Filicide – the killing of a child by their parent – has long been dismissed as too rare or too incomprehensible to study in depth. However, as Professor Thea Brown’s research shows, filicide is neither as rare as once thought nor beyond our capacity to prevent. Her team’s work at Monash University demonstrates that filicide doesn’t occur in isolation, or from a single cause. Instead, it arises from a complex web of factors – including family violence, poverty, substance abuse, mental illness, and the perpetrator’s history of trauma. Importantly, Brown’s work reveals that both mothers and fathers commit filicide, but often in different circumstances and with different warning signs – many of which are missed by social services. Read More
Countries such as Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, and Canada reveal similarities and differences in how filicide unfolds across cultures. For example, Brown and her team have highlighted the role of migration in some Australian cases, pointing to systemic stressors that need more attention. South Korea and Japan show contrasting patterns in perpetrator gender, raising questions about how local norms, data collection practices, and public services shape both the risk and the response.
A crucial insight from Dr Brown’s work is the role of red flags – early warning signs that can indicate a high risk of filicide. Her team has developed a constellation of red flags tailored to different groups: mothers, fathers, stepfathers, and the children themselves.
For instance, mothers who are victims of family violence and have depression are at higher risk. High-risk fathers and stepfathers, on the other hand, are more likely to have criminal histories, use illicit substances, and perpetrate domestic violence. Children under five, those previously reported to child protection, and those with chronic health issues are particularly vulnerable.
The red flag framework is a practical tool to alert professionals – GPs, mental health workers, child protection officers – to act quickly. As Brown stresses, professionals must respond with urgency, link at-risk families to appropriate services, and maintain close oversight, especially in the days after receiving a report.
Brown’s most recent findings also shed light on how Child Protection services interact with families at risk – and how gaps in that engagement can have fatal consequences. In nearly 40% of filicide cases examined between 2009 and 2016 in Australia, the families were already known to Child Protection. Fathers and stepfathers, particularly those with violent histories, were the main perpetrators in these cases and often eluded service engagement, missing appointments or refusing follow-up.
Tragically, many children died soon after cases were opened – sometimes within days. The majority of referrals to Child Protection came from concerned friends, family, or neighbours. Other services, such as mental health or substance use support, rarely made reports to Child Protection despite obvious risks.
Brown emphasises that these findings are a wake-up call: the systems we rely on to protect children are often reactive and siloed, missing opportunities to intervene before harm occurs. A coordinated, better-informed response across services is essential.
Brown also calls for better data collection and coordinated research across countries. She argues that every country should maintain its own national database on filicide, with common definitions and consistent methods, so that we can identify patterns that inform prevention. Such efforts would allow researchers and policymakers to understand, for example, why filicide rates are declining in Canada but not elsewhere, or why intimate partner violence features prominently in some countries’ cases but is absent in others.
Looking ahead, Brown insists we need more than just better services – we need public education, clearer research priorities, and stronger systems for noticing and responding to warning signs. She calls for national and international research centres dedicated to filicide, working together to explore unanswered questions, such as: How do perpetrators move from thought to action? How can we best intervene with violent parents? And how can we support communities to respond when they sense something is wrong?
Thanks to the research by Brown and her team, the picture of filicide is becoming clearer. With this clarity comes an opportunity and a responsibility to prevent these terrible tragedies.
