The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China 9789811689413, 9789811689420, 9811689415

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Shuhong Zhao

The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China

The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China

Shuhong Zhao

The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China

Shuhong Zhao College for Criminal Law Science Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

ISBN 978-981-16-8941-3 ISBN 978-981-16-8942-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

This book is devoted to the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship in understanding intimate partner homicide (IPH). Especially in the context of China today, the perpetrator-victim relationship is an important clue in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence crime. IPHs are fatal violent attacks perpetrated by intimate partners with sexual, physical, or psychological abuse or other forms of abusive control of intimate partners and are often the extreme and unplanned consequences of abusive relationships. As a lethal form of interpersonal violence, IPH has a significant impact on both society and individuals in terms of health, social welfare, and criminal justice. Accordingly, to effectively prevent the occurrence of IPH, the formulation of various theories and the implementation of different preventive policies rely on the understanding of such crimes, including its characteristics and risk factors. Therefore, this book focuses on illustrating the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship, including the status and state of the relationship, in understanding IPH in the context of China today after comparison with the findings in previous studies. Theories describing why IPH occurs play an important role in guiding IPH prevention research and practice. Although a considerable body of the literature has described the theories on IPH perpetration and its prevention, as well as their potential strengths and limitations, a comprehensive and systematic review of these theories has not been conducted to date. Therefore, a systematic review of these theories will help both researchers and practitioners inform, guide, and hone theories on why IPH occurs and provide a theoretical foundation for future efforts focused on preventing IPH. In Chap. 2, we conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of theories describing why IPH occurs by describing and comparing two commonly used theories, namely the gender and violence perspective, and find that the theoretical explanatory landscape applied to IPH is compelling because of the different versions. In these studies, researchers either test hypotheses derived from a theory or use theories as heuristic sources of interpretation. In fact, for IPH, regardless of its cause or its phenomenon, it is extremely complicated that it is difficult to use one identified theory to understand and explain it. The aim of this current study is

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to describe the characteristics of IPH in China after comparison with other corresponding findings in other countries. Therefore, its focus is on the description of characteristics of IPH in China, not on the creative theoretical perspective. However, this study will not ignore explaining this serious crime with some existing theoretical perspectives to understand this serious crime in China. In the future, it will be possible to logically build and develop integrated theories on IPH perpetration with a focus on understanding why IPH occurs. Research on IPH perpetration and its prevention is guided by the understanding of IPH. With the aim of obtaining illuminating insight into IPH and making tangible progress in preventing such lethal interpersonal violence, a considerable body of the literature exists that describes the characteristics and identifies the risk factors involved perpetrators and victims in IPH. After describing the two main research methods used in previous studies, Chap. 3 uses descriptive analysis methods to determine the characteristics of perpetrators and victims of IPH in China, such as gender, profession, family background, marital status, experience to use violence and marital satisfaction. The findings confirm prior research in which IPH has been shown to be a gendered crime, whereby males are overrepresented as perpetrators of IPH. In line with findings in most previous research, this study identifies that individuals with lower socioeconomic status have a much greater chance of being IPH perpetrators and victims. At the same time, studies have highlighted the importance of identifying risk factors causing IPH and developing risk assessment tools to predict risk factors. Consistent with most findings, the results in this study support the fact that IPH perpetrators are “ordinary men” in many ways, such as experience using violence, criminal records, alcohol use, and marital satisfaction. A growing body of research has acknowledged the significant impact of the perpetrator-victim relationship, including relationship status and state, on a comprehensive understanding of IPH. Chapter 4 presents the correlation analysis on the variables particular to the perpetrator-victim relationship and other variables, such as characteristics of IPH and risk factors, and then a deeper understanding of IPH has emerged. At the same time, with the correlation analysis, Chap. 4 shows that perpetrator-victim relationship status and state are important clues in understanding and explaining IPH in the context of China today. In terms of perpetrator-victim relationship status, the findings in Chap. 4 find that “lovers”—including cohabiters and dating individuals—regardless of the gender of the perpetrator—are just as likely to engage in IPH as married individuals. The previous findings identified that some IPH perpetrators always suffer from reactions to situational circumstances, especially distress over the termination of the intimate relationship. This finding is replicated in this study, wherein most instances of IPH are caused by the termination of the intimate relationship, especially when the perpetrator and victim are lovers and exspouses. Furthermore, among spouses, the major factor was “trivial matters.” In line with previous findings, the finding in this chapter presents the characteristics of the situational nature of IPH in China. An important finding of this study is that both perpetrators and victims are mostly of lower socioeconomic status, and more than half of them have extramarital affairs and “lovers” outside their marriage. It is the result that traditional Chinese family

