The effect of victim-offender relationship on reporting crimes of violence against women
Gartner and Macmillan offer various reasons why previous research has not provided adequate answers to whether the relationship between the victim and the offender affects the likelihood that the victimization will come to the attention of the police. Victimization surveys have provided little help in resolving this question because measurement error, lack of sensitivity to the nature of intimate violence, and focus on crime that doesn?t encourage respondents to think about violence between intimates as relevant to such a survey.
Gartner and Macmillan believe the Violence Against Women Survey (Statistics Canada, 1993) has several features that overcome some of the problems of previous research, which makes it better suited to examine the effect of the relationship between victim and offender upon the willingness to report a violent incident to police. They state that the Violence Against Women Survey was designed to gather information about a full range of violence experienced by women in all types of relationships. Violent incidents were reported in terms of characteristics of the incident, effects upon the woman, and subsequent actions taken.
Gartner and Macmillan?s period specific analysis shows that at Time 1 (pre-1984) ??each of the three known-offender victimizations is significantly less likely than stranger victimizations to come to police attention?? By Time 3 (after 1988) ??victimization by dates or boyfriends and by co-workers and other known men come to police attention significantly less often than victimizations by strangers?? Gartner and Macmillan conclude, ?we again see evidence that victimizations by known offenders were under-reported (relative to stranger victimizations) throughout the years covered by the survey. We also see evidence that this under-reporting is strongest for more intimate victimizations and may be diminishing somewhat for less intimate victimizations.?
This analysis highlights the extent to which violence against women continues to exist outside police knowledge or intervention. The authors offer one limitation of their study – their analysis does not link the patterns of under-reporting of violence (to the police) to the process by which decisions are made.
Lethal and nonlethal violence against wives
Wilson, Johnson, and Daly seek to compare lethal and nonlethal assaults. This paper is based on the premise that there should be a relationship between uxoricides (killing of wives) and assaults on wives/intimate partners. These authors propose that the sole or primary motivation for men who kill or assault their wives is male sexual proprietariness (a sense of rightful ownership). They argue that men attempt to control and restrict women?s autonomy and male violence is thus viewed as functional. It is important to note that this conception of male violence contrasts other accounts that locate violence solely within a field of emotions, such as stress, frustration, anxiety, and anger.
Using the Canadian Homicide Survey and the Violence Against Women Survey, Wilson, Johnson, and Daly explore the possible correlation between these two types of violence by considering the circumstances of homicide and assaults, and the impact of a range of demographic and social variables. On the basis of the data presented it seems that uxoricide and non-fatal assaults are linked in intimate relationships. The evidence indicates that an important risk marker for assaultive and homicidal acts is marital separation. Men may seek to force their partner to return and then punish them for leaving. Another important marker is the status of the relationship – the uxoricide rate is approximately eight times higher in common-law relations than in state-registered relations (marriages) and the rate of assaultive violence is about four times higher. The results also suggest that age and age disparity are associated with violence against wives.
?Evidence from more intensive in-depth studies of men who have assaulted and/or killed women suggests that there may be distinct differences in motivations, intentions, and contexts between homicides and assaults against women.? In view of conflicting evidence, it should be asked ? Can it be that the motivations and intentions of men who behave in a non-utilitarian manner by killing their partner (or ex-partner), parallel the motivations and intentions of men who appear to behave in a functional way, using violence to control, punish, and obtain domestic or sexual service?
1. Desmond Ellis and Walter DeKeseredy, The Wrong Stuff: An Introduction to the Sociological Study of Deviance Second Edition (Scarborough: Allyn & Bacon Canada, 1996)
2. Rosemary Cairns-Way and Renate Mohr, Dimensions of Criminal Law (Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications, 1996)
· Bruce Shapiro, ?Anatomy of an Assault: A Victim of Random Violence Ponders Our Culture of Crime? (1995), Dimensions of Criminal Law, 35-40
· Stephen L. Carter, ?When Victims Happen To Be Black? (1988), Dimensions of Criminal Law, 758?764
3. U.S Department of Justice, Young Black Male Victims: National Crime Victimization Survey (1994), http://www.soci.nui.edu/~critcrim/victims/young.txt