Contract killing (also known as murder-for-hire) is a form of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or people. It involves an

illegal agreement An illegal agreement, under the common law of contract, is one that the court will not enforce because either (1) the making of the agreement itself is illegal or (2) the agreement becomes illegal because of the way in which it is performed. The ...

which includes some form of compensation, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be a person, group, or organization. Contract killing has been associated with

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

, government conspiracies,

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

s and vendettas. Contract killing provides the hiring party with the advantage of not having to carry out the actual killing, making it more difficult for

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

to connect the client with the murder. The likelihood that authorities will establish that party's guilt for the committed crime, especially due to lack of

forensic evidence Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts". Hu ...

linked to the contracting party, makes the case more difficult to attribute to the hiring party. Contract killers may exhibit

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

traits, but are generally not classified as such because of third-party killing objectives and detached financial and emotional incentives. Nevertheless, there are occasionally individuals that are labelled as both contract killers and serial killers. A contract killer is colloquially known as a hitman.

Statistics

Contract killings generally make up a small percentage of murders. For example, they accounted for about 6% of all murders in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

from 1993 to 2002. A study by the

Australian Institute of Criminology The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and criminal justice. The Institute seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research ...

of 162 contract murders and attempted contract murders in Australia between 1989 and 2002 indicated that the most common reason for murder-for-hire was

insurance policy In insurance, the insurance policy is a contract (generally a standard form contract) between the insurer and the policyholder, which determines the claim (legal), claims which the insurer is law, legally required to pay. In exchange for an initial ...

payouts. The study also found that payments varied from $5,000 to $30,000 per killing, with an average of $15,000, and that the most commonly used weapons were

firearms A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originated ...

. Contract killings accounted for 2% of murders in Australia during that period.

Notable persons

* List of contract killers and hitmen

References

External links

Murder-for-Hire: Web Hits of a Deadly Kind
(

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Contract Killing * Speech crimes Killings by type Illegal occupations Temporary employment Gangland warfare tactics Organized crime activity Murder

Statistics

Notable persons

See also

References

External links