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structure and the people’s concept of marriage and love have great changes in the context of China with its soaring modernization and urbanization. In this context, Chap. 4 focuses on illustrating why perpetrator-victim relationship status is an important clue in understanding IPH in China today. In recent years, China has experienced the largest population migration in history, and most peasants left their hometown to find work in cities. Migrant workers have fewer possibilities of settling down, and living normal families lives with their spouses in the city because their spouses, especially women, must stay back in their hometowns to take care of the elderly and raise the children. Moreover, the low incomes of migrant workers also make it difficult to pay high rent. These factors force migrant workers to separate from their spouses for long periods of time. With the popularity of the Internet, smartphones, and dating Web sites and apps in China, it is very convenient for migrant workers to find intimate partners outside of marriage. Thus, more extramarital affairs have sprung up among migrant workers in China. The very existence of such extramarital relationships, which conflicts with the traditional Chinese concepts of marriage and family, has caused several instances of IPH in China. In conclusion, Chap. 5 illustrates the main findings of this study and its implications for practice, theoretical research, and policies in efforts to understand and prevent IPH. The review findings offer researchers and practitioners an understanding of IPH in the context of China today and provide them with a broader perspective used to explain why someone might kill their current or former intimate partner. Combined with the main findings, Chap. 5 illustrates the need for more research, such as establishing integrated theories that seek to understand IPH perpetration from various theoretical perspectives and taking various effective measures to protect the basic rights of migrant workers. Beijing, China

Shuhong Zhao

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Contributions to the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Extent of IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 Nature of IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Data Collection and Variables Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Research Puzzles and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 2 3 6 8 9

2 Theoretical Framework of IPH Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Gender Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Male Sexual Proprietariness Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Self-Defense Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Violence Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Practical Findings of the Theoretical Tension Between These Two Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Application, Gaps and Limitation of Existing Perspectives in IPH Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Application of the Existing Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Gaps and Limitation of Existing Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Perpetrator and Victim of IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Approach to Identify the Characteristics of IPH Perpetrator and Victim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Descriptive Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Comparative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Perpetrator and Victim of IPH in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Characteristics of Perpetrator of IPH in China . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Characteristics of Victim of IPH in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 20 20 21 22 27 27 28 34 40 41 54 68 69

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4 Intimate Relationship Between Perpetrator and Victim . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 4.1 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship in Understanding IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.1.1 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Risk Factor . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.1.2 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Decreased Trend in IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.1.3 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and the Motive for IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 4.2 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship in the In-Depth Understanding of IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 4.2.1 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship as Focal Variable . . . . . . . . 100 4.2.2 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue in Understanding IPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 5 Main Findings and Implications for Practice, Research, and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Chapter 1

Introduction

Intimate partner homicide (IPH), the killing of a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend, is a serious and widespread problem worldwide (Ali & Naylor, 2013; Murphy et al., 2016). IPH has occurred throughout history, although it has rarely been documented because of the lack of legal protection for women. Between 1886 and 1905, 487 homicides occurred in Wales. Of these victims, half were female intimates (Wolfgang, 1958). A recent study on the worldwide occurrence of IPH has shown that intimate partners committed at least 14% of all homicides (Consuelo & Heidi, 2014). According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) multicounty study on IPHs, almost half of female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners (UNODC, 2013). This severity can also be found in specific countries, e.g., in the USA, in 2008, approximately 45% of female and 5% of male homicides were committed by their intimate partner (Cooper & Smith, 2011). Similarly, in the UK in 2009, 54% of female and 5% of male homicides were perpetrated by an intimate partner (Smith et al., 2011). In Finland, the totality of homicides, one in five (19%), involved the killing of a woman by an intimate partner (Janne & Martti, 2012). In Austria, intimate partners accounted for 23% of all homicide victims recorded within the National Homicide Monitoring Program since 1 July 2003 (Tracy & Willow, 2015). Like other countries, China has now also witnessed the soaring increase in IHPs with its rapid modernization and urbanization. A study showed that 493 women were killed by their intimate partner in 1999–2006 (Mingcan & Xiaoming, 2009). However, with comparison of this serious violence crime in other countries, the IPH in China has its own characteristics. Additionally, compared with other countries, China has a serious lack of deeper research on such crime, especially the study of the characteristics of IPH in the background of its rapid modernization and urbanization. Considering inconsistent findings and ongoing debate in previous studies, the aim of this study is to identify the characteristics of IPH in China, especially to illustrate the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship as an important clue in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence, which is a neglected area in the theoretical discussion of this subject. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Zhao, The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0_1

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1 Introduction

1.1 Contributions to the Literature Research into IPH has grown in the past 30 years, and its focus in the literature is mostly in the following two areas:

