For Release: Thursday, October 3, 2024
Annual VPC study released for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October
Washington, DC — More than 2,400 females were killed by males in 2022 and of these, 87.5 percent knew their killer. Guns were used in 66.0 percent of the attacks according to the most recent edition of the annual Violence Policy Center (VPC) study When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2022 Homicide Data.
Each year the VPC releases this report for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. The study uses 2022 data, the most recent available, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and covers homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender.
[A note on the lack of state rankings. This is the 27th edition of When Men Murder Women and this year presents only national data. While 25 prior editions of the report ranked the states by their rate of females killed by males, due to an ongoing switchover in the way the FBI collects and reports crime data, the information currently available does not allow for state ranking. The VPC hopes that at some point in the near future FBI crime data will once again be sufficiently robust to allow for a more complete analysis of the state-level data, including state rankings.]“Women killed by men are almost always killed by someone they know and more than half are killed by an intimate partner,” states VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand. “Much more must be done to identify and implement effective strategies to prevent these tragedies. More resources are needed at the federal, state, and local levels to help keep women safe.”
Looking back over the past 27 years, from 1996 to 2022, the rate of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents dropped from 1.6 per 100,000 females in 1996 to 1.4 per 100,000 females in 2022, a decrease of 13 percent. Since reaching its low of 1.1 per 100,000 females in 2013, the rate has increased, with 2022’s rate of 1.4 per 100,000 females up 27 percent since 2013.
The study also has a separate section focusing on Black females killed by males.
National statistics from the study include the following.
- Nationwide, 2,410 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2022, at a rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Of the 2,331 homicides where the race of the victim was identified, 1,453 were white, 763 were Black, 66 were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 49 were American Indian or Alaskan Native.
- Nearly nine out of 10 victims (87.5 percent) knew their offenders. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 58.1 percent were wives or other intimate acquaintances of their killers. Seven times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers.
- Black women are disproportionately impacted by lethal domestic violence committed by males. In 2022, Black females were murdered by males at a rate of 3.2 per 100,000, nearly three times the rate of 1.2 per 100,000 for white females murdered by males. The percentage of Black females killed by males with a firearm has increased substantially ─ from 51.0 percent in 2011 to 78.1 percent in 2022. In 2022, Black females accounted for 14.0 percent of the female population in the United States, while 32.7 percent of the females killed by males in single victim/single offender incidents where the race of the victim was known were Black.
- Firearms were the weapons most commonly used by males to murder females in 2022. Nationwide, for homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 66.0 percent of female victims were shot and killed with a gun. Of the homicides committed with guns, 62.3 percent were killed with handguns. The percentage of females killed by males with a firearm has increased substantially from 51.0 percent in 2011 to 66.0 percent in 2022.
- The overwhelming majority of these homicides were not related to any other felony crime, such as rape or robbery. Nationwide, for homicides in which the circumstances could be identified, 90.2 percent of the homicides were not related to the commission of another felony. Most often, females were killed by males in the course of an argument between the victim and the offender.
The study calculates the rate of women murdered by men by dividing the total number of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents by the total female population and multiplying the result by 100,000.
For a PDF version of the study, please visit http://vpc.org/studies/wmmw2024.pdf.
For a slideshow presenting key findings from the study, click here.
To see previous editions of When Men Murder Women, please click here.
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The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
