"My Daughter Was Sacrificed by My Mother": Women's Involvement in Ritually Motivated Violence and Murder in Contemporary Africa

Ritually motivated crimes are grave crimes that continue to plague contemporary Africa. Occasionally, victims abducted for ritual purposes are discovered and set free. Fresh or decomposing bodies are spotted somewhere, often with missing parts taken by the ritual killers who killed the victims. Some missing persons in the continent are presumed to have been abducted or killed by ritually motivated criminals. Although ritually motivated crimes take different forms, most of them involve brutal acts of violence and murder. The barbaric manner in which these criminals attack or slaughter their victims creates fear and panic. Traditionally, men commit serious crimes involving brutal acts of violence and murder. However, this has changed in recent times as many women currently engage in violent crimes and murder. Thus, researchers in criminology and criminal psychology have paid increasing research attention to women’s involvement in serious crimes. The African magic industry attracts both men and women as clients, witchdoctors, and ritualists. Like male witchdoctors, the female witchdoctors equally dispatch human body hunters and kidnappers to find victims. Women patronize witchdoctors with the full awareness that human parts would be used in the preparation of the charms or concoctions they seek. Women work independently or as accomplices to males who abduct, attack, or kill those targeted for ritual purposes. While women’s involvements in different types of violent crimes and murder are well documented, women’s participation in ritually motivated violence and murder has been overly neglected in academic literature. This article aims to bridge this vital gap. It explores how women actively participate in ritually motivated violence and murder in different capacities in contemporary Africa and calls for research to establish motivations and modus operandi specific to women in these serious crimes.

The SAVE Metaprotocol for Behavior Analysis. An integrative proposal

We present the System of Analysis of Validity in Evaluation (SAVE), as a potentially useful method for professionals in the field of Legal Psychology and other Forensic Sciences, understood as any discipline that integrates formal aspects from the forensic, behavioral and legal sciences, with a purely applied orientation. According to Muñoz, et al. (2011), "The great challenge of current Forensic Psychology, from a technical point of view, is in two areas: a) the creation of assessment instruments and methods appropriate to the context of forensic exploration (that are able to circumvent the defensive and manipulative attitude of the examinees while maintaining high parameters of reliability and validity and the object of the same (that allow psycho-legal inferences); and b) consolidate technical criteria based on empirical evidence to support their expert considerations." "Method" comes from the Latin methodus and this from the Greek, μέθοδος, meaning, "the way to follow", the steps to be taken to carry out something, the procedure or protocol. It refers both to a properly structured, organized, and systematic way to reach a purpose or result and to the way of proceeding, thinking, acting or behaving, expertise or habit that each one has and observes. Also, the work of art, specialty, or science; for example, in philosophy, the method is the process followed in a study to find the truth and teach it. The interview and other diverse research techniques would not be - in this sense - a method, but only devices, tools of the method, and this, a process used in a theoretical framework (Nateras González, 2005), as occurs with the clinical method (Ilizástegui & Rodríguez, 1990). That is the objective of SAVE, to be the method for an orderly, flexible, logical, and adapted to each area application of the most appropriate techniques and tools for the evaluation to be performed. Combining different points of view and structuring what, in many cases, is performed today individually and intuitively (Domínguez-Muñoz, et al., 2017a; Muñoz, 2013). As a Metaprotocol, it integrates and locates various tools previously based on empirical evidence and validated for independent use, from VAS to TOMM to indirect personality profiling. Its application is being initiated in diverse but related fields such as forensic (Domínguez-Muñoz, et al., 2018) or evaluative medicine (Domínguez-Muñoz, et al., 2017b), criminal behavior analysis, expert psychology, insurance fraud, etc. They have in common with Forensic Psychology the high frequency of deception "phenomena that take on special relevance in the forensic context" (Muñoz, 2013). Therefore, we present SAVE in this area where professionals and experts from many fields of knowledge can access, review, question and criticize the proposed method, to make it as useful as possible in the daily practice of those who consider its use in some of the areas of Forensic Sciences; specifically, in Legal Psychology, especially in our understanding, Forensic Psychology, Criminal Psychology, Testimony and Criminal Psychology (Muñoz, et al., 2011).

Evolution of the Institution of Insanity in English Law

The article studies the genesis and evolution of the insanity institute in the English law using historical and legal as well as comparative and legal methodologies. Special focus is given to the psychological and legal aspects of insanity. The material is presented in the habitual way to the Russian reader, i.e. didactically, all the distinctive features of the following are preserved: statutory and case law, English criminal psychology and forensic psychiatry. On the basis of exploring foreign and Russian scientific publications on criminal law and legal psychology the analysis of the milestones in development of the insanity institute is done. Critical reflection was employed upon the psychological and judicial doctrines, statutes and precedents that legislate certain aspects of insanity. The article analyses the "non compos mentis" rule, “wild-beast-test”, McNathan's Rules, Caldwell's test as well as the legislative acts regulating particular aspects of insanity. Some of the precedents and doctrinal provisions of the English law have never been translated into Russian and are introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time.