Intimate partner femicide in context: An examination of firearm type across the rural/urban divide

Previous research on intimate partner homicide (IPH) has established that intimate partner homicides are overwhelmingly committed with a firearm. Emerging research suggests the risk of partner violence turning lethal in rural America is often exacerbated by a higher prevalence of firearm ownership, as well as the limited availability of victim support services, economic disadvantages, and access to healthcare services. Given that IPH represents one of the most common types of homicide in rural areas, understanding the prevalence and associated risk and protective factors presents important policy implications. Using county-level data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Violent Death Reporting System for the years 2015-2016 and controlling for well-established structural correlates of IPH, this research examines the nature and prevalence of IPH across county context. We investigate whether leading predictors of IPH (firearm access, domestic violence support services, and economic disadvantage) are associated with firearm and non-firearm IPH incidents equally and whether these relationships hold when comparing rural and urban counties. We further examine the unique dynamics of firearm specific IPH, including a comparison of IPH incidents committed with handguns versus long guns, given their differing prevalence and cultural context in rural and urban communities. Findings reveal important differences across the rural-urban divide and weapon types. Implications for research and policy are discussed

It's all relative: assessing prominent explanations for U.S. homicide trends

Parker, Karen F.A substantial body of research has accumulated over the past quarter century to explain recent fluctuations in U.S. homicide rates, and a number of plausible explanations have been offered. This dissertation research sought to assess the relative strength of the most “common” of these explanations, including changes in the economy, family structure, age structure, immigration, policing, corrections, drug markets, and guns. In addition to assessing the relative strength of these explanations, special emphasis was placed on the impact of methodological variation, including variable operationalization, unit of analysis, and time period covered, on the results. Meta-analytic techniques were used to quantitatively synthesize 5,082 effect sizes from 145 different studies examining the relationship between these and other possible explanations and post-WWII U.S. homicide trends published between 1990 and 2016. Results revealed strong support for the role of changes in single parent households, inflation, consumer sentiment, military involvement, racial heterogeneity, disadvantage, incarceration, gun prevalence, racial and gender inequality, felony arrest, and divorce/family disorganization. These results indicate that many of the most “common” explanations are not receiving strong empirical support (e.g., police force size, unemployment, drug markets, gun laws) and suggest other possible explanations for future research to pursue that have not received as much attention in the scholarly literature (e.g., racial heterogeneity, military involvement, alcohol consumption). For many of the explanations examined, the amount of empirical support was conditioned on methodology. The implications of these findings for research, policy, and theory are discussed.University of Delaware, Department of Sociology and Criminal JusticePh.D