Intimate partner stalking and femicide: urgent implications for women's safety

✍ Scribed by Judith McFarlane; Jacquelyn C. Campbell; Kathy Watson

• Book ID: 101762600
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 114 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0735-3936
• DOI: 10.1002/bsl.477

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This study describes the type and extent of intimate partner stalking and threatening behaviors that occurred within 12 months prior to a major assault or attempted or actual partner femicide and specifies which behaviors were associated with an increased risk of potential or actual lethality. The design was a ten‐city case–control study of 821 women: 384 abuse victims and 437 attempted or actual femicide informants. Data were derived using a 16‐item inventory. Logistic regressions, with adjustments for demographic variables, were used to identify the significant perpetrator behaviors associated with attempted/actual femicide. Women who reported the perpetrator followed or spied on them were more than twice as likely to become attempted/actual femicide victims. Threats by the perpetrator to harm the children if the woman left or did not return to the relationship place the woman at a ninefold increase in the risk of attempted/actual femicide. Conclusions are that certain stalking and threatening behaviors are strong risk factors for lethality, and women must be so advised. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.