The changing face of homicide research: the shift in empirical focus and emerging research trends

Purpose– Homicidal behaviour is influenced by a complex interaction of behavioural, situational and environmental factors that raise many challenging psychological questions. A large and continually growing body of research has explored the crime of homicide, its epidemiology, victims and perpetrators. The area is developing rapidly, opening up new avenues of study. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– This special issue of theJournal of Criminal Psychologybrings together an exciting array of papers on homicidal behaviour, examining a wide range of issues including juvenile homicide perpetrators, school shootings, child homicide, homicide-suicide and differences in offence behaviours and victim characteristics between hard-to-solve one-off homicides and serial homicides.Findings– The range of papers included in this special edition cover a wide range of aspects of homicidal behaviour, reflecting the importance of – and the need for – applied research moving away from examining general homicide to specialised research focusing on subtypes of homicide and subgroups of homicide offenders. A research agenda is proposed.Originality/value– This editorial gives an introduction to the themes explored in this special issue and provides an overview of the selected papers.