Citation

Dawson M. Law Soc. Rev. 2004; 38(1): 105-138.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Law and Society Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.0023-9216.2004.03801004.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

I investigate whether the degree of intimacy between victims and defendants affects legal responses to violence and how this association has changed over time. Using data on homicides between 1974 and 1996, I examine court outcomes in more than 1,000 cases. I demonstrate that intimacy matters at three criminal justice stages: charging, mode of conviction, and sentencing. However, moving beyond the traditional conceptualization of intimacy, I show that defendants who kill intimates do not always receive the same treatment, nor are all defendants who kill nonintimates treated similarly. Finally, I show that criminal justice leniency toward intimate violence is less evident in recent years.