Abstract
This paper addresses femicide in Italy. The assumption is that femicide is not a discrete act of killing a woman. It is assumed that depending on the types of relationship between the victim and the perpetrator (e.g., known versus unknown, intimate versus acquaintance), the risk processes may differ. When femicide involves the killing of an intimate partner, it is likely to be characterized by sustained and escalating intimate partner violence (IPV) that can reach its climax with extreme acts of violence that lead to intimate partner femicide (IPF). Eighty-six cases of femicide that occurred in North-West Italy between 1993 and 2013 were examined in this study. Findings suggest that femicide was disproportionately perpetrated by intimate partners (current or past), rather than strangers. IPF was likely to be the epilogue of an abusive relationship, with high levels of contentiousness and conflicts being the frequent significant precursors. Non-intimate partner femicide (NPF) was more likely to be characterized by antisocial or predatory motives, highly frequent when the victims were prostitutes.These preliminary findings suggest that joint scientific, professional, and political efforts are paramount in order to address strategies aimed at assessing the differential risk of IPV early in time so as to prevent it from escalating into IPF or NPF and to provide the appropriate support for victims and their families.
Highlights
Despite all the prevention campaigns, violence against women remains a major public health problem worldwide [1, 2], with a global prevalence of 30% [3, 4] and with a proportion of 38.6% of women killed by their intimate partner and a proportion of 6.3% of men killed by their intimate partner [5, 6].Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as any form of actual, attempted, or threatened physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by a man or a woman against someone with whom he or she has, or has had, an intimate and affective relationship [7, 8]
Other studies have advocated that the risk of IPV recidivism is higher when controlling for the antisociality of the perpetrator [10, 15], for their psychopathic traits [16], and for their psychological terrorism [17]
The research protocol was organized according to The Italian Data Protection Authority Act n. 9/2016, art. 1 and 2 and art. 4, to The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans (2013), and to the recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2018), and it was carried out in line with the Italian and the EU code of human research ethics and conduct in psychology, forensic pathology, and legal medicine
Summary
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as any form of actual, attempted, or threatened physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by a man or a woman against someone with whom he or she has, or has had, an intimate and affective relationship [7, 8]. Non-intimate partner violence (NPV) is the actual or threatened violence perpetrated by a stranger or by a person with whom the victim has only a superficial relationship. Both forms of violence include gross violation of a person’s integrity and their right to autonomy and security that often anticipates the extreme act of killing [9]. Other studies have advocated that the risk of IPV recidivism is higher when controlling for the antisociality of the perpetrator [10, 15], for their psychopathic traits [16], and for their psychological terrorism [17]
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