1.1.1 Extent of IPH In general, IPH increased in the 1960s, followed by a steady decline from the early 1990s in the U.S. and Western Europe (Aebi & Linde, 2010; LaFree & McDowall, 2015; Weiss et al., 2016; Shilan et al., 2017). Some studies have proven this declining trend in these regions (Corradi & Stockl, 2014). UNODC has stressed that the decline of IPH is modest in comparison to other types of homicide and appears relatively constant over time (UNODC, 2013). Even though the estimation of intimate partner violence varies greatly for several reasons, there is reason to believe that the number of IPHs reported each year is close to the actual rate (Owens, 2008). Even though the number of IPHs has been declining in recent years, the decline rate of IPH for males and females has shown differences. Over the past 20 years, the United States has witnessed a steady decline in IPH, but this decline appears different when rates of victimization are disaggregated by gender. According to the research, the rate of IPH declined 36%, and the rate of IPH for males declined an average of 5% per year, while it only declined 1% per year for females (Wells & William DeLeon-Granados, 2004). In England and Wales, the prevalence of IPH indicates that 37% of all women killed were murdered by their current or former partner or lover. In comparison, the total number of all men murdered by their current or former partner or lover was 6% (Home Office Statistics, 2000). Additionally, in the United States, when using data from the FBI to examine national homicide rates, researchers found that there was a more than 25% decline in the rate of women killing their male partners from 1976 to 1984. However, they stressed that the decline in IPH by female perpetrators was not evident for male perpetrators (Browne & Willams, 1989). In recent years, some research has identified that the proportion of female homicide victims killed by their intimate partner gradually increased from 1989 to 2001 (27.7 and 31.4%, respectively), while IPH concerning male victims decreased during this same time period (5.3 and 2.8%, respectively) (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010). There were two main theoretical perspectives on these differences in the decline rate: exposure reduction and backlash or retaliation. Exposure reduction suggests that IPH will be reduced when the exposure between individuals in violent relationships decreases (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010). According to this perspective, less exposure to a violent partner means keeping away from violent encounters. There are many factors that can have exposure-reducing effects, such as the availability of domestic violence resources, increasing rates of divorce, and improved economic and educational status among females (Rosenfeld, 1997; Dugan et al., 2003). According to some studies, the availability of domestic violence resources is regarded to be

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influential in explaining IPH rates (Browne & Willams, 1989). Other researchers suggested that males and females in cohabitating relationships were at a higher risk of IPH victimization than males and females in married relationships (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Shackelford, 2001). The other perspective is backlash or retaliation. According to this perspective, male violence toward intimate partners rises when there is a perceived or real loss of power or control (Browne, 1987; Vieraitis & Williams, 2002). Essentially, this perspective stresses the potential consequences of gender equality (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010). This suggests that increasing women’s economic status and incomes through employment and education can make women less dependent on males and effectively avoid their victimization in IPH. In this way, increased female independence could possibly threaten males’ control over their partners and could lead to more IPH (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010). Consistent with this view, some researchers have identified that improved economic status increases the female victimization rate in IPH (Dugan et al., 1999). Similarly, other researchers found that greater gender equality increased male killings of females (Whaley & Williams, 2002).

1.1.2 Nature of IPH In terms of the nature of IPH, research has been mainly conducted on these topics, such as gender differences, risk factors, race and ethnicity.

1.1.2.1

Gender Difference

At a global level, the study on homicide demonstrates that two-thirds of the victims of IPH are female (UNODC, 2013). Therefore, women are more likely to be killed by a male intimate partner than by any other type of killer. In recent years, approximately one-third of all murdered women were killed by an intimate, while only three percent of male murder victims were killed by their intimate partners (Fox & Zawitz, 2005). Because the majority of victims of IPHs are female (Stockl et al., 2013), research has predominantly focused on behaviors and patterns in male-perpetrated IPH. In the literature, this has led to a gap of knowledge regarding IPH perpetration and victimization across genders (Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2013; Stockl et al., 2013; Shilan et al., 2017). Some research has identified motivational gender differences for male and female perpetrators in IPH. According to this research, male perpetrators typically committed IPH out of jealousy and a sense of entitlement to the female. In addition, women were most likely to kill their intimate partners in self-defense against violence or the threat of violence (Wells & DeLeon-Granados, 2004; Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Garcia et al., 2007; Moracco et al., 2003; Dobash et al., 2004; Leth, 2009; Rying, 2001). Women may also become victims of IPH following spousal or domestic violence (Flowers, 2002; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). Some research found

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1 Introduction

that an autonomous set of motives could lead to differences in IPH by male and female perpetrators (Gauthier & Bankston, 2004). According to this, male perpetrators also have a certain degree of domination and are concerned with fidelity, which is not often found in female perpetrators in IPH (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Gauthier & Bankston, 2004). However, recent research reveals that women seem not to commit intimate violence only in self-defense as often as previously supposed (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). For example, in Finland, only 13% of female perpetrators committed IPH in self-defense (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2003). There are many other variables, such as location of homicide, methods of homicide, weapon used, and killing other people, which can show significant differences between males and females. A retrospective study on IPH in Western Norway from 1985 to 2009 found that women were killed by manual strangulation more often than men, while men were killed by blunt force more often than women (Kristoffersen et al., 2014). Other research has identified that women attack their male partners in the home and kill them with household instruments, such as knives, and the recent trend has moved toward both genders killing with guns (Shipley & Arrigo, 2004). In the location of IPH, male and female perpetrators also showed a significant gender difference. Some research has identified that most IPHs for estranged partners take place in women’s homes (Johnson & Hotton, 2003).

