Intimate Partner Homicide in California, 1987-2000

Since 1976, the United States has witnessed a steady and
precipitous decline in intimate partner homicides. This study builds
on the work of Dugan et al. (1999, 2000) and Browne and Williams
(1989) by examining, in greater detail, the relationship between
intimate partner homicide and gender, race, criminal justice system
response, and domestic violence services. Specifically, the study
examines the net effect of criminal justice system response and
federally-funded domestic violence shelters on victimization of white,
African American, and Hispanic males and females. This study used
aggregated data from the 58 counties in California from 1987 to
2000. Homicide data were gathered by the State of California
Department of Justice, Criminal Justice Statistics Center. Data on
domestic violence resources were obtained from the Governor's Office
of Criminal Justice Planning, Domestic Violence Branch, in the form of
detailed reports from domestic violence shelters in the state. Based
on these records, the researchers computed the number of
federally-funded shelter-based organizations in a given county over
time. Data on criminal justice responses at the county level were
gathered from the State of California Department of Justice, Criminal
Justice Statistics Center. These data included domestic violence
arrests and any convictions and incarceration that followed those
arrests. The researchers disaggregated these criminal justice system
measures by race and gender. In order to account for population
differences and changes over time, rates were computed per 100,000
adults (age 18 and older).