Domestic Homicide Reviews: evidence briefing

Footnotes

1. Intimate partner homicide refers to a homicide where the victim and offender have a current or former intimate relationship.

2. Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018

3. Equally Safe: Year One Update Report

4. Homicides in the context of intimate partner relationships.

5. Homicide in Scotland 2021-22

6. The jurisdictions that are included are: Australia – South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales; Canada – British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario; England; New Zealand; Northern Ireland, Portugal, USA – Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Montana, Vermont and Washington; Wales.

The selection of states in Australia, Canada and the USA is based on available information, comparable population size to Scotland and comparable domestic homicide numbers to Scotland. A mix was also sought in different types of legislative approaches.

7. Initial search terms included "domestic homicide review"; "domestic violence fatality review" or "family death review". This gave limited results, and a wider search was conducted with the search terms "Domestic Homicide" AND "Death review" OR "Review". Suggestions were also provided by James Rowlands, an academic in the field of DHR research.

8. European Institute for Gender Equality

9. A theory of change is a process of thinking through, and providing a description on, how a program or intervention is supposed to work, why it will work, who it will benefit, and in what way, and the conditions required for success. It provides a description (or illustration) of the context, the activities involved, and how these interlink and will produce results to achieve the intended impact.

10. The study identified 25 jurisdictions that had a DHR process in place either at a national or state/territory level. It does, however, not specify which 25 jurisdictions these are. In total there were 18 USA jurisdictions identified, three Australian jurisdictions, two Canadian jurisdictions as well as New Zealand and the UK. The jurisdictions that did not have legislation in place were either in the USA (four jurisdictions), Australia (two jurisdictions) or Canada (one jurisdiction).

11. In New Zealand the Sixth Report of the review committee shows that between 2009-2017 there were 230 family violence deaths (average of 29 per year).

Montana recorded 200 fatalities between 2000-2018 (average of 11 per year) due to intimate partner violence (See Montana Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commissions Report to the Legislature (2019))

12. Of the 81100 women intentionally killed in 2021, approximately 56% were killed by intimate partners or family members. It is compared to male homicides, where only 11% is perpetrated in the private sphere.

In Scotland, in the last ten years (2012-2022) female victims are most often killed by their (ex)partner, 62 of 148 female victims (42%). 28 of 148 female victims were killed by a relative (19%). Men are most likely to be killed by an acquaintance and in the last ten years there were 21 male victims killed by their (ex)partner (5% of total male victims) and 35 by a relative (8%). See Homicide in Scotland 2021-22

13. Jones et al (2022) found common themes in the recommendations of DHR reports, including: Improving awareness and understanding of the dynamics of DA and providing training; improving the provision of services and inter-agency coordination; addressing the needs of children (see also Jaffe et al. 2017). Other common issues that have been identified in multiple DHRs are 'faulty assessments', often not taking into account multiple aspects of behaviour or problems; and tunnel vision, where practices are often shaped to fit a particular narrative and changes over time not always recognised (Robinson et al. 2018).

14. These countries include: Australia (at state level), Canada (at state level), Ireland (in process of being implemented), Portugal, New Zealand, United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Unites States (at state or local level).