1.1.2.2

Risk Factors

Approximately 40 years of IPH research, one important area of continued expansion of knowledge, focuses on risk factors for IPH. This expansion was especially concentrated on factors that contributed to the greatest risk of victimization (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Campbell et al., 2007; Garcia et al., 2007; Brynn et al., 2014). In many studies, researchers have attempted to develop risk assessment approaches in IPHs. Methods to understand and identify the risk of IPH have included research with advocates and analysis of medical examiner reporters and police records. In recent years, researchers have enlisted family members and close friends of IPH victims to improve the understanding of IPH risk factors (Glass et al., 2008). Experience of domestic violence. Many empirical studies have suggested that the experience of domestic violence is a risk factor for IPH (Morton et al., 1998; Arbuckle et al., 1996; Hilton et al., 2008). With the medical examiner files of IPH in North Carolina, researchers identified that a history of intimate partner violence was characteristic of approximately 70% of spouse murder and 46% of nonspouse intimate murder (Moracco et al., 2003). Other researchers also found that approximately two-thirds of perpetrators had a history of abuse (Campbell et al., 2003, b). For abuse, other researchers agree that previous abuse in the relationship is one of the most important risk factors for IPH (Gallu-Black, 2004; Garcia et al., 2007). Research has also identified that any threat to leave the abuser is dangerous because the abuser loses a sense of control over the victim in IPH (Jacquelyn, 2012). Other studies have consistently found that the likelihood of homicide increased even more if the victim left the abuser for another partner (Garcia et al., 2007).

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In addition, researchers have noted the availability of handguns and other weapons as risk factors for IPH. In the United States, almost half of male perpetrators use handguns to murder their intimate partner (Aldringe & Brwone, 2003). After examining the risk for homicide among pregnant women, researchers found that in 25% of the cases, the victim’s partner threatened her with a weapon during the year before she became pregnant (Decker et al., 2004). In some studies, the researcher suggested that lethal weapons are especially dangerous when coupled with alcohol or drug abuse by the abuser, another risk factor for IPH. Researchers noted that 48% of the men had consumed alcohol during the homicide (Aldringe & Brwone, 2003). Another study revealed that men who drank alcohol were 3 times more likely to be violent toward their partners than those who did not drink alcohol (Garcia et al., 2007; Schafer et al., 2004).

1.1.2.3

Race and Ethnicity

Regarding the nature of IPH, similar to the gender difference in IPH, some researchers also deal with the striking differences in race and ethnicity in IPH (Ridel & Best, 1998; Wilson & Daly, 1992). In particular, some research has estimated that the spousal homicide rate was 8.4 times higher for blacks than for whites (Mercy & Saltzman, 1989). Studies have consistently reviewed Blacks to be at a relatively high risk for IPH (Fox & Zawitz, 2005). More recently, even though the number of IPH has dropped, this decrease in the number of Black and White varied too much. According to this study, the number of Black males killed by their intimate partners dropped by 83%, white males by 61%, Black females by 52%, and White females by only six percent. In addition, this decline can be found in all types of intimate relationships except for White girlfriends, which increased slightly from 1976 to 2005. Black girlfriends are currently the most victimized group, although their rate has dropped 66% since 1976 (Fox & Zawitz, 2005). Consistent with these findings, research has reviewed that the majority of homicide perpetrators and victims are Black (Goetting, 1995; Mann, 1996; Shipley & Arrigo, 2004). For this, some research intended to explain that Black females faced more competition for intimate partners. They believed that there was more competition due to the number of uneducated, unemployed, poor, and incarcerated black males (Rodriguez & Henderson, 1995). Compared with research on race, fewer researchers have devoted attention to ethnicity. Some researchers have identified that Hispanics have rates that fall below those of Blacks but above rates of Whites (Block & Christakos, 1995a, b). Even though the IPH rates for all groups of people declined, the rates of IPH occurring between unmarried White females were the exception. Studies have also revealed that homicide victimization rates have been declining at a faster rate for Black intimate partners than for White partners, but Blacks are still at a greater risk than Whites of being killed by a partner in an intimate partnership (Puzone et al., 2000). Another researcher consistently revealed that black victimization rates have greatly declined, but they found that these decline rates were mainly shown in African American

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males in IPH (Wells & DeLeon-Granados, 2004). According to the cultural theoretical perspective, with the analysis of matrilineal kinship networks and patriarchal traditions, some researchers have explained the cultural basis for the difference in racial and ethnic IPH (Websdale, 1999). Other researchers have tried to explain these differences with other factors, such as socioeconomic status, poorer health care systems, and lessened police attention to domestic violence in minority communities (Websdale, 1999; Wilson & Daly, 1992). In previous studies on IPH, even though much research has been devoted to understanding IPH, there remain many questions in this field. Increasing official data show the gender differences between perpetrators and victims in IPH, but far less is known about the nature and extent of IPH among various racial groups.

1.2 Data Collection and Variables Design In general, the purpose of the study always determines the definition of the research object. Accordingly, in practical research, the definition also determines the research design and data collection. According to the general understanding, IPH is homicide committed by current or former spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends, and same-sex partners (Fox & Zawitz, 2005). In some studies, IPH is called domestic homicide or spouse homicide. For the term of domestic homicide, it is too much broader than the scope of this study because it can include all household killings, including children, parents, siblings and other relatives. Spouse homicide, on the other hand, refers to killings only between married people. This understanding is too narrow and does not encompass many intimate relationships involving similar dynamics, such as boyfriends or ex-spouses. For the purpose of this study, intimate partner homicide will be used to indicate homicides that occurred between heterosexual spouses, ex-spouses and extramarital lovers. In previous studies of IPH, the data were mostly obtained with two methods. The first is news surveillance. It is the most commonly used method of content analysis for the study of IPHs because it does not require self-reporting of violence or victimization (Salari & Sillito, 2016). However, “there are some inherent flaws in using nonscientific reports to determine the incidence and prevalence of a condition in a population. Just as the medical examiner’s office may not record all… cases as such, the news media may not report all cases. Furthermore, internet-based search engines may not include all newspapers in circulation. In addition, editorial decisions can lead to reporting cases that sensationalize… Despite these weaknesses, the findings help emphasize an important point (Coorg & Tournay, 2013).” Even though there are many limitations, many previous studies have used this method to study IPHs (Violence Policy Center, 2012; Malphurs & Cohen, 2002; Genovesi et al., 2010; Juan, 2006; Meyer & Post, 2013). The second most commonly used data come from official reports, mostly from state fatality reports (Janne & Martti, 2012; Sabri et al., 2016). In addition, some data also come from countries that are selected from international organizations (Stöckl et al 2013).

