ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we use evidence from the Murder in Britain Study to distil the essential aspects of three types of murder of women: intimate partner murder, sexual murder and the murder of older women. The data is drawn from a threeyear investigation that included the collection of quantitative and qualitative material from the prison case files of 866 men (n = 786) and women (n = 80) convicted of murder in England/Wales and Scotland as well as 200 interviews with men and women (n = 20) serving a sentence for murder in one of the two jurisdictions. This data was collected and compiled by four experienced researchers, including the authors of this chapter (for details, see Dobash & Dobash, 2015). The interviews were recorded, transcribed and entered into a Nudist/qsr file that also contained copious case file material. Data was collected and coded around two main dimensions: the murder event and the life course of the perpetrators. A wealth of information was gathered and in light of space limitations here, we focus on the two main dimensions – the murder event and the life course of the perpetrators – and consider the most salient and significant results. We begin by briefly locating the conceptualization employed in the Murder in Britain Study in the context of existing homicide/violence research.
