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When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2000 Homicide Data
Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents
Section One: National Data
When Men Murder
Women offers both national and state-by-state statistics from FBI
Supplementary Homicide Report data including charts listing the number
and rate of female homicides by state and a chart ranking each state
by rate. For the top 15 states, data are broken out by: age and race
of victim; type of weapon used; relationship of victim to offender;
and, the circumstances of the murder. General findings are summarized
below. More detailed data on each of the 15 states can be found in Appendix
Two.
State Rankings
In 2000 the homicide
rate among female victims murdered by males in single victim/single
offender incidents in the United States was 1.34 per 100,000. For that
year, Mississippi ranked first as the state with the highest homicide
rate among female victims by male offenders in single victim/single
offender incidents. Its rate of 2.72 per 100,000 was more than twice
the national average. Mississippi was followed by Arizona (2.26 per
100,000) and South Carolina (2.23 per 100,000). The remaining states
that make up the top 15 can be found in Chart One on the following page.
For a ranking of all states that submitted data to the FBI, please see
Appendix One.
Age and Race of Female Homicide Victims
In single female
victim/single male offender homicides reported for 2000, nine percent
of the victims were less than 18 years old (154 victims) and nine percent
were 65 years of age or older (157 victims). The average age of female
homicide victims was 37 years old. Homicides in which race was identified
(1,791 victims) included: 16 American Indian females, 47 Asian or Pacific
Islander females, 608 black females, and 1,120 white females. Ninety
percent (1,600 out of 1,775) of the homicides where the race of the
female victim and male offender were known were intra-racial.j Overall,
black women (3.18 per 100,000) were murdered at a rate more than three
times higher than white women (1.01 per 100,000). Unfortunately, Hispanic
ethnicity could not be determined on a national level because of the
inadequacy of data collection and reporting. Of the 49 states reporting,
only eight states reported having at least one Hispanic female homicide
victim. Yet, even most of these states did not code a sufficient number
of their female victims' ethnicity as either Hispanic or non-Hispanic
to run a valid analysis.
Chart One: Number
of Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Homicides
and Rates by State in 2000, Ranked by Rate
Ranking |
State |
Number of Homicides |
Homicide Rate per 100,000 |
1 |
Mississippi |
40 |
2.72 |
2 |
Arizona |
58 |
2.26 |
3 |
South Carolina |
46 |
2.23 |
4 |
Tennessee |
62 |
2.12 |
5 |
Louisiana |
47 |
2.04 |
6 |
North Carolina |
81 |
1.97 |
7 |
Arkansas |
26 |
1.90 |
8 |
New Mexico |
17 |
1.84 |
9 |
Nevada |
17 |
1.73 |
10 |
Georgia |
70 |
1.68 |
11 |
Virginia |
60 |
1.66 |
12 |
Texas |
174 |
1.66 |
13 |
Alabama |
38 |
1.65 |
14 |
Wyoming |
4 |
1.63 |
15 |
Michigan |
82 |
1.62 |
Victim to Offender
Relationship
The relationship
of victim to offender differs significantly between male and female
victims of homicide. Compared to a man, a woman is far more likely to
be killed by her spouse, an intimate acquaintance, or a family member
than by a stranger. Nearly 11 times as many females were murdered by
a male they knew (1,551 victims) than were killed by male strangers
(142 victims) in single victim/single offender incidents in 2000.k Of
victims who knew their offenders, 62 percent (963 out of 1,551) were
wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders.
(Ex-girlfriends cannot be included in the intimate acquaintance analysis
because there is not a separate designation for ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends
in the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report relationship category.)
Female Homicide Victims and Weapons
Firearms�especially
handguns�were the most common weapons used by males to murder females
in 2000. For homicides in which the weapon could be identified, 52 percent
of female victims (879 out of 1,692) were shot and killed with a gun.
Of the females killed with a firearm, nearly two-thirds were murdered
by male intimates. The number of females shot and killed by their husband
or intimate acquaintance (557 victims) was nearly four times higher
than the total number murdered by male strangers using all weapons combined
(142 victims) in single victim/single offender incidents in 2000. In
homicides where males used firearms to kill females, handguns were clearly
the weapon of choice over rifles and shotguns. In 2000, 76 percent of
female firearm homicide victims (665 out of 879) were killed with handguns.
Female Homicide Victims and Circumstance
The overwhelming
majority of homicides among females by male offenders in single victim/single
offender incidents in 2000 were not related to any other felony crime.
Most often, females were killed by males in the course of an argument�usually
with a firearm. In 2000 there were 1,491 incidents in which the circumstances
of the homicide between the female victim and male offender in single
victim/single offender incidents could be identified. Of these, 88 percent
(1,313 out of 1,491) were not related to the commission of any other
felony.
Of the non-felony
homicides, 63 percent (829 out of 1,313) involved arguments between
the female victim and male offender and 53 percent (439 out of 829)
of those homicides involved guns. According to the Supplementary Homicide
Report data, in 2000 there were 331 women shot and killed by their husbands
or intimate acquaintances in single victim/single offender incidents
during the course of an argument�nearly one such murder every day of
the year.
j) Intra-racial
homicides are homicides where the victim and the offender are of the
same race.
k) These are homicides
in which the relationship between the victim and the offender could
be identified. According to the FBI's 2000 Supplementary Homicide Report
data on females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents,
the relationship of victim to offender could be determined in 1,693
of 1,805 incidents. In 112 homicides the relationship of victim to offender
was "unknown," meaning the reporting police officer was unable to determine
at the scene if the victim and offender knew each other or were strangers.
According to the July 1992 Journal of Trauma study "Men, Women,
and Murder: Gender-Specific Differences in Rates of Fatal Violence and
Victimization," local law enforcement agencies generally submit case
reports early in the course of their investigation, sometimes before
the identity of the offender is known. Although one might assume that
most initially unsolved homicides would eventually be determined to
have been committed by a stranger, follow-up data from one large metropolitan
police jurisdiction (Los Angeles) suggest that a substantial number
involve an acquaintance or relative of the victim.
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All contents � 2002 Violence Policy Center
The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation
that conducts research on violence in America and works to develop violence-reduction
policies and proposals. The Center examines the role of firearms in America,
conducts research on firearms violence, and explores new ways to decrease
firearm-related death and injury. |