TYPES
OF RAPE
FOX STUDY I
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Efforts to protect women in the United States against domestic violence has had the ironic effect of reducing the murder rate of men by their partners by almost 70 percent over the past 24 years, according to new figures released on Thursday.
The data, compiled by James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, show homicides by women of their spouses, ex-spouses or boyfriends has declined steadily to 424 in 1999 from 1,357 in 1976.
Homicides of women by their male partners has also declined in the same period but by a far less dramatic degree, to 1,218 in 1999 from 1,600 in 1976 -- a 24 percent reduction.
According to Fox, the dramatic 69 percent decrease can be attributed to the increase in the availability of alternatives for battered women. These include hotlines, shelters, counseling and restraining orders. Reduced stigma and greater availability of divorce, together with improved economic independence of women, have also contributed. Because there are more escape routes, fewer wife batterers are being killed.
80 Percent
Of Male Victims Abused Partners
Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University cited a 1999 study sponsored
by the National Consortium on Violence Research which supported Fox's
findings that the more resources available to battered women, the greater
the decline in homicide of their male partners.
That study found that four in five male domestic homicide victims had physically abused their partners prior to the murder. Nearly two-thirds of female murder victims had been abused before they were killed.
About 33
percent of female murder victims in the United States are killed by a
domestic partner or boyfriend. Only 4 percent of male murder victims are
killed by an intimate.
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