Shock report: 1,706 women slain by men in 2012; 93% knew killer, Black women murders outnumber white 25-1
By Paul Bedard | September 8, 2014 | 6:53 am
Despite a nationwide effort to curb domestic violence, 1,706 women were slain by men in 2012 — and virtually all knew their killer.
A new analysis timed for this week’s 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act signed into law Sept. 13, 1994, also found that 62 percent of the women killed were “wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders.”
Many of the women died of gunshots. In fact, the report from the Violence Policy Center and provided to Secrets suggested that women don’t get a gun because women with guns in homes were three times more likely to be murdered than those with no gun in the home.
The Center’s report, titled “When Men Murder Women,” looked at 2012 data, the latest available. Alaska, South Carolina and Oklahoma were the top female murder states.
The Center said that the murder rate has dropped 26 percent in the past 17 years, but “remains unacceptably high.”
The report was released as the NFL is grappling with how to treat players charged in domestic abuse. A new TMZ video, for example, allegedly reveals new details about Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice abusing his wife in an elevator.
The Center's analysis took special note of black women killed, a statistic it said is typically overshadowed by the black male death rate. It found that the death rate among black women is nearly two and a half times higher than white females, 2.46 per 100,000 versus 1 per 100,000.
What's more, compared to the black male, "a black female is far more likely to be killed by her spouse, an intimate acquaintance, or a family member than by a stranger."
Key findings from the report:
— 1,706 females were murdered nationwide by males in “single victim/single offender incidents” in 2012, at a rate of 1.16 per 100,000.
— For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 93 percent of female victims nationwide were murdered by a male they knew. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 62 percent were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders.
— Firearms — especially handguns — were the weapons most commonly used by males to murder females in 2012; 52 percent of female victims were shot and killed with a gun.
— The overwhelming majority of the killings were not related to any other felony crime, such as rape or robbery.
“Since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act 20 years ago, the federal government and many states and communities have taken heroic steps to reduce domestic violence,” VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand said in a statement. “Yet today, far more remains to be done to stop the epidemic of violence against women. The rate of women murdered by men in the United States is tragic and unacceptable.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/shock-report-1706-women-slain-by-men-in-2012-93-knew-killer/article/2553000
