Abstract
Interest in risk assessment in contemporary discussions of criminal justice issues including the treatment of intimate partner violence is ongoing as scholarship has identified lack of empirical knowledge in this area. The purpose of this paper is to add to current knowledge by reporting on Australian research findings on a number of risk factors associated with fear of homicide in intimate partnerships. Quantitative research methods were used to analyse demographic data on 227 Western Australian women, residing in metropolitan Perth, who had been exposed to potentially lethal forms of male-perpetrated intimate partner violence in the six months prior to participating in the study. Results suggested that certain victim characteristics such as the experience of sexual violence, minority status, being separated, and having a prior history of victimisation appear to be important risk indicators for intimate partner homicide.
Highlights
Male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (MP-IPV) remains a serious social problem despite decades of preventative measures and interventions globally [1]
The purpose of this paper is to add to current knowledge by reporting on Australian research findings on a number of risk factors associated with fear of homicide in intimate partnerships
Less than 13% of non-Aboriginal women experienced rape whereas five of the 10 Aboriginal women reported having been raped at least once, four of which frequently (5 or more times). These results suggest that Aboriginal women in this study were 11 times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-Aboriginal women (OR = 11.5; 95% CI = 2.4 - 55.8)
Summary
Male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (MP-IPV) remains a serious social problem despite decades of preventative measures and interventions globally [1]. While women commit murder, they are much more likely to be victims of intimate homicide. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics noted: “Female murder victims are substantially more likely than male murder victims to have been killed by an intimate partner [2]”. Up to 80 intimate partner homicides occurred annually in Australia between the late 1980s to the mid-2000s [3]. It was reported that “between 1989 and 1998, 57 percent of female deaths caused by violence were perpetrated by an intimate partner [4]”, and evidence from 2006-2007, confirms that “rates of intimate-partner homicide remained constant [5]”
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