1.2 Data Collection and Variables Design

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These two methods, which are most commonly used in previous studies, are not suitable for direct application in China to collect IPH data. Like other countries, it is impossible for news media to report all cases of IPHs occurring in China. Except for some cases attracting great attention, the news media rarely reported this kind of case. On the other hand, owing to reasons known to all, some crime statistics in China are still regarded as state secret, so researchers cannot obtain the data from the official report. Therefore, we must look for another method to compile data in China. In 2014, the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China implemented judicial reforms wherein all criminal judgments had to be published online, thus promoting access to justice and enhancing judicial credibility. According to the latest provision of the Chinese Supreme People’s Court on Publishing Judgments Online (2016), except for judgments involving state secrets, matters of personal privacy, and juvenile delinquency, the court has to publish all judgments online. To date, the databank China Judgments Online has already published up to 8,431,782 criminal judgments. According to the Chinese Criminal Law Code, IPH is a type of homicide in which the perpetrator and victim are in an intimate relationship as either spouses or lovers. We first chose 28,986 judgments from the China Judgments Online databank for intentional homicide from 1990 to 2015. These judgments pertain to instances of homicide that occurred in Chinese provinces other than Xinjiang and Tibet, from which no criminal judgments were published online during the said period. From these, we chose 1500 judgments in which the perpetrator and victim were intimate partners (spouses, ex-spouses, and lovers). All these judgments dealt with IPH. With reference to corresponding studies from other countries, we designed a questionnaire with variables concerning basic information on IPH, such as the characteristics of the perpetrator and the victim, the status and state of the perpetrator-victim relationship, and the actus reus constituting the crime. As samples were drawn from criminal judgments, some information in the judgments was redacted before they were published to either protect the privacy of the parties or for other purposes. Some courts believe that certain information in a judgment is not important, such as family background and the profession of the perpetrator or victim, so this information was removed from some of the published judgments, although such information may be useful in providing an in-depth understanding of IPH in China. Therefore, the 1500 judgments selected were not full samples. After collation, we deleted some variables, such as “duration of the perpetrator-victim relationship”, from the questionnaire with due consideration for their importance and missing values. With the remainder, we continued to examine the 1500 judgments we selected and found that some lacked certain information on some variables in the questionnaire. For example, information on “what caused the relationship to break” was missing in some judgments. After deleting 521 such judgments, we found that the remaining samples were still relatively large, so we deleted them and finally obtained 979 judgments as the sample. All the selected judgments had relevant information on the variables used in this study.

8

1 Introduction

Owing to the significant impact of IPH for both the individual and society in terms of health, social welfare, and criminal justice, most researchers collected meaningful data from the samples in previous studies (Eke et al., 2011; Salari & Sillito, 2016; Sabri et al., 2016; Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010; Anderson, 1997; Shilan et al., 2017; Caman et al., 2017; Block & Christakos, 1995a, b; Liem & Roberts, 2009; Messner & Savolainen, 2001). For example, “gender”, “employment status”, “marriage satisfaction”, “family background”, “experience to use violence”, and “experience to be maltreated”. To identify the characteristics of IPHs in China by comparison with other countries, this study examined all the available data of homicide perpetrators and victims from 979 cases as the primary factors. In addition, we selected variables related to intimate partnerships, such as “perpetrator-victim relationship status” and “what caused the relationship to break”. Finally, we chose factors related to homicide incidents, such as “directly-caused-homicide events”.

1.3 Research Puzzles and Scope In recent years, with rapid modernization and urbanization, traditional Chinese marriage concepts and family structures have accordingly undergone great changes in the process of modernization and urbanization. Today, as a result, Chinese intimate partner relationships are not limited to wives and husbands in traditional families, and various types of intimate partnerships have correspondingly arisen. In the background of this, China has now also witnessed the soaring increase in IHPs in recent years. However, in understanding this serious lethal violence crime, two commonly used theoretical perspectives have no obvious meaning in China. In the background of rapid modernization and urbanization, IPHs have shown their own characteristics in China. Therefore, this study needs to look for another perspective to interpret this lethal violence crime in China. In this research, we identify the meaning of different kinds of relationships between perpetrators and victims in understanding IPHs in China. Therefore, the central issue is to identify the role of intimate partnership in understanding the characteristics of IPH in China after comparison with previous studies in other countries. Consist with the purpose of study, the general scope of content in this study is: First, with analysis and comment on the theoretical perspectives in previous studies, we have established the theoretical analysis framework to understand the IPH. In the theoretical field, even though the perpetrator-victim relationship, including its status and its state, is a neglected area of study of intimate partner homicide, it proves an important clue in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence in China. Second, with the empirical findings, this study described the characteristics of intimate partner homicide in China, especially the characteristics of perpetrator, victim, perpetrator-victim relationship status and state and incidents. Moreover, in

