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14 Feminist Criminology 3 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/femcrim14 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Feminist Criminology 2019, Vol. 14(1) 3-23 Intimate Femicide: The Author(s) 2017 Article reuse guidelines: Role of Coercive Control sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1557085 117701574 journals.sagepub.com/homelfcx OSAGE Holly Johnson1, Li Eriksson2, Paul Mazerolle2, and Richard Wortley3 Abstract Severe and escalating violence is cited as a precursor to intimate partner homicide and figures prominently in risk assessments and domestic violence death reviews. Drawing on interviews from the Australian Homicide Project with a sample of men convicted of killing intimate partners, we examine the backgrounds of perpetrators and the contexts in which the killings occurred and find that fully half report no physical or sexual assaults against their partners in the year prior to the homicide. These results raise important questions about assessments of risk and the typification of the battered woman on which many policy responses rely. Keywords femicide, intimate partner violence, coercive control, risk assessment, battered women Introduction Governments and nongovernmental organizations continue to devote enormous resources to legal responses, service provision, public awareness, and prevention ini- tiatives aimed at preventing intimate partner violence and supporting victims, yet it remains a persistent problem affecting approximately three in 10 women over their lifetime (World Health Organization, 2013). At its most severe, intimate partner vio- lence results in the death of its victims and sometimes the perpetrator and other family members. In a systematic global review, Stock1 et al. (2013) estimated that 13.5% of all homicides worldwide are committed by intimate partners and that these killings are IUniversity of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2Griffith University, Queensland, Australia 3University College London, UK Corresponding Author: Holly Johnson, University of Ottawa, 120 University Private, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K I N6N5. Email: Holly.Johnson@uottawa.ca