Conceptualising and measuring non-intimate femicide: Analysing the Homicide Index as a source of femicide data in England and Wales

• In Event: (re)Conceptualising Homicide in England and Wales

Abstract

There is broad consensus in scholarship on femicide that systematic recording, collection, and disaggregation of data on all types of femicide is urgently required for prevention. In the UK, there is a wealth of literature on domestic homicide, yet non-intimate femicide (NIF) (defined here as all killing of women and girls aged 10 and over by a non-intimate or domestic relation), has received very little attention from criminologists. This paper draws upon a British Academy/Leverhulme funded project exploring NIF, including how it is conceptualised in existing research and evidence, the nature of media coverage of NIF, and how definitions are operationalised in administrative data. The focus in this paper is our analysis of the Homicide Index (HI) (2002-2022), which collates data on all police recorded homicides across England and Wales. We examine what definitions of NIF are currently captured in official homicide data, what administrative data can tell us about NIF, and what limits and challenges exist when employing administrative homicide data to measure femicide. This is the first national analysis of femicide using official homicide data from the HI in England and Wales, and the first to disaggregate femicide by the victim-perpetrator relationship beyond an intimate partner relationship.

Authors

• Caroline Miles, University of Manchester

• Elizabeth Cook, City, University of London

• Merili Pullerits, City, University of London