Parents Killing Children: Crossing the Invisible Line

Parents Killing Children: Crossing the Invisible Line explores hidden forms of violence within the family. This socio-legal study addresses the interactions between the family and the state, focusing on six parent perpetrators and the ways in which child endangerment is concealed within society.

Drawing on symbolic interactionism, mythology and a modelling of case study data, this book puts forward a unique conceptualisation of representation and risk, both on familial and state levels. The failure of the state to intervene and neutralise volatile perpetrators also sheds light on the socio-legal status of children – society’s most vulnerable – and the book concludes by discussing means by which the underlying social conditions and maladies symptomatic of child abuse and killing should be addressed.

Janice Sim is a Lecturer at Griffith University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a Griffith University Law Futures Centre Associate Member. She convenes Introduction to Maritime Law at the Griffith Law School. Janice completed her doctorate at the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and was a post-doctorate Fellow. She has an eclectic range of research interests in, but not limited to, filicide, child protection, intervention, representation, vulnerable populations, piracy and maritime law and security.