Classifying partner femicide.

Area of Science:

• Criminology
• Forensic Psychology
• Sociology

Background:

• Heterogeneity among domestic violent men is established.
• Limited research exists on typologies of men committing severe domestic violence, specifically partner murder.
• Existing typologies may not fully capture the complexity of this offender group.

Purpose of the Study:

• To empirically construct a classification system for men incarcerated for female partner murder.
• To apply a multidimensional approach based on the Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) typology.
• To identify distinct subgroups within this severe domestic violence offender population.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 90 incarcerated men convicted of murdering their female partner in England.
• Content analysis of institutional records using a dictionary of psychopathology and criminality variables.
• Multidimensional scaling procedures to identify thematic structures and subgroups.

Main Results:

• 80% of the sample (n=72) classified into three subgroups.
• Subgroup 1: Low criminality/low psychopathology (15%).
• Subgroup 2: Moderate-high criminality/high psychopathology (36%).
• Subgroup 3: High criminality/low-moderate psychopathology (49%).
• Subgroups 2 and 3 align with generally violent/antisocial and dysphoric/borderline offender types.

Conclusions:

• Empirical classification of male partner murderers is feasible.
• Identified subgroups suggest distinct pathways and characteristics within this population.
• Findings have implications for targeted interventions and refining research methodologies in domestic violence studies.