Intimate Femicide: The Role of Coercive Control
| Author | Richard Wortley,Li Eriksson,Paul Mazerolle,Holly Johnson |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1557085117701574 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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Article
Feminist Criminology
2019, Vol. 14(1) 3 –23
Intimate Femicide: The
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Role of Coercive Control
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085117701574
DOI: 10.1177/1557085117701574
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Holly Johnson1, Li Eriksson2,
Paul Mazerolle2, and Richard Wortley3
Abstract
Severe and escalating violence is cited as a precursor to intimate partner homicide
and figures prominently in risk assessments and domestic violence death reviews.
Drawing on interviews from the Australian Homicide Project with a sample of men
convicted of killing intimate partners, we examine the backgrounds of perpetrators
and the contexts in which the killings occurred and find that fully half report no
physical or sexual assaults against their partners in the year prior to the homicide.
These results raise important questions about assessments of risk and the typification
of the “battered woman” on which many policy responses rely.
Keywords
femicide, intimate partner violence, coercive control, risk assessment, battered
women
Introduction
Governments and nongovernmental organizations continue to devote enormous
resources to legal responses, service provision, public awareness, and prevention ini-
tiatives aimed at preventing intimate partner violence and supporting victims, yet it
remains a persistent problem affecting approximately three in 10 women over their
lifetime (World Health Organization, 2013). At its most severe, intimate partner vio-
lence results in the death of its victims and sometimes the perpetrator and other family
members. In a systematic global review, Stockl et al. (2013) estimated that 13.5% of
all homicides worldwide are committed by intimate partners and that these killings are
1University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
3University College London, UK
Corresponding Author:
Holly Johnson, University of Ottawa, 120 University Private, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N6N5.
Email: Holly.Johnson@uottawa.ca
4
Feminist Criminology 14(1)
gendered: partners are responsible for almost 40% of homicides involving female vic-
tims compared with just 6% of homicides against males. The gender division is similar
in Australia, where the current study takes place: between 2008 and 2010, 51% of
female and 9% of male homicide victims in that country were killed by intimate part-
ners (Chan & Payne, 2013).
How to intervene effectively to prevent future violence and an escalation to more
serious forms, including homicide, are questions that continue to preoccupy policy
makers, service providers, and police decades after this issue was firmly established
on the public policy agenda. Effective responses require knowledge about how violent
relationships are established and maintained as well as the nature of the interactions
between violent men and the women they victimize. For example, is intimate femicide
(the killing of intimate female partners) a culmination of patterns of violence toward
the woman and an escalation in type and frequency? Are there particular characteris-
tics of the man or the relationship that raise the woman’s risk of being killed? Or can
seemingly ordinary men kill partners in scenarios perceived as “out of the blue”
(Dobash, Dobash, & Cavanagh, 2009) or “crimes of passion” (Dawson, 2005)? This
study contributes to these debates and to a growing literature on risk assessment
through an examination of situational factors, histories of violence, and background
characteristics of a sample of Australian men convicted of killing intimate partners.
We first outline the findings of prior research on intimate femicide and highlight the
challenges of accurately naming male partner violence that have narrowed policy
responses. The method of the Australian Homicide Project (AHP) is described and the
dependent and independent variables selected for this study of intimate femicide are
presented in detail. Results of this study highlight the need to remain critical of risk
assessments and policies built and defended on the basis of narrow “typifications” that
may mistake the danger and fail to provide safety for many abused women.
Prior Research on Intimate Femicide
The actions of a man who kills his intimate partner can seem inexplicable to many.
However, years of analysis by domestic violence death reviews have established that
the vast majority of intimate partner killings could be considered predictable and there-
fore preventable with appropriate interventions that target factors known to be associ-
ated with these killings (Dawson, 2017). A history of male violence in the relationship
is cited as one of the most important precursors of partner homicide, regardless of the
sex of the victim (Campbell, Glass, Sharps, Laughon, & Bloom, 2007). In a 12-year
review of domestic homicides in which the vast majority of victims (82%) were women,
the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) in the Canadian province
of Ontario established 39 associated factors and the most common was a history of
violence between the perpetrator and the victim in 72% of cases; other top correlates
were actual or pending separation, obsessive behavior, and depression on the part of the
perpetrator, escalation of violence, prior threats or attempts at suicide, prior threats to
kill the victim, attempts to isolate the victim, perpetrator unemployment, and a sense of
fear among victims (Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, 2015).
Johnson et al.
5
Risk assessment instruments, which are designed to help avert serious partner vio-
lence and femicide and inform professionals and victims about relevant factors associ-
ated with increased danger, are growing in number and are considered by many
criminal justice, health, and social service practitioners to be important tools in the
identification and management of these cases (Garcia, Soria, & Hurwitz, 2007;
Messing & Thaller, 2015). A central component of femicide risk assessments is to
identify the seriousness of prior violence as determined by physical injury and escala-
tion in severity and frequency of violent episodes (Campbell et al., 2007). Importantly,
although prior physical violence is identified in a majority of femicides, it is absent in
a sizable minority. The Ontario DVDRC found a history of violence in three quarters
of intimate partner homicides (Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, 2015) and
research in the United States finds that two thirds to three quarters of women killed by
partners were physically abused before their deaths by the same partner who killed
them (Campbell et al., 2007). This leaves a large number without the expected history
of violence and without an escalation in frequency and severity of assaults that might
lead to intervention by neighbors, family, or police. In Ontario, 80% of cases contained
seven or more precursors which suggests that multiple factors interact to elevate the
risk of femicide and escalating violence is not a prerequisite (Office of the Chief
Coroner for Ontario, 2015).
In an extensive analysis of homicide in diverse cultures, Daly and Wilson (1988)
identify male partner jealousy, possessiveness, and desire to control female partners as
important precursors for intimate femicide worldwide. This led them to conclude that
“sexual proprietariness” is an evolved manifestation of masculinity that interacts with
cultural context to produce variations in male violence against women. Violence mani-
fests itself in situations that represent loss of male control over the female partner, such
as infidelity (real or imagined) or victim-instigated separation, which trigger extreme
jealousy, possessiveness, and morbid rage (Wilson & Daly, 1998; see also Campbell,
1992; Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Medina-Ariza, 2007). Femicides are described
as “slip-ups” in a power struggle in which men strive to control women and deprive
them of their liberty and women struggle for autonomy (Daly & Wilson, 1988). Among
intimate partner homicide cases subject to extensive review by the Domestic Violence
Death Review Team in the Australian state of New South Wales, every case involved
male partners exerting coercive and controlling behaviors over female victims prior to
the homicide (NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team, 2015). Other correlates
of intimate femicide are factors associated with the severity of violence, such as access
to and threats with firearms, forced sex, threats to kill, and strangulation (Adams,
2007; Campbell et al., 2007; Dobash & Dobash, 2011, 2015). In terms of demographic
and situational factors, de facto relationships, actual or impending separation, the pres-
ence of children in the household who are not biologically related to the male partner,
and male unemployment and alcohol abuse are also associated with intimate femicide
(Campbell et al., 2003; Campbell et al., 2007; Daly, Wiseman, & Wilson, 1997;
Dobash & Dobash, 2015; Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, 2015).
Research examining intimate partner homicide from the perspective of perpetrators
provides important insights into the individual, contextual, and situational factors
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Feminist Criminology 14(1)
associated with these killings. Dobash and colleagues (2007) compared domestically
violent men in behavioral change treatment programs and men serving prison sen-
...
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