1.3 Research Puzzles and Scope

9

connection with the acknowledged risk factors for IPH, this study, combined with the actual Chinese situation, provides a reasonable assessment of the situation. Third, by comparing the findings in the previous studies, the current study details the reasons and background of the basic characteristics and risk factors for IPH, which formed in the context of Chinese today. Meanwhile, this study has limitations and research implications in this field of study.

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Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework of IPH Study

In the research field, there are many different theories that try to understand and explain IPH. However, some of these theories operate at the social level, while others apply at the level of the individual or the couple. In general, the theories discussed at the social level included culture of violence theory, ecological theory, evolutionary theory, feminist theory, general system theory and social disorganization theory. At the individual level, the following theories always try to address the IPH: biopsychosocial perspective, exchange theory, investment theory, resource theory, social learning theory, marital power theory and traumatic bonding theory (Sana, 2001). Most of these theories were traditional criminological theories (Kivivuori et al., 2012). For these theories, some provide generalist approaches, while some provide only partial explanatory perspectives. The theoretical explanatory landscape applied to IPH is compelling because of the different versions. In general, two theoretical perspectives commonly used in the study of IPH are included: gender perspective and violence perspective (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012).

2.1 Gender Perspective Intimate Partner Homicide is gendered. Normally, men are overrepresented as perpetrators of IPHs, and when women kill, they are more likely to kill an intimate partner than someone else is (Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2013b; Dearden & Jones, 2008). Although for most crimes, males are usually perpetrators, IPH is one of the few areas where women’s rates of offending approach that of men’s. Therefore, the “gender perspective” holds that the most salient aspect of IPH is the gendered nature of the crime. According to this perspective, men take intimate homicide against women as an instrument to maintain their dominance in a patriarchal society. However, when women commit IPH, people regard their IPH as a response to the violent behavior of their partners and motivated by self-defense (Felson & Lane, 2010). Therefore, much of the research on IPH begins with a focus on sex and gender. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Zhao, The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0_2

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The rise of the gender perspective was closely associated with the emergence of intimate partner violence as a recognized problem. This theory was closely connected with the perception of the relationship between intimate partner violence and social structure. This conception claimed that all men could use violence against their intimate partner and that all social classes can use domestic violence (Dobash et al., 2004). In this study, male sexual proprietariness theory and self-defense theory are presented as a means of understanding gender differences in IPH. To understand gender theory, the following two perspectives will be described in detail.

2.1.1 Male Sexual Proprietariness Theory Wilson and Daly are the major proponents of male sexual proprietariness theory (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Wilson & Daly, 1993). According to their ideas, the union of marriage is ultimately sexual and reproductive in nature. In the majority of societies, legal restrictions on sexual access highlight the rights men feel they should have over women’s sexual and reproductive capacities (Serrana & Firestone, 2004). With men’s desire to control their intimate partner, they perceive that they are at risk of losing the control of their intimate partner. In the research field, this perspective addresses major issues, such as jealousy, desertion, and male control (Dobash & Dobash, 1984; Serrana & Firestone, 2004). In the research field, many studies have proven this perspective, such as sexual jealousy, age, and violence as controls. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the effects of jealousy as the leading homicide motive in IPH. In these studies, jealously was always caused by the fact that men knew or suspected adultery or the woman terminated their intimate partner relationship. It assumes that the driving force of jealousy resulting in IPHs is a uniquely male sex trait whereby men kill their intimate women partners due to a real or imagined sense of the women’s infidelity to them (Wilson & Daly, 1996). The view of propietariness suggests that when taken to an extreme, it manifests itself as acute jealousy. Some studies identified that any real or potential ending of the relationship was a challenge to his identify (Esteal, 1993). In many cases, this type of jealousy has resulted in false beliefs that one’s partner has been unfaithful (Stack, 1997). Some studies identified that sexual jealousy was a motive in up to 19% of male offenders who killed their former partners, and extramarital affairs resulted in up to 20% of male offenders who killed their ex-girlfriends (Block & Christakos, 1995). In Greece, the study found that 45.2% of spousal killings occurred because of conflict over extramarital, sexual, and love affairs (Chimbos, 1998). The association of extreme jealousy could explain why stalking behaviors are often seen in violence involving intimate partners (McFarlane et al., 1999). Some studies suggested that the murder rate increased as the age difference increased between the victim and perpetrator (Mercy & Saltzman, 1989). Accordingly, other studies identified that the prevalence of IPH was four times as great in martial relationships with large age differences (Daly & Wilson, 1988). In domestic homicide, younger individuals are more likely to be both victims and offenders

