A recent Canadian study finds that although men who kill their intimate partners are three times as likely to be convicted as men who kill female strangers, the sentences for doing so tended to be lighter.

In fact, according to the findings, men who kill women they know are treated more leniently at most stages of the criminal-justice process, such as facing fewer charges of first-degree murder.

Study author Myrna Dawson, an associate sociology professor at the University of Guelph, calls it the "intimacy discount."

"This may mean that women killed by male partners are still seen as property and, as such, these femicides are not treated as seriously as other femicides," the study states.

Another factor at play could be that femicide of a partner or family member is typically seen as a spontaneous "crime of passion" or the result of victim provocation.

"Despite the dominance of these beliefs, there has been little examination of the validity of resulting stereotypes," Dawson told The Canadian Press. "Some exploratory research has shown that premeditation or intent is actually more likely in cases involving men who kill female partners." Intimacy Discount

One possible explanation is that these crimes may be easier to solve than those involving strangers and that plea deals are a factor, but this doesn't explain why women who kill their intimate partners usually get the book thrown at them, often receiving much longer sentences for the same crimes.

"Men, on average, are sentenced to two to six years in prison for murdering a female partner, according to the ACLU. But when women kill their male partners (which is often in self-defense), they get an average of 15 years. Fifteen years. Fifteen years for fighting back. Fifteen years for protecting themselves. Fifteen years for surviving.

And that's just an average. Kim Dadou Brown received a 17-year prison sentence for shooting and killing her boyfriend after he climbed on top of her and said he was going to kill her in 1991. And Brown isn't alone. As many as 90% of women who are in prison for killing a man had been previously abused by that man." Sentenced for Defending Themselves

Although women do tend to receive more lenient treatment when it comes to drug or property crimes, and may even receive shorter sentences for other types of violent crime, killing or even threatening a man that a woman has been partnered with is the exception — even if he's been violently abusing her for years. A documentary entitled, "And So I Stayed" shines a light on this disturbing legal trend.

Natalie Pattillo, a domestic abuse survivor with a sister who was murdered by her own boyfriend, decided to make reporting on this the focus of her professional life. Her thesis was the basis for later creating this award-winning documentary, which featured Kim Dadou Brown's story.

"My project was about this incredibly and devastatingly common issue that was happening in communities throughout our country — that survivors were being incarcerated or criminalized merely for surviving," Pattillo says. "Through my research and writing about Kim, I realized it wasn't only me that had this gap in understanding that this wasn't a one-off situation that happened to a few survivors. This was an everyday occurrence, and almost no one was talking about it." Sentenced For Defending Themselves

Kim Dadou Brown along with other survivors of domestic abuse, spent 10 years advocating for sentencing reform in the state of New York. The Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act finally passed there in 2019.

Across the country, a growing number of jurisdictions are responding to this problem by passing or considering bills designed to allow survivors of family violence, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking to receive shorter sentences for offenses deeply entwined with their victimization. Courts often already consider whether an individual has diminished culpability at sentencing, looking to factors like age, mental illness, intellectual disability, and, to a limited extent, prior victimization. New York's survivor sentencing law builds on that principle by allowing survivors to demonstrate their victimization to seek a lower sentence at the time of an original sentencing hearing or, for survivors who are already incarcerated, via resentencing. The Sentencing Project

This sort of trauma-informed sentencing reform is desperately needed to counter anachronistic and often racist precedents. In 2012, a Florida woman was sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot at her abusive husband who was chasing her and had threatened to kill her. Marissa Alexander had tried to use Florida's "stand your ground" law as a defense, but apparently, Black women aren't allowed to protect themselves against threats from their own husbands. After a national outcry, Alexander was later given a new trial, and her sentenced reduced to the three years that she had already served.

As the documentary notes, "We never compare the women who die with the women who kill. Is that really what we're asking of women, that they don't fight back?"

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 34% of female murder victims are killed by current or former intimate partners, compared with 6% of male murder victims. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

• 1 in 4 women have been the victims of severe physical domestic abuse
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner.
• 1 in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner. Data is unavailable on male victims.

Nobody should have to suffer abuse at the hands of an intimate partner, and nobody should be criminalized for doing what they had to do to survive. Spousal abuse was not illegal in the US in all states until 1920, but these laws were rarely enforced until the women's movement of the 1970s.

Sometimes men are killed or harmed by female intimate partners, but the reverse is much more often the case. We need clear guidelines for judges and evidentiary requirements that recognize a trauma-informed legal standard. The New York law has inspired some other states to move in this same direction, but we need national sentencing reform.

Marissa Alexander had tried to use Florida's "stand your ground" law as a defense, but apparently, Black women aren't allowed to protect themselves against threats from their own husbands.

One of the key pillars of "traditional masculinity" is that men have the right to control women, even if that means using violence.

The social acceptance of wife beating can be traced back to 753BC; under the rule of Romulus, The Laws of Chastisement deemed wife beating legal so long as the rod or stick being used for physical discipline had a circumference no bigger than the girth of the base of the man's right thumb, known as "The Rule of Thumb." This continued to be the trend to the extent that the 14th Century Roman Catholic Church encouraged husbands to beat their wives out of concern for their spiritual well-being. History of Intimate Partner Violence Reform

Although this began to be somewhat challenged by the late 1800s, as previously noted, it wasn't until the 1970s that it had any widespread legal teeth — and clearly, we still have a ways to go in updating our thinking about intimate partner violence. I hope that trauma-informed judicial reform continues to become a universal standard, and that the women who are murdered by their intimate partners or have to defend themselves against them get greater justice than they have in the past.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2024

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