I'd like to discuss something very, VERY seriously...

Let's see if we can dispassionately and analytically explore this.  I'm as serious as a stroke, because the subject matter is.  I see articles like THIS far too often, and according to the links in the article, "family annihilations" are happening more and more frequently.  I don't remember these happening in the 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's.  Maybe I wasn't paying attention, maybe the reporting was lousy, or maybe they just weren't happening.  

There's a reason I'm asking--I can understand incandescent rage at betrayal.  I can understand bloodlust and wanting to kill everything because of anger.  What I can't understand is a irrational rage so intense that you'd kill your own kids.  I simply can't conceive of being so angry with your partner that you'd dismiss the value of your own children's lives in order to inflict pain/vengeance on your spouse.  

If this chart is correct (Wikipedia) then the rate of killing spouses is falling but the rate of killing children is increasing in the last 40 years--it's getting close to doubling.  Wikipedia claims about 900 "familicides" in the hundred years from 1900 to 2000 and the article linked above claims 227 in the last three years.  

So, with all the solemnity and respect this subject deserves, what's your theory on the cause?  Loss of "community"/diminishment of fatherhood?  We're lab rats under too much pressure?  Decline of psychological/emotional institutions bonding society together?  "Moral decay" of a specific type? 

Sadly, theres no one answer to these questions. The degredation of mental health care, the loss of the core family unit, the 24/7 cycle of "information", The secular division of the country, parenting that doesn't parent etc. 

Without the context of total homicide rate, these numbers don't mean much. US murder rate is way lower today than its peaks in the 70's and 80's, though it has crept up slightly in recent years. 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/

To sum up what bobzilla said, many people have lost all hope at a better future for themselves and their children. And there are a variety of reasons for that, what makes someone actually act on those feelings? I don't know. 

Example: if from 1980 to 2005, the overall homicide rate cut in half, but the % of those homicides of children doubled, then the total child homicide rate hasn't really changed. This graph does appear to show fatal domestic violence has gone way down since the 70's and 80's, if both the overall rate and % of spousal homicides have gone down. 

The population has increased by 50% in the last 40 years. 

When I was a child, the family of 5 kids down the street was murdered by their father. That would have been about 1968. 
 

That scared the hell out of me for decades. 
 

My perspective may be different than yours. 

1988RedT2 said:

Most Christians will inherently know what the answer is.  Many secularists will remain in denial.

REALLY?!

Thus ends my participation in this thread.

SV reX said:

The population has increased by 50% in the last 40 years. 

Okay, standardizing the statistics would be a good start--point taken.  Population changes and demographics (fewer marriages, etc.) would affect the numbers, but the raw data I cited certainly appears alarming.

My opinion, which means exactly zilch...

Any data you pull from the web can be interpreted however you want to see it.  If you think the moral fabric of the nation has disappeared, you'll see the homicide of children has increased.  If you think mental health has declined, you'll see the spike in homicides during the lockdown.  If you think the country as a whole is OK, you'll see that the population has grown, but the homicide percentages have dropped.

Personally, today's world is full of 1000's of magnitudes of information beyond our capacity to handle it.  With the constant inundation of information, we not only get stressed out and overloaded mentally, our subconscious flight/fight mode kicks in and we start concentrating on just the threats.  The threats being the scary/sad/anger inducing information over everything else.

So, people concentrate more on the "bad" news and less on the "good" news.  Now, combine that with all of these "information" sources trying to command your attention for views so they can make money at it, and they'll quickly realize that people are more likely to focus on the "bad" news over anything else.  Of course, the algorithms will make sure to continue to show "viewers" what they seem to concentrate on, making the next article/site/graph/whatever focus on the last.  I.E. more doom and gloom.  There's an old journalism statement "if it bleeds, it leads". We're now seeing that about 10 million times more prevalent now that in the early days because there are 10 million more "sources" of "information".

Put the human factor in it, and it's even more obvious.  I had this chat with my son a few months ago.  If you put up a video that is 100% opposite of your beliefs and ended up getting millions of views and, thereby, more money that you ever imagined, how likely are you to keep making videos of that?  I know if a video like that dropped $10k in my bank account, it'd be a serious challenge to not continue to make it. 

Angertainment is very, very real. 

I don't know a way to fix it.  I don't know a way to change it.  I'm just one goofball with a non-fact, non-researched opinion.  Maybe the world really is worse off and I'm just too naive to see it.  I don't think that deep down, but can completely understand why someone would with just the graphs and info in this thread. 

-Rob

Duke said:

1988RedT2 said:

Most Christians will inherently know what the answer is.  Many secularists will remain in denial.

REALLY?!

Thus ends my participation in this thread.

 

He pretty much trolls every thread like this. 

My heart cringes when the Chicago TV news reports this type of story.  

I'm at a loss for words.

My wild guess (which would be more informed if we had more data as to the circumstances of these murders of childer) would be the TYPES of drugs that are becoming more popular.  Both methamphetamine and fentanyl are wildly more popular currently then years ago.  Meth causes VERY dangerous paranoid delusions while Fentanyl is likely less dangerous to others (users will likely eventually die of course) though I am sure there is potential there also.   The chart below does not show Fentanyl and I think the meth rating is a bit deceptive.

Meth is very cheap, rather easy to make, and is massively circulating in the US.  After enough use, it would not be unreasonable for a user to think their family are demons etc. Long time users develop very serious psychological issues (as most have likely notices). Of course, even with the increased use rate that is almost certainly happening, you can see the potential.

