Domestic Violence Homicides II - Richard L. Davis

November 6, 2004

by Richard L. Davis

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
- George Eliot

The epigrammatic pun is intended. The vast majority of domestic violence advocates portray the family or the home as being a far more dangerous place for women and children than men.

The ultimate danger is a domestic violence homicide. It isn’t only domestic violence advocates who believe the home is a far more dangerous place for women than men. The report Homicide Trends in the U.S., Trends by gender, appears to agree and document that “Female victims are more likely than male victims to be killed by an intimate or family member.” And it documents the percentages.

Although the report documents more women than men are killed in the home it also documents the difference is not as dramatic as the general public and our public policy makers are led to believe by the majority of domestic violence websites. The report documents more than one in three intimate partner murderers are female.

Homicide Type by Gender, 1976-2002
		Victims		Offenders
		Male	Female	Male	Female
	All homicides	76.4%	23.6%	88.6%	11.4%
Victim/offender relationship
	Intimate	37.2%	62.8%	64.8%	35.2%
	Family	52.0%	48.0%	70.3%	29.7%
	Infanticide	54.5%	45.5%	61.6%	38.4%
	Eldercide	58.2%	41.8%	85.4%	14.6%

The majority of domestic violence advocates claim that the dramatic difference in females who are killed in the home compared to males, documents that female victimization concerning “domestic violence” is far worse than male victimization. And in fact many researchers, scholars, authors of domestic violence texts and public policy makers believe that is the truth. Well, the facts are, that is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Gender is not all important.

The home it seems is a more dangerous place for African American (AA) males than it is for AA females. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Supplemental Homicide Report defines intimate/family members as relatives, step-relatives, in-laws, and common law or ex-spouses. That definition matches almost perfectly the majority of Federal and state domestic violence statute law.

In 2,000 the number of AA male intimate/family members killed is 333, the number for AA females is 284. For the years from 1991 through 2000 the total is 4,699 males and 3,681 females. Perhaps this data may cause some domestic violence advocates and more importantly some public policy makers who are sure that the vast majority of domestic violence is caused by misogynistic males who abuse and kill women just because they are women to reconsider that flawed fundamental feminist theory. It’s past time to recognize it isn’t always about gender.

Richard L. Davis served in the United States Marine Corps from 1960 to 1964. He is a retired lieutenant from the Brockton, Massachusetts police department. He has a graduate degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College and another in liberal arts from Harvard University. He has a BA from Bridgewater State College in History and he minored in secondary education. He is a member of the International Honor Society of Historians and an instructor of Criminology, Group Violence and Terrorism, Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence at Quincy College in Plymouth, MA. He is a past president of the Community Center for Non-Violence in New Bedford, Massachusetts and the vice president for Family Nonviolence, Inc. www.familynonviolence.com in Fairhaven, MA. He is an independent consultant for criminal justice agencies concerning policies, procedures, and programs concerning domestic violence. He is the author of Domestic Violence: Facts and Fallacies by Praeger publishers and has written numerous articles for newspapers, journals, and magazines concerning the issue of domestic violence. He has columns concerning domestic violence at www.policeone.com, and www.nycop.com, is a distance learner instructor in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence for the Online Police Academy and has a website at www.policewriter.com. He and Kim Eyer have a domestic violence website The Cop and the Survivor at http://www.rhiannon3.net/cs/. He lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts with his wife and the two youngest of five children. He experienced domestic violence professionally for 21 years as a police officer and personally as a child and as an adult. In his retirement he continues to use his education, experience, and training to help the children, women, and men who have had to endure violence from those who profess to love them. He may be reached at rldavis@post.harvard.edu.