* series of interviews with 'battered women' from domestic violence relationships that end up killing their partners and are charged for either murder or manslaughter, Colorado, USA

* opens a discussion around whether these types of killings should be punishable 

* the research traces how the women's relationships went from affection to violence

* Brown states how many 'partner homicides are preceded by a history of abuse' and how many women seek help from the police prior to the lethal altercation but often not enough is done to help them

* the purpose of the study was to understand more about the relationships of abused women who kill their husbands and to identify the dynamics that lead to the commission of a homicide

This study explores domestic homicide between both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, addressing which types of violence can be expected to be seen by both men and women, and also the assumed levels of brutality of homicides committed by both men and women in heterosexual and homosexual relationships. 

 

Hyde (2005) suggested that whilst women do use violence in interactions, they are more likely to use relational aggression such as gossiping and social exclusion, than physical violence. Where research shows that men tend to kill their intimate partners in response to suspected or actual infidelity, women are likely to kill their male partners out of want for resources, or fear of injury or death for themselves or their children.

Worcester (2002) has found that intimate partner abuse amongst homosexual partners is similar in terms of type and frequency to that of heterosexual partners. 

 

The article also studied the brutality of homicide in relationships, coding very brutal, as homicides including beating and stabbing, and less brutal, as those including asphyxiation and shooting. The results found that gay men had a higher level of very brutal homicides 62.7%, compared to heterosexual men’s 29.8%. similar results were also identified regarding homosexual women’s killings, with 50.4% being classed as very brutal, compared to heterosexual women at 35.4%.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/424e/310beb3eaf43e38857ef9a8808e2046e18c0.pdf

 

“The notion of killing a woman is almost tantamount in a lot of people’s minds to rape.” – Jeff Brown, public defender, San Francisco (quoted in chiang 1998)

 

This comment was made in response to the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, and the apparent societal ambivalence about executing her. His comment implies, women sex does shape their significance of their presence on death row. This article explores the discussion of why so few women face death row in comparison with men, stating that only 533 women were among the 19,161 confirmed executions since 1632 (to 1999), and only three women being among the 437 offenders executed since 1973 (to 1999). The study refers to many past study’s and theories such as Otto Pollacks work, who suggests in 1950 it is common knowledge “that women are getting away with evil that criminal stats cannot possibly capture”. Or Rapaport’s (1991) findings that women do not commit death-eligible crime son the same numbers as men.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.yorksj.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=c007183f-e082-458a-b280-eac8b5e5dd98%40sessionmgr4009

Ones who were charged with domestic homicide/intrafamilial homicide tended to be older, have a more stable adjustment to the community, but also have more evidence of early childhood behavioural problems and were more likely to have committed prior rimes against persons. Psychological stressors such as recent loss of employment or recent release from a psychiatric hospital tended to be more prevalent in the domestic homicide cases. While the mean age of the domestic homicide group was 35.04, while the mean age of nondomestic homicide group was 26.89, there was no significant differences between the two groups in regard to race, job skills, education and number of previous arrests and convictions. 

It discusses the traditional panic defence strategy used by male defendants claiming on the discovery that the (transgender) victim was biologically male provoked them into a passionate rage. And actually, results in juries believing this and acquitting him of first-degree murder and sentencing manslaughter.

It also looks at different masculinity theories on how and why men kill transgender women and get off with less severe sentences.

It also argues that the topic of transgender murder is a topic overlooked by the media and police and needs more attention.

The purpose of the study was to explore the link between the men, masculinities and murder-suicide. They do this by analysing 45 North American murder-suicide cases. It was found that the motive for men to commit murder-suicide is often linked to underlying issues with their masculinities, for example worries around job security and their failing to provide financial and economic security. In many of the cases looked at, the authors found that men’s loss of control in their lives and men that feel as though the masculine identities have been threatened. 

The study also suggested ways in which murder-suicide can be prevented

1.       Gun control – guns have been linked to masculine identities (heroes and villains)

2.       Mental illness – empowering men, greater support, removing mental illness language and providing role models of hope and recovery.

3.       Employment – greater support for men.

Concluding statement is that more research in this area needs to be done.

Cohen and Madfis (2018) analyse the impact that females and gendered stereotypes have on School rampage plots. They believe that considering gender in relation to this topic brings a refreshing and thoughtful approach to this field of research. Female involvement in mass shootings is often ignored and is barely recognised.

They ultimately found that, consistent with research on the gendered nature of violence in general, school rampage plots involving female perpetrators tend to involve less serious forms of violence.

