Intersectionality and Invisible Victims: Reflections on Data Challenges and Vicarious Trauma in Femicide, Family and Intimate Partner Homicide Research

Familicide in Canada, 2010 to 2019

Familicide is rare; however, the high victim counts in each incident and context surrounding these killings underscore the need for further research. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding familicide in Canada. Using univariate statistics, this study analyzed 26 incidents of familicide that occurred in Canada between 2010 and 2019. The results show that familicide is a gendered crime involving primarily male accused who often target female victims, have a history of domestic violence, and commit the killings using firearms. This research highlights the importance of developing risk assessment, risk management, and safety planning strategies to address warning signs and prevent future familicides.

The Rurality of Intimate Partner Femicide: Examining Risk Factors in Queensland

While violence against women and domestic violence can be seen throughout Australia, emerging evidence suggests that intimate partner femicide (IPF) is more common in rural spaces than urban ones. This study examined 100 IPF cases to determine the rate of femicide and frequency of common risk factors in rural areas of Queensland, Australia. The study also explored how victims accessed services and the characteristics of rural IPF and male offenders. Findings indicated that IPF is more common in rural areas and associated risk factors are similar between urban and rural cases. Rural IPF was more likely to occur during a current relationship and offenders were found to be less likely to conceal their actions. These differences suggest that the physical and social isolation of rural spaces may facilitate higher rates IPF. Implications discuss the need for rural-focused policies and responses.

Intimate Partner Homicide: Comparison Between Homicide and Homicide-Suicide in Portugal

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) is a tragic event. Studies involving the comparison between IPH and intimate partner homicide-suicide (IPH-S) are scarce, with few studies in Portugal about this issue. The current study aims to compare IPH and IPH-S perpetrators, the victim-perpetrator relationships dynamics, and homicide circumstances. The data was collected through the analysis of 78 judicial processes of IPH that occurred in Portugal, between 2010 and 2015. Of the cases, 51 were IPH, 20 were IPH-S cases, and seven were attempted suicide cases, being perpetrated in 84.6% (n = 66) for male perpetrators. Suicide after intimate homicide were all committed by men. All judicial processes analyzed refer to heterosexual relationships. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to compare the groups concerning perpetrator and victim sociodemographic characteristics, victim-perpetrator dyadic dynamics, and crime circumstances. The results show mostly common trends between the two groups with some differentiating factors when compared individually (e.g., perpetrator professional status, criminal records). Regression logistic analysis showed no differences between IPH and IPH-S.

Ethically Driven and Methodologically Tailored: Setting the Agenda for Systematic Reviews in Domestic Violence and Abuse

Purpose

Systematic reviews have an important, and growing, role to play in the global evidence eco-system of domestic violence and abuse. Alongside substantive contributions to knowledge, such reviews stimulate debates about ethical reviewing practices and the importance of tailoring methods to the nuances of the field. This paper aims to pinpoint a set of ethical and methodological priorities to guide and enhance review practices specifically in the field of domestic abuse.

Method

The five Pillars of the Research Integrity Framework (ethical guidelines for domestic abuse research) are used to interrogate the systematic review process. To do so, the Framework is retrospectively applied to a recently completed systematic review in domestic abuse. The review included a rapid systematic map and in-depth analysis of interventions aimed at creating or enhancing informal support and social networks for victim-survivors of abuse.

Results

Ethical and methodological priorities for systematic reviews in domestic abuse include (1) Safety and wellbeing: maintaining the wellbeing of researchers and stakeholders, and appraising the ethics of included studies, (2) Transparency/ accountability: transparent reporting of research funding, aims and methods together with explicit consideration of authorship of outputs, (3) Equality, human rights and social justice: developing diverse review teams/ Advisory groups, and review methods that aim to search for, and report, diverse perspectives. Considering researcher positionality/ reflexivity in the review, (4) Engagement: collaboration with non-academic stakeholders and individuals with lived experience throughout the review process, (5) Research Ethics: independent ethical scrutiny of systematic review proposals with input from researchers with expertise in systematic reviews and domestic abuse.

Conclusion

Additional research is required to comprehensively examine the ethics of each stage of the review process. In the meantime, attention should be given to the underpinning ethical framework for our systematic review practices and the wider research infrastructure that governs reviews.