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(Websdale, 1999). Some research has identified the reason that younger women are more attractive to men (Kenrick & Keefe, 1992). Researchers explained that it was easier for the younger wife to end her unsatisfactory marriage and to attract the attention of other men (Glick & Lin, 1987). According to the evolutionary perspective, some researchers have used the concept of male sexual proprietariness to explain domestic homicide (Wilson & Daly, 1996). From this perspective, the female partner is the sole possession of the male, and he has exclusive sexual privileges within that relationship (Wiltsey, 2008). As a result, the male perpetrator always threatened the victim with violence, but this also increased the female victim’s motivation to escape their intimate relationship. In this situation, a male perpetrator may be more motivated to kill his intimate partner when he perceives her intent to leave him. In the case of the homicide rates for separated partners, some research identified that wives were at far greater risk when they were separated (Wilson & Daly, 1993). Similarly, studies have found that there is a heightened risk for the murder of a woman in an intimate relationship when she leaves or attempts to leave her partner (Belfrage & Rying, 2004; Block & Christakos, 1995). The male proprietary theory has demonstrated that marital separation results in an increase in the risk of spousal homicide because it challenges “male proprietariness”. Therefore, when the woman leaves her husband, the use of violence would escalate because the male partners believe they own their intimate partners. Even though the male proprietariness theory offers valuable insights into IPH with male perpetrators, there are still a number of constraints. According to this theory, estrangement has been identified as a risk factor for IPH with the possessiveness of the man, but only a small proportion of women are killed by them when they separate from their partners (Ellis, 1994; Ellis & Dekeseredy, 1997). Some research has already identified that the vast majority of wives are not murdered by them. In fact, their marital conflict may play the leading role in the occurrence of IPH. In addition, as an evolutionary theory, it fails to implicate factors such as personality, stressful life events, family background and social support (Serrana & Firestone, 2004). In early studies, many researchers identified that many factors interact to cause IPH with male perpetrators, such as experiences of childhood abuse and insecure attachments (Browne, 1987; Campbell et al., 2003; Chimbos, 1978; Moracco et al., 1998, 2003; Showalter et al., 1980).

2.1.2 Self-Defense Theory Self-defense theory has been used by various researchers to explain femaleperpetrated homicide. Compared to men, women commit a very small number of IPH. As such, little scholarly attention has been afforded to homicide committed by women (Peterson, 1999). With the devastating consequences for IPH, many researchers have begun to devote attention to female-perpetrated homicide, especially since the 1980s, and there has been an increase in the number of studies on IPH with women perpetrators (Campbell, 1992). Normally, the majority of researchers regard women’s use

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of violence as a response to an abusive situation (Shaw & Dubois, 1995). In the case of IPH with women perpetrators, women killed their intimate partners mainly because of their experiences of abuse (Bannister, 1991; Block, 1990). Accordingly, many studies have identified lethal violent offending by women as a function of being subordinate in a patriarchal society. As the victim of this violence, the women killed their intimate partners to protect themselves from death at the hands of their partner (Serrana & Firestone, 2004). As a result, some researchers argued that IPH with female perpetrators was a result of women’s inability to protect themselves from their male partner’s aggression (Browne, 1987). In this situation, the battered women killed their partners only in response to an attack on themselves or their child (Radford, 1994). With an increase in the number of studies on IPH with female perpetrators, many researchers have explained the prevalence of females involved in intimate homicides. Current studies emphasize IPH with women perpetrators in the context of their histories of abuse within the family. Some research has suggested that victims often initiate homicidal acts with threats of or actual physical violence (Jurik & Winn, 1990). Some research also identified that women killed their intimate partners mostly in their own defense (Campbell, 1992). When women perpetrators killed their intimate partners, they acted mostly in response to the violence of the man, but only in very few cases was the killing in response to the threat of the man leaving (Polk, 1994). Inconsistent with the practical findings, some studies suggested that the battered experience had no significance in IPH with women perpetrators. Accordingly, some studies found that women perpetrators were subjected to frequent and injurious attacks from partners who were likely drinking heavily, using drugs, sexually assaulting them and threatening murder (Browne, 1987). In general, women killed their partners mainly to protect themselves or their own children from the violent behavior of their partner after they used alcohol (O’Keffe, 1997). As the majority of victims of IPHs are female and the likelihood of being killed by an intimate partner is six times higher for women (Stockl et al., 2013), criminological theories have predominately focused on behaviors and patterns in male-perpetrated IPH (Shilan et al., 2017; UNODC, 2013). In addition, such samples are often small and not necessarily representative; therefore, it is difficult to identify IPH with female perpetrators (Serrana & Firestone, 2004; Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2013; Stockl et al., 2013). For self-defense theory, it is so difficult to identify the role of the battered experience in IPH with women perpetrators. With this theory, some important factors, such as culture and life stressors, should not be extensively discussed. In this regard, some research identified that the majority of female perpetrators with battered experience were more likely to have been sexually assaulted during childhood, dropped out of high school, had an erratic work history, cohabited with their partner prior to marriage, experienced a drug problem, attempted suicide and access to their partner’s guns (Roberts, 1996). Accordingly, we may identify that many other factors influence IPH or interact with battering incidents to result in IPH. In general, the rise of the gender framework was connected with both methodological and theoretical developments in the social sciences. With methodological development, the rise of the survey method could deploy many inclusive concepts

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of violence (Haggerty, 2001). Theoretically, feminist and evolutionary perspectives focused on causal factors that were applicable to all men (Moffitt et al., 2000). In explaining IPH, this theory has value despite its limitations. In fact, important social contexts, biology and psychological factors interact and cause IPH. In recent years, one factor that is thought to be influential in explaining IPH rates is the availability of domestic violence resources (Dugan et al., 2003; Amy & Karen, 2010). Thus, it may be more meaningful to take some effective measures, such as changing the living arrangements of men and women, improving the economic status of women, and increasing the availability of domestic violence shelters, in the prevention of IPH. Furthermore, the value of these theoretical perspectives lies in signaling us to the necessity of making changes, both at an individual and societal level (Serrana & Firestone, 2004).

