BATTERED WOMEN WHO KILLWhen women kill - and they do so at astonishingly lower rates than men who commit 85% of all homicides - the vast majority kill family members, usually men who have battered them for years. As many as 90% of the women in jail today for killing men had been battered by those men. (Allison Bass, "Women far less likely to kill than men; no one sure why," The Boston Globe, February 24, 1992, p. 27)
Within motive categories, male offenders dominated in murders motivated by possessiveness (m=82$), abuse (m=75%), and arguments (m=63%), whereas females were the vast majority of offenders in the category of self-defense (f=83%). By comparison, among victims whose deaths were motivated by possessiveness females comprised 59% and males 41$ of the total. Similarly, among victims killed because of arguments females represented 56% and males 44$ of the total. For victims of abuse, though, females were 75% of the total, while victims of self-defense were 96% male. (from a study of 155 mate homicides in City of Jacksonville, Florida, 1980-1986). (Christine E. Rasche, "'Given' Reasons for Violence in Intimate Relationships," Homicide: The Victim/Offender Connection, ed. Anna Wilson (Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1993) p. 88)
In Jurik and Winn's study of gender and homicide, 44% (22) of the women said that a precipitating event was partner conflict compared with 8% (9) of the men. Given this information, it is not surprising that a significantly greater percentage of women who killed stated that they acted in self-defense - 42% of the women versus 30% of the men. (Nancy Jurik and Russ Winn, "Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women Who Kill," Violence and Victims, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1990, p. 236)
A study conducted in Georgia of 226 (96%) of the 235 female inmates currently serving for homicide revealed the presence of domestic violence in more than half of the cases when the woman has killed her significant other, there is some record of a history of domestic abuse. In 60% of the cases where a woman killed her significant other, the woman claims the victim assaulted or abused her at the time of the crime. (Judith Haley, "A Study of Women Imprisoned for Homicide," Georgia Department of Corrections, June 1992, p. 16)
According to data release in 1992 by the Georgia Department of Corrections, of the 235 women doing time for murder or manslaughter in Georgia, 44% killed a husband or lover. (J.O. Hansen, "Is Justice Taking a Beating?" The Atlanta Constitution, April 26, 1992, A1-A7)
Of these murders, 102 were classified as domestic killings. Forty-six women (almost half) claim that their partners beat them regularly, and 38 of these 46 had repeatedly reported domestic violence to the police. (Kathleen O'Shea, "Women on Death Row," Women Prisoners: A Forgotten Population, Beverly Fletcher, Lynda Dixon Shaver, and Dreama Moon, eds., (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993) p. 85)
Currently there are 2,000 battered women in America who are serving prison time for defending their lives against their batterers. (Stacey Kabat, Remarks from presentation at Harvard School of Public Health, Center for Health Communication, June 1991)
Women commit 17% of all homicides and a high percentage are committed in big cities such as Houston and Philadelphia. The fear, rage, and entrapment associated with abuse can lead a woman to strike out against her assailant for sheer survival. Unfortunately, killing is often a woman's safest alternative given the absence of police protection or its ineffectiveness due to state laws requiring injury in a "domestic" before an arrest is mandated. (Evan Stark, "Rethinking Homicide: violence, Race, and the Politics of Gender," International Journal of Health and Services, vol. 20, No. 1, 1990, p. 18)
Four out of five victims of intimate offender resisted the assault. They passively resisted trying to get help, threatening or arguing, or using evasive action - twice as often as they actively resisted - using a weapon or fighting back. (Caroline Harlow, Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Female Victims of Violent Crime," Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1991, p. 6)
In a study of 155 mate homicides in City of Jacksonville, Florida, 1980-1986, at least seven of the 24 offenders who claimed that their actions were in self-defense were prosecuted by the state, and six of them were found guilty (one was found not guilty by reason of insanity). (Christine E. Rasche, "'Given' Reasons for Violence in Intimate Relationships," Homicide: The Victim/Offender Connection, ed. Anna Wilson (Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1993) p. 88)
Among mate homicides motivated by possessiveness, there were about equal numbers of cases with verbal versus physical provocation, but for 58% of these cases there was no victim provocation at all. The absence of provocation was notable also for cases motivated by abuse (67% of which were unprovoked) and other reasons (68% unprovoked). For cases motivated by arguments, however, 44% involved physical or other provocation and another 25% had verbal provocations. Not surprisingly, for homicides motivated by self-defense, 71% entailed physical provocations by the victim, with another 25% having verbal provocations (including threats to kill). Only 4% of claimed self-defense cases involved no apparent provocation at all. (from a study of 155 mate homicides in City of Jacksonville, Florida, 1980-1986) (Christine E. Rasche, "'Given' Reasons for Violence in Intimate Relationships," Homicide: The Victim/Offender Connection, ed. Anna Wilson (Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1993) p. 95)
In a study of 155 mate homicides in City of Jacksonville, Florida, 1980-1986, over half (56%) of these offenders either called the police themselves, confessed to the police, or both. Offenders who killed their victims in self-defense were the most likely to come forward (86%)), followed by those who killed as a result of abuse (75%), argument (66%), or for other reasons (61%). (Christine E. Rasche, "'Given' Reasons for Violence in Intimate Relationships," Homicide: The Victim/Offender Connection, ed. Anna Wilson (Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1993) p. 898)
Although women comprise more than half of the U.S. population and 23% of all homicide victims, they committed only 14.7% of the homicides reported during the study (male/female ratio = 6.33). In contrast to men, who killed nonintimate acquaintances, strangers, or individuals of undetermined relationship in roughly 80% of cases, women killed their spouse in 31.4% of cases, an intimate acquaintance in 13.6% or a member of their family in 14.8% of cases. (Arthur Kellerman, "Men, Women and Murder," The Journal of Trauma, July 17, 1992, p. 2)
Most of the women in prison for homicide had only one victim (95%). The 226 women killed 239 victims, generally their male significant other (117). Fifty;-three percent of the women killed their significant other. The significant other category comprises legal spouse, common-law spouse, lover and ex-spouse/lover. When the women killed a significant other, they generally admitted committing the crime (82%). (Judith Haley, "A Study of Women Imprisoned for Homicide," Georgia Department of Corrections, June 1992, p. 15)
In 1992, the American Medical Association reported that as many as 1 in 3 women will be assaulted by a domestic partner in her lifetime - 4 million in any given year. ("When Violence Hits Home," Time, July 4, 1994)
The average prison sentence of men who kill their women partners is 2 to 6 years. Women who kill their partners are sentenced on average to 15 years, despite the fact that most women who kill do so in self-defense (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1989).
In two studies of homicide cases involving women who killed their partners, 75% and 44% of the women had been physically abused by them prior to the lethal incident. [Daniel and Harris (1982) in a pretrial study of women charged with homicide in Missouri] (Angela Browne and Kirk R. Williams, "Exploring the Effect of Resource Availability and the Likelihood of Female-Perpetrated Homicides," Law & Society Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1989, p.77), [In a study comparing the links between gender and homicide, 108 cases using data from court recorded presentence investigative resources were analyzed.] (Nancy Jurik and Russ Winn, "Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women Who Kill, " Voices and Victims, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1990, p. 234).
Many of the stats in this section come from the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women.
National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women
125 S. 9th Street
Suite 302
Philadelphia, PA 19107