Rethinking Older Adult Murder Victims: Looking Back at 25 Years of Homicide Studies to Inform Future Research Needs

• Author: Lynn A. Addington
• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10887679211046905
• Subject Matter: Special Issue Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10887679211046905

Homicide Studies

2022, Vol. 26(1) 106 –117

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DOI: 10.1177/10887679211046905

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Special Issue Article

Rethinking Older Adult

Murder Victims: Looking

Back at 25 Years of Homicide

Studies to Inform Future

Research Needs

Lynn A. Addington1

Abstract

Over the past 25 years, homicide researchers have largely ignored older adults.

This pattern continues even in light of the ongoing demographic shift associated

with the aging baby boomer generation. This article reflects on the current state of

the literature and discusses areas in need of attention. Future research needs can

be categorized into substantive and methodological issues. The insights gained by

exploring these topics can generate nuanced explanations for fatal violence against

older adults and support future evidence-based prevention policies.

Keywords

elderly, subtypes, methodology, trends, victimization, prevention

When Homicide Studies started publishing its first issues in the late 1990s, age mat-

tered to criminologists researching fatal and non-fatal violence. Studies tended to

emphasize teenagers and young adults as populations at greatest risk as both victims

and offenders. This interest was amplified due to the combined trends of rising violent

crime rates, media depictions of murders committed by dangerous gun-toting teens,

and predictions of a looming (and now debunked) superpredator crisis (Equal Justice

Initiative, 2014). In stark contrast, murders involving older adults went largely unex-

amined. Reasons for the dearth of interest could be attributed to crime rates (the low

murder rate for older adults overall) and demographic patterns (the oldest baby

1American University, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Lynn A. Addington, Department of Justice, Law & Criminology, American University, 4400 Massachusetts

Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20016-8043, USA.

Email: adding@american.edu

1046905HSXXXX10.1177/10887679211046905Homicide StudiesAddington

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