The impact of stay-at-home orders on safety and stability for women: A topical review of intimate partner violence and intimate femicide in the United States during the initial phase of COVID-19

Purpose

We intend to identify the links between COVID-19, intimate partner violence (IPV), and intimate femicide (IF) for women in the United States by answering the following questions: (1) what does the existing literature say about the intersection of COVID-19, IPV, and IF and (2) what are the contributing factors leading to rates of violence against women during COVID-19?

Method

This topical review summarizes studies published on IPV and IF during the initial stages of COVID-19 covering the period of March 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021. This review identified 22 articles addressing rates of IPV and IF during COVID-19, exacerbating risk factors for women, and recommendations for responses and intervention efforts.

Results

Findings revealed an increase in help-seeking calls during the initial phase of the pandemic and COVID-related circumstances such as extended confinement, unemployment, school closures, social isolation, and financial strains intensifying women's experiences of violence. Data also revealed an increase in purchasing firearms, which increases the risk of women being killed by an intimate partner (Lyons et al., 2020). The nexus of COVID-19 and IPV disproportionately impact women, specifically, Latina immigrants. Implications for utilizing an intersectional framework to further examine these issues and promote social and political change are provided.

Conclusion

Since the rates of IPV and femicide have been reported as increasing during COVID-19, understanding the complexities and stressors associated with life in a pandemic is essential for addressing inequalities women face and the health of our communities.

Parricide, Mental Illness, and Parental Proximity: The Gendered Contexts of Parricide in England and Wales

Parricide is underresearched in the UK, and the contexts of this gendered form of violence are poorly understood. Heide's typology provides an advanced understanding of parricide in the United States, where the majority of parent-killings involve firearms. This article develops a UK-based analysis of the contexts of parricide, combining national statistics with police case study data (n = 57) and case review data (n = 21). Our findings indicate that mental illness plays a key role, combined with a gendered context of "parental proximity" and the simultaneous responsibilization and marginalization of parent-victims (particularly mothers), supporting the need for feminist analyses of parricide.

Understanding the Psychological Impact of Oppression Using the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale

Oppression refers to systemic discrimination where the injustice targets or disproportionately impacts specific groups of people. The Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale (TSDS) is a self-report measure designed to assess the traumatizing impact of discrimination broadly by measuring anxiety-related symptoms of trauma due to discriminatory experiences. This may include symptoms arising from racism, homophobia, sexism, poverty, or other forms of marginalization. Almost all studies of the TSDS have examined its use in marginalized ethnoracial groups, primarily African Americans. This paper will extend prior work to help us better understand racial trauma across groups by reporting and comparing TSDS mean scores across ethnoracial identities in a diverse national sample (n  =  923). It also explores trauma with other marginalized identities and demographic dimensions, including gender, sexual minority/LGBQ status, education, and income. The relationship of TSDS scores to clinical psychopathologies are examined, including stress, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. We also examine the unique risks associated with intersectionality, and how having multiple marginalized identities may increase traumatization. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

Feminicide and counterdata production: Activist efforts to monitor and challenge gender-related violence

Gender-related violence against women and its lethal outcome, feminicide, are a serious problem throughout the world. Official government data on gender violence and feminicide are often absent, incomplete, infrequently updated, and contested. We draw on data feminism to situate feminicide data as missing data. Building on qualitative interviews, this study discusses the informatic work of ten activist and civil society organizations across six countries who combat missing data by producing counterdata. Activists enact alternative epistemological approaches to data science that center care, memory, and justice. Activists also face significant information challenges that increase monitoring labor and add emotional burden to reading about violent deaths. This work contributes to literature on data activism and critical data studies, proposing feminicide data practices as an important research subject. The empirical insights contribute to human-computer interaction (HCI) research, suggesting ways that the field may support and sustain the counterdata production practices of activists.

•

Describes grassroots data activism practices around gender-related violence

•

Qualitative methods: interviews with 10 projects across six countries

•

Activists enact alternative epistemological approaches to data science

•

Contributions to critical data studies and human-computer interaction

Gender-related violence against women and its lethal outcome, feminicide, are serious problems throughout the world. Although governments have passed legislation, official government data on gender violence and feminicide are often absent and incomplete. We draw on data feminism to situate feminicide data as missing data. Building on qualitative interviews, this study discusses the informatic work of ten activist and civil society organizations across six countries who combat missing data by producing counterdata. Activists enact alternative epistemological approaches to data science that center care, memory, and justice. Activists also face significant information retrieval and extraction challenges that increase monitoring labor and emotional burden. This work contributes to literature on data activism and critical data studies. The empirical insights contribute to HCI research, suggesting ways that the field may support and sustain the counterdata production practices of activists.

