Case Studies and Factor Analysis

Abstract

The data used are drawn from news reporting of 72 cases of intimate partner femicide (IPF) which occurred between December 2003 and December 2004. The bulk of the cases were drawn from a list prepared for the Guardian newspaper (Viner 2005). News databases were then searched for further cases using search terms like ‘wife’ and ‘killed’ which may indicate an IPF. This was an extraordinarily difficult task. Not all IPF is reported in the press and many are only reported locally making it very difficult to construct a full sample of all victims killed in the time frame. However, from previous statistics and a review of recorded homicides in the Homicide Index which reported the number of IP homicides of women at 95 for the year October 2003 to October 2004 (though there are significant limitations to using these numbers as not all the 95 were necessarily killed in the time frame and others may not yet be recorded) this sample of 72 cases represents a speculated 75 per cent of all cases for the time frame. The printed news reporting for all the 72 cases was examined drawing reports from Nexis UK and the BBC online news databases, as well as broader Internet searches once a victim name had been established and this generated in excess of 2000 reports. Nexis UK is a database which contains all news reports from the national press and a significant number of local publications spanning a period of over 20 years.