1st Edition
Fatal Family Violence and the Dementias Gray Mist Killings
This book explores dementia-related aggression, violence, and homicide through a detailed analysis of “gray mist killings.” The term gray mist killing refers to intimate partner homicides (IPHs) committed by spouses/partners suffering from dementia, homicides of dementia sufferers committed by their caregiving spouses/partners or other family members, and IPHs attributable to the complications of caring for a co-resident family member suffering from dementia.
Killings by people with dementia raise questions about the role of biological, psychological, and sociological forces. This book therefore encourages discussions around the relative weighting of these interrelated forces, and why the criminal justice system and the courts have a hard time handling these killings. It also adds to our understanding of the social responses to people with dementia, the orchestration of services, the nature of caring, and the interaction between sufferers and those familial, community, and state actors that provide support and care. The vividly detailed case studies (from the US, UK and Australia) uniquely inform criminological debates about violence, homicide, and the social responses to these complex phenomena. They are organized around the apparent motives for the killing, such as mercy, theft, prior intimate partner violence, mental illness, and exhaustion. The social responses of families, communities, and state actors are examined and contextualized against what researchers and dementia specialists suggest are promising or best practices for intervention. Apparent triggers or circumstantial precipitants for the killings invite discussion of signals, risks, and preventive interventions. The book culminates in an attempt to make sense of gray mist killings, as well as a discussion of broader implications and significance in relation to globalization, violence against women, the rising prevalence of the dementias, declining birthrates, climate change, and sustainable economic development.
Drawing from a variety of disciplines, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, gender studies, social work, law, public policy, and gerontology. It should also appeal to judges, prosecutors, lawyers, social workers, gerontologists, law enforcement, adult protective services, physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
Part 1
Chapter 1: Gray Mist Killings
Chapter 2: Dementing Illness: A Brief Introduction
Part 2
Chapter 3: Dementing Illness and Abnormalities of Mind
Chapter 4: Mercy and Exhaustion
Chapter 5: Prior Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse
Chapter 6: Thieves and Fraudsters
Part 3
Chapter 7: Problematic Contemporary Responses
Chapter 8: The Fiction of Prediction: Risk and Danger
Part 4
Chapter 9: Making Sense of Gray Mist Killings
Chapter 10: Global Implications
Biography
Neil Websdale is Director of the Family Violence Center at Arizona State University and Director of the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative (NDVFRI). He has published work on domestic violence, the history of crime, policing, social change, and public policy. His books include: Rural Woman Battering and the Justice System: An Ethnography (1998), which won the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Outstanding Book Award in 1999; Understanding Domestic Homicide (1999); Making Trouble: Cultural Constructions of Crime, Deviance, and Control (co-edited with Jeff Ferrell, 1999); Policing the Poor: From Slave Plantation to Public Housing (2001), winner of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Outstanding Book Award in 2002 and the Gustavus-Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Award in 2002; Familicidal Hearts: The Emotional Styles of 211 Killers (2010). Professor Websdale’s social policy work involves helping to establish networks of domestic violence fatality review teams across the United States and elsewhere. His extensive fatality review work has contributed to the NDVFRI receiving the prestigious 2015 Mary Byron Foundation Celebrating Solutions Award. He has also worked on issues related to community policing, full faith and credit, and risk assessment and management in domestic violence cases. Professor Websdale trained as a sociologist at the University of London, England and currently lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona.
"Fatal Family Violence and the Dementias is a must read for general readers, clinicians and academics interested in the violence against people with dementia and perpetrated by people with dementia. It takes an amazingly deep dive into 100 cases representing three continents. The writing is outstanding and riveting." - Virgil Hancock III M.D., M.P.H.
"This book tackles an understudied phenomenon that is likely to grow as our population ages: dementia-involved homicides. Websdale delves deeply into the dynamics that can lead people with dementia to become involved in homicide, either as victim or perpetrator. Websdale also calls for better criminal justice responses to these unique cases. This book, the first I have seen on this topic, promises to become a classic." - Sherry Hamby, University of the South, Director, Life Paths Research Center
"Neil Websdale is an incredibly gifted author who can weave together his academic brilliance with his compassion in the tragic and humane stories of family homicides and dementia. This book shines a light on the unique impact of aging on domestic violence that has been ignored for far too long. Ageism tried to shut the door on these discussion before Neil Websdale came along." - Peter Jaffe, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, Western University (London, Canada) and author of Preventing Domestic Homicides