Secondly, in part, due to the reduced degree of violence, female-involved school rampage plots tend to be viewed as less serious with regard to established threat assessment tools. 

Then thirdly, they found out that in many instances, the female plotters themselves have engaged in bystander intervention in ways that undermine their male co-conspirators’ plans for successfully carrying out the plot.

 

Feminist interpretations by Caputi, Walkowitz, and Cameron, of sexual murders theorized such crimes are fundamentally about male domination and patriarchal control of women. 

 
The issue at the time was the problem of unsupervised young people, a phenomenon of greater dimension then than at any previous time in American history as girls too were more mobile than ever before, but their job opportunities. A second issue was that, a controversial issue of illicit sex.- was it on the rise, aggressive?

Female sexuality was questioned?

The public discourse about the Jewett case gave shape to emergent cultural constructions of male and female sexuality- demonstrated by the representations of Helen’s life and opportunities she had. The multiple versions of the life of Helen Jewett and the nationwide publicity the case called forth are evidence of the extreme tension of American society in the 1830s over the fear-or the hope-that women could be unregulated, sexual, independent beings. 

 

·         In most cases women who commit multiple murder within a family, kill just their children, whilst men kill both children and spouse. 

·         Motivations to kill are the same in terms of the desperation of a new reality. (they resort to violent means to solve personal problems) 

·         The difference in family member that men and women kill are suggested to be put in theory context with motivations determined by expected, learnt gender roles and gender role ideologies imposed by society. 

·         When men are faced with losing patriarchal power within their families, they resort to violence and the murder of their family to re-establish this dominant male position. 

·         When women are driven to commit multiple murder within the family, they tend to kill only their children as they feel as if they ‘own’ their children and have rights to their lives. 

 

·         When women are in a position where their husband has cheated or has left the family, women commit murder in one of two ways: 

Ø  Suicide-murder/ kill their children before they kill themselves as they feel obliged to take their lives as they don’t want to ‘leave them behind’ 

Ø  General multiple murder/ when a women feels like their children are a burden and can no longer support them (emotionally and financially) , instead of adoption as the solution, women kill their children. 

 

 

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f32/dea0e760af17d3835f17999bd7cd894b4017.pdf 

·         The gender of the victim plays a substantial role within the jury’s decision making.

·         Victims gender has no relation to race when it comes to interest of research.

·         Offenders who murder women are more likely to receive the death sentence or harsher life sentences than those who murder men.

·         Women are viewed as more vulnerable, this view point is embeded in current theoretical explanations for the harsher treatment of defendants convicted of murdering women and girls.

·         The reasons for the higher rates in conviction toward offenders where the victim is female are often ignored.

·         Recent death penalty studies are characterized by comprehensive data and advanced statistical procedures marginalize victim gender in their analyses and often omit victim gender altogether.

·         Female homicide victims are perceived as engaging in less disreputable or contributing behaviour associated with their victimization in comparison with male victims. 

·         Found that juries are more likely to impose death sentences in homicides involving rape.

British Journal of Social Work (2003). 

Link:https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Mental+health+and+domestic+violence&btnG= 

The article explores the effects of domestic violence women suffer. For example, Cascardi et al. (1999) and Golding (1999) found fourteen and seventeen studies respectively, which explored the link between depression and women experiencing domestic violence. (pg.4) 

Research evidence now clearly shows a direct link between women’s experiences of domestic violence and heightened rates of depression, trauma symptoms, and selfharm (pg.2) 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a further area in which significant patterns emerge with women’s experiences of domestic violence. Again, both Golding (1999) and Cascardi et al. (1999) have undertaken overviews of eleven studies reporting PTSD in women exposed to domestic violence. (pg.5) 

Many of the women’s stories trace the increasingly extreme ways in which men tried to control them. Some women described not being able to go to the toilet by themselves or the humiliation of sexual control (pg.8) 

Women’s experiences of depression, post-traumatic stress, and self-harm can be understood as ‘symptoms’ or the effects of living with violence and abuse. (pg.16) 

Furthermore, 60 per cent of women in the quantitative sample left because they believed they would be killed (pg.7) 
********************************

 

Regardless of the path of future research, what is clear is that further research is needed. The current study demonstrated that what we know about female serial murderers may be significantly outweighed by what we do not know. These offenders are committing murders at ages earlier than previously found, remaining active for longer than previously projected and killing more victims than previously assumed. These facts, coupled with the findings from the current study that female serial murderers will not be charged in many of the homicides they commit, means that there may be unidentified victims whose murders are never discovered, or linked, and who will never receive the justice they deserve.

http://journals.sagepub.com.yorksj.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/1088767911415938