Factors associated with Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales (HoNOS) in an acute young adult psychiatric unit

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a highly vulnerable period for mental health concerns and is a key life-stage, fundamental to later health and quality of life. Scant research has investigated the health outcomes of young adults admitted to a specialised acute psychiatric unit for this cohort. Understanding health and functional outcomes for young adults admitted to a specialised acute mental health inpatient unit is beneficial in identifying treatment effectiveness and vulnerable groups. The study examines the relationship between demographic and clinical factors with admission, discharge and change in Health of the Nation Outcomes Scale (HoNOS) scores in patients admitted to an acute young adult psychiatric unit. The HoNOS was completed at admission and discharge for patients admitted to an acute young adult psychiatric unit in Australia. Descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, generalised estimating equations, independent samples t-tests and correlations were completed. Patients (N = 130) were aged between 18 and 25 years old (M = 21.26 years old, SD = 2.31). Patients were diagnosed with mood disorders (21.54%), substance abuse disorders (20.00%), personality disorders (19.23%), and psychotic disorders (17.69%). HoNOS scores across all subscales improved from admission to discharge, when controlling for confounding variables. Admission, discharge and change in HoNOS scores were associated with gender, country of birth, number of admissions, mental health act, diagnosis and socioeconomic status. This study is the first to explore HoNOS scores, demographic factors and clinical variables in young adults admitted to a specialised psychiatric inpatient unit for this age group. While further research is required, the findings identifies vulnerable subgroups (e.g., individuals with personality disorders, individuals with substance use, those admitted involuntarily, those readmitted) that may benefit from increased tailored support to foster more optimal health outcomes.

Whose Knowledge Is Under the Lens? A Contribution to the Debate Sparked by Clark and Walker's 2011 Research Ethics in Victimization Studies: Widening the Lens

The starting point for this commentary is the fruitful exchange of ideas on the ethics of victimization research, published in this journal in 2011, sparked by Clark and Walker's article, “Research Ethics in Victimization Studies: Widening the Lens”. This article provoked a flurry of responses that, taken altogether, provide an illuminating cornerstone for the ethical debates and issues surrounding victimization research. It further inspired us to reflect upon and share our experiences on conducting victimization research at that particular intersection of academia and advocacy that we both occupy. What struck us about this exchange was the absence of any discussion about the role of anti-violence against women advocates, service providers, and organizations in victimization research.

COVID-19 lockdowns, intimate partner violence and coercive control

2020 was a year like no other, with the COVID-19 virus upending life as we know it. When governments around the world imposed lockdown measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, advocates in the domestic and family violence (DFV) sector recognised that these measures were likely to result in increases in violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV can take many forms, including physical, emotional, psychological, financial, coercive controlling behaviours, surveillance and isolation tactics. Lockdown conditions provide fertile ground for the exercise of coercive control by encouraging people to stay at home, limiting social interactions to household members, reducing mobility and enabling perpetrators to closely monitor their partner's movements. However, media reports and awareness of IPV are generally dominated by a focus on physical violence and lethality, which are easily defined and measured. By contrast, coercive control as a concept is difficult to operationalise, measure and action in law, policy and frontline interventions. This paper discusses the challenges inherent in measuring coercive control and engages with current debates around the criminalisation of coercive control in NSW. Such reflection is timely as the conditions of COVID-19 lockdowns are likely to lead to an increase in coercive controlling behaviours.

Saving Lives: Working across Agencies and Individuals to Reduce Intimate Homicide among those at Greatest Risk

This special issue of the Journal of Family Violence offers insights on intimate homicide prevention from leading researchers and practitioners. The insights offered are timely, given the pervasiveness of domestic violence (DV), including some data since the emergence of COVID-19 noting an increase in DV-related  cases with severe  injury and police calls. Contributors in this special issue argue for interagency advocacy, protection orders, and firearm removal, along with reimagining data capture, risk assessment, firearm protocols, and fatality reviews to improve equitable services and care for DV survivors at the highest risk of homicide.