Citation

Titterington VB, Abbott BP. Violence Vict. 2004; 19(1): 83-95.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816-1360, USA. vtitteri@mail.ucf.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Springer Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15179748

Abstract

This study re-examines, and updates, that of Lundsgaarde (1977), who found that among homicide offenders in Houston, Texas, in 1969, less than 50% of those who killed intimates or other family members were ever prosecuted for their lethal acts. The general pattern that emerges from our analysis of a random sample of 428 homicide cases during 1985 to 1994 indicates that killers of intimate partners or relatives are somewhat more likely to be prosecuted as offenders who were friends or strangers to their victims. Also during this 1985 to 1994 time period, the relative percent of defendants who were sentenced to a prison term of 20 years of less was smallest for those who killed intimate partners or other family members compared to those convicted of killing friends/acquaintances or strangers. As for sex-specific legal dispositions in cases of lethal violence against intimates or other relatives, we found that sanctions against women were considerably less severe than those against male offenders, in both time periods.

Language: en