JHOs (Ahonen et al., 2016; Cornell, 1993; Farrington et al., 2012; Heide, 1993; Heide et al., 2011; Hemenway & Solnick, 2017). Further analyses on the homicides committed by a firearm indicated that those cases were more likely to be gang-related and the victims of were more likely to be adults. This finding indicated that as firearms were atypical choices weapons for JHOs, the homicides committed with firearms were atypical, as well. Furthermore, JHOs who used a firearm rather than any other weapon were more likely to bear different risk factors, such as having a prior criminal history and being a school dropout. In short, juveniles who used firearms during their homicides were different from the majority of the JHOs as they showed more conventional patterns of violent delinquency.

Finally, the descriptive analysis of the cases pointed out that the JHOs were mostly not under the influence of any drugs when they committed their offenses. As we did not find a comparable study, we do not know how this finding fits into the existing body of knowledge regarding JHOs.

According to the findings of this research study, a typical homicide case in Turkey was committed by a male juvenile as an unplanned aggression elevating from a dispute/conflict, which was likely to result from a perceived assault to the perpetrator’s honor, and which occurred between the perpetrator and another young stranger male.

Second, our findings provided important insights in understanding if/how the JHOs were different from the other violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders. In this regard, we found mostly similarities rather than differences. This finding is consistent with the findings of the rare studies in the literature that made similar comparisons in other countries (e.g., Ahonen et al., 2016; DeLisi et al., 2016; Dolan & Smith, 2001; Shumaker & McKee, 2001). However, we also determined several statistically significant differences between the JHOs and other juvenile offenders in our study group, such as age, family size, academic deficiency, and job status.

In terms of differences between the offender groups, we, first, found that the JHOs were in their late teens and older than the other juvenile offenders, which is parallel with DeLisi et al.’s (2016) finding. JHOs were also having the highest number of siblings among the others. In addition, JHOs were more likely to be school dropouts and working in a paid job compared with other groups. Several other studies also found that the academic failure was a common pattern among the JHOs (Ahonen et al., 2016; Gerard et al., 2014; Rodway et al., 2011b).

The other significant differences that we could identify across these three offender groups were noteworthy and somewhat contrary to a possible common perception about how a typical JHO would look like. More specifically, experiencing a communication problem with the family, having risky friends, and being domestically migrated from another part of the country were fewest available risk factors among JHOs compared with violent and nonviolent offenders. As presented during the literature review, the previous studies that just described the JHOs and did not compare them with other juvenile offenders reported that several familial problems, such as domestic violence, abuse, and so forth, were common in the families of the JHOs. Our study, however, indicated that a possible risk factor in the family, lack of effective communication between the juvenile and the parents, was available in the families of the JHOs, but it was more prevalent in other violent and nonviolent juvenile offender groups’ families than it was in JHOs’ families. Likewise, several previous studies reported that the JHOs were likely to have risky friends (Ahonen et al., 2016; Farrington et al., 2012; Loeber et al., 2005; Vries & Liem, 2011), but in our study JHOs had the least number of risky friends compared with other juvenile offenders.

In sum, our findings in regard to the differences between the JHOs and other juvenile offenders correspond with our previous snapshot of a typical homicide case committed by a juvenile in Turkey. As these homicide cases were not commonly a premeditated deviant act, the JHOs were also not stereotypical “bad actors” with psychological pathologies, drug issues, criminal connections, and dysfunctional families. Instead, those JHOs were the youth who were “kicked out” of the formal education system, and had much more unsupervised time in menial jobs, and who were vulnerable to be exposed to honor/dignity-based cultural values, rather than the modern universal social values. Accordingly, based on our findings, we concur with DeLisi et al. (2016) who stated that “murders[by juveniles] are assaults and fights gone bad, more situationally and emotionally driven than they are a product of deficient personalities, compromised family situations, and the like” as a conclusion to their study of comparing JHOs with other juvenile offenders (p. 36).

Conclusion

Violent behavior among youth, especially in the form of homicide, is indeed a concerning problem in many societies around the globe. However, the scientific understanding about those youth involved in homicide is, at best, limited. With this particular study, we shed light on this phenomenon by exploring the characteristics of the JHOs, their offenses, and differences from the other juvenile offenders. Our study is the first known attempt to study this specific group of offenders in Turkey. In addition, this is one of the rare studies conducted in this regard outside of the Western societies and compared JHOs with other types of juvenile offenders.

The results of our study provided a description of typical JHOs and their offenses. Accordingly, a young man, although he might not possess typical criminogenic risk factors and a criminally inclined background, can commit homicide. The preventive policies, therefore, should focus on diminishing the effects of traditional cultural values that foster violence, aggression, vigilantism, and revengefulness in the long run where these kinds of values are existent and operative over the youth. In addition, our study, for one more time, indicated the importance of keeping youth in the formal education system to protect them from involving in violent delinquent behavior. This should be the case even though they show signs of problem behavior during their adolescence. These youth are also likely to have several other disadvantages, such as having a lower income, or having a less educated parent. Being in the formal education system can create not only a strong bond to universal values, but it also can mediate the impact of adverse cultural values that might be inherently available in the social environment of a youth.

Along with its strengths, our study has some limitations. First of all, we conducted this study on a group of adjudicated youth, and we could not include a noncriminally active group of youth in this study. Such an inclusion could provide further insights regarding the other possible differences between delinquent and nondelinquent youth. Second, although it provides a unique perspective from a rarely studied society, our results might not be generalizable beyond Turkey and similar other societies where the parallel cultural values exist. Finally, our data set was developed out of the formal court reports about these offenders and we could not address some of the possible questions that we would with a specially designed survey research.

As we mentioned before, further studies should examine the motives behind the fights/arguments, the most common motive behind juvenile homicides in Turkey, with a qualitative strategy to provide a deeper understanding in how and why juveniles kill. During our analyses, we also recognized that including variables to measure where the offenders were from in Turkey would enrich our analyses. This is due to the fact that certain cultural values, such as revengefulness, or chastity, are more impactful in certain regions of Turkey, such as the southeast region, than the others. Therefore, a further study of geographical/regional differences among the juvenile offenders can be beneficial to develop a more precise understanding about the impact of diverse regional cultural values on youth violent behavior within Turkey. In addition, collecting information on the regional backgrounds of the JHOs would allow further analysis on access to firearms across the different regions of Turkey, which might be worth explaining. Finally, future research efforts may examine domestic migration patterns, as our analyses indicated domestic migration as a significant risk factor varying across the delinquent groups in our study, and their influence on interpersonal conflict among juvenile and young adult offenders over a certain time span.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hasan Buker

Notes

Author Biographies

Ayhan Erbay, PhD, is an active social worker in the Ministry of Justice, Turkey. His research focuses on delinquency, drug abuse/use among youth, youth violence, and child justice system. He is interested in readaptation of juveniles into social systems such as school, family, and neighborhood after adjudication with multiprofessional teams.

Hasan Buker is an associate professor of criminal justice at Minot State University, ND, USA. He holds a PhD in criminal justice from Washington State University. His recent research focuses on juvenile delinquency, online criminality and victimization, police behavior, and crimes against children. He has published numerous books, edited volumes, chapters, and journal articles in these areas. His recent studies were published in journals such as International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Journal of Human Sciences, and Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Journal of Review.

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