Preventing Gendered Homicide (From Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women's Health, P 121-153, 1996, Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft -- See NCJ-161219)

• NCJ Number: 161224
• Author(s): E Stark; A Flitcraft
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 33 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter proposes a homicide prevention strategy based on the gendered nature of violent acts.

Abstract

The authors document the importance of partner violence in homicide, critique existing models of homicide, and offer a typology of gendered violence suited to intervention. The first section of the chapter assesses the empirical importance of gendered homicide and the relative weaknesses of theoretical models that neglect sexual conflict. The second section analyzes gendered homicide as a form of intense social engagement typified by a history of battering and frequent contact with a range of helpers. The concluding section traces the implications of the analyses for homicide prevention. The proposed typology is based on the frequency of various violent acts, the relationship among the parties, the motivation for the violence, and the proximate structure that supports the violent acts. The typology distinguishes the 80 percent of homicides that are primary, in which violence but no other crime is intended. These "friendly" homicides are those believed to be governed by the four P's (pathology, personality, passion, and poverty). The authors view the data on primary homicide through the prism of intersexual violence, showing that gendered homicide accounts for the vast majority of spousal homicides, homicides committed by women, child homicides, homicides in the workplace, homicides-suicides, and a substantial proportion of male-male homicides, ultimately encompassing approximately half of all homicides and as much as two-thirds of primary homicides. This typology shifts the explanatory focus from the four P's to the components of male domination in private life. From this vantage, gendered homicides share three characteristics; they are the culmination of an entrapment process that consists of coercion and control; their intensity and chronicity reflect the imposition of stereotypic sex roles to establish male status; and the parties, but not usually the coercive pattern, are known to service providers. The implications of this typology for homicide prevention are discussed.