Studies indicate that long-term crystal meth use can have serious mental health consequences, and may cause some to develop psychotic features—with symptoms such as paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions—which can last for months or years after an individual stops taking methamphetamine.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/meth-treatment/side-effects

The amount of drugs pumped into children has also massively increased.  When they get older, there is almost certainly an increased chance they will look for a "fix"... they may start with other stuff, but meth is cheap.

Here is a somewhat relevant chart (maybe someone can find a better one?).  Showing historical death rates (which obviously implies use rates).  Note that this is BEFORE the pandemic, and it has CERTAINLY gotten MUCH worse since then:

In reply to aircooled :

I wonder what the metric is for that "overall harm" chart.  I would much rather be around someone who has consumed alcohol regularly for 20 years than someone who has consumed meth or heroin regularly for 20 years.  People generally don't steal from their neighbors, friends, and family to get their next case of beer.

Similarly, I'd put tobacco higher on the list of self-harm than alcohol, if only because its non-impairing effects permit one to indulge more often.  There are many more people who smoke 2 packs a day than there are people who drink a fifth a day...

(I did quit smoking again.  It's amazing how much my joints hurt less)

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, that's probably not a very good chart (I don't know what it's really measuring).  I suspect someone else can find more useful data / chart.

I would say that kids (or me) are likely far safer around a drunk then a meth head.

stroker said:

SV reX said:

The population has increased by 50% in the last 40 years. 

Okay, standardizing the statistics would be a good start--point taken.  Population changes and demographics (fewer marriages, etc.) would affect the numbers, but the raw data I cited certainly appears alarming.

That's not raw data, it's a percentage-of-total chart that doesn't tell you what the total is.

For example, it's entirely possible that # of murders, # of murders-of-spouses, and # of murders-of-children all went down, but if murders-of-children didn't go down by as much as the other ones, it would still produce a chart like the one shown.

This chart is useless without additional information.

In the first graph notice that the spouse/ex-spouse and child lines are almost mirror images of each other. This suggests that murderers are largely seeing these two as mutually exclusive options.

As for the apparent spike in the last 3 years, well there was an odd thing that happened over the last 3 years that had people stuck inside with their families, but we don't know if it's actually a spike - we'd need to see the 2008-2020 data to see if it's a sudden spike or just the end of a steady increase since 2008.

As for motivation, I found a study on that here:

https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=honorscollege_cj

Ask yourself why people have stopped having kids in the first place. It could pretty much be a continuation of the same.

That said, I have not spent a proper amount of time and effort to study the data from the OP, so I cant even be sure this is really a thing.

I wonder what the percentage of the child killings are murder-suicides? That seems to be the most common scenario from my no-data observation of news stories that cover this sort of thing. 

Still, it's not something I can wrap my head around. Off yourself; fine. Why take your children/family members with you? Does not compute. But then, we're talking about a mental illness so strong a person is choosing death as a solution.

Pay attention to the labels of what units the axes measure. 

stroker said:

This chart does NOT show if rates are increasing or decreasing. It breaks down what percentage of family homicides fall into which categories. The numbers always add up to 100%. So if one type of homicide decreases (spouse), all other categories will appear to increase.

It doesn't differentiate by age of children. We do not know if the children killed are 2, 12, or 22 years old.

Why might trends look like this? Divorce is more normalized. More adult children are living with their parents. Houses tend to have only parents and children, and fewer grandparents or aunts/uncles/siblings under the same roof. Sibling line drops because families are having fewer children.

More options for divorce mean more options to escape unhealthy relationships that are violent or might become violent if unhappiness continues to fester. This drives down the "Spouse/Ex-spouse" line and bumps up all others.

Fewer other family members in the house drive those lines down, but the drop in spousal violence is so large that those other numbers *appear* flat in relation.

This means that the "Child" line will appear to go up no matter what. Add in adult children and stigma against kicking them out of the house, and you have the potential for problems to boil over to violence between adults.

I really didn't mean to say anything controversial.  Put simply, if you talk with believers in Jesus Christ, you will find that hope is almost universally present among them, while so many who do not believe are without hope.  I believe that in order to murder one's own family, you've pretty much lost any semblance of hope.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

You are way out of touch with reality.  Just because I don't believe that an invisible guy in the sky will solve all my problems doesn't mean I don't have hope.

1988RedT2 said:

I really didn't mean to say anything controversial.  Put simply, if you talk with believers in Jesus Christ, you will find that hope is almost universally present among them, while so many who do not believe are without hope.  I believe that in order to murder one's own family, you've pretty much lost any semblance of hope.

 

Some murder believing it's "Gods will". Have they lost hope, or somehow that's different? Look up Lori Vallow. 

1988RedT2 said:

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My guess, and I acknowledge that it's little more than a guess, is that parents feel that their children are going to grow up and have a bad time in what is left of this world.  They are, in their own minds, saving their children from pain.  At the heart of the matter is a loss of hope.

Most Christians will inherently know what the answer is.  Many secularists will remain in denial.

 

I dunno. I mean, I believe that Christianity brings hope, so long as you understand it correctly. But plenty of people are doing just fine in this world without faith, and plenty of Christians struggle with depression and other mental health stuff. I don't think you can use Jesus as a band aid.

Anecdote on the original topic: Something like that happened in the sleepy little town where I went to college. One of those places where "Things like this just don't happen." I think it came out that drugs and some sort of love triangle were involved but still it was unnerving.