2.2 Violence Perspective Researchers referred to the idea that violence committed against men and women in intimate relationships as the “gender perspective” (Dutton, 2006; Felson, 2006; Hamel, 2005). In contrast with this perspective, the “violence perspective” emphasizes similarities in the etiologies of violence against intimate partners and other victims. Offenders who physically abuse their partners were also likely to commit psychological and emotional abuse, and many were likely to commit other forms of crime as well (Sherman, 1992). According to the violence perspective, the motivation for intimate partner violence is not much different from the motivation for other types of violence. The question of generalization versus specialization of offending is salient from the point of view of the distinction between violence and gender perspectives (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). For general theory, the theoretical support for predicting this generality in offending largely comes from self-control theory (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). In recent years, self-control theory has become one of the most important theoretical perspectives in explaining and understanding IPH (Brian et al., 2010). Self-control theory argues that rational individuals weigh the perceived pleasure of an act against the perceived pain of an act while making the decision to perform a behavior. In general, when the perceived pleasure of an act outweighed the perceived pain of the act, the individual would be likely to perform a behavior. According to this understanding, crime is an act of force or fraud that an individual pursues in their own interest and includes additional characteristics, such as being short-lived, immediately gratifying, simple, easy, and exciting. Such behaviors are attractive to individuals with varying levels of self-control (Brian et al., 2010). With the individual’s level of self-control, he can judge the perceived pleasure and the perceived pain of an act. That is, according to this perspective, the following six characteristics decided the individual’s ability to foresee the long-term consequences of an action: impulsiveness, risk-taking, attraction to physical over mental acts, preference for simple

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and easy tasks, and the lack of empathy. These factors affect the calculation of the consequences of one’s acts (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). When the individual is deficient in these six characteristics, he may have low self-control. For him, it is likely to overestimate the pleasure of an act because it provides an immediate benefit, especially when the potential for long-term pain is not considered (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). In the area of partner violence, some have argued that self-control may be the proper theory to understand partner violence. Between self-control and partner violence, there are many different kinds of potential links. First, the basic premise of self-control theory is that low self-control is caused by ineffective or poor parenting techniques (Gibbs et al., 1998; Hayslett-McCall and Bernard, 2002; Unnever et al., 2006). Moreover, the links between self-control and partner violence were identified in psychological literature that examines the characteristics of adults (Brian et al., 2010). Some researchers described the following characteristics of abusers in IPH, which identify individuals with low self-control: psychopathological problems, dependency on elderly persons for financial support and housing, difficulties with the law, drug and alcohol problems, hospitalizations for psychiatric illnesses, poor social skills, poor communication skills, a history of antisocial behavior and an unstable lifestyle (Conlin, 1995). In conclusion, selfcontrol theory explains partner abuse by explaining offenders’ criminal histories. With the general idea of self-control, the general violence perspective predicts more general offending than the gender perspective, which can predict a more specialized type of offending. In general, when a violent man maintains the current power structure, it might be likely to focus his efforts toward his female partner. On the other hand, when intimate partner violence has exhibited a more general propensity to engage in antisocial behavior, perpetrators manifest this tendency in multiple domains of life and across different life stages (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). According to the violence perspective, whether men who are violent toward women are ordinary or deviant has also connected with violence prevention work. In a recent study, social services professionals studied men who are violent against their intimate partner and found that they were quite ordinary and that any man can transgress and use violence against their inmate partners (Edin et al., 2008). This study emphasized that the normality of the social position could not imply psychological normality. In the country, the individual’s psychological deviance lies at the core of male intimate partner violence (Edin et al., 2008). Therefore, the ideology of antiviolence workers has emphasized the social structural normality of intimate partner violence offenders. Otherwise, some researchers found that this has left much more leeway for psychopathology (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). In short, after discussing the theoretical framework of the violence perspective, we can identify that IPH offenders are similar to other homicide offenders because most of them come from socially disadvantaged groups. According to this perspective, all different kinds of violence share similar roots in social disadvantage and individual traits. However, can we identify this perspective in practice?

2.3 Practical Findings of the Theoretical Tension …

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2.3 Practical Findings of the Theoretical Tension Between These Two Perspectives After discussing these two theoretical frameworks, we find that the question of whether IPH is committed by average people as opposed to socially disadvantaged persons has both theoretical and practical salience. According to the gender perspective, IPH offenders are socially and individually less disadvantaged than other homicide offenders, but the violence perspective predicts that IPH offenders are similar to other homicide offenders because most of them come from socially disadvantaged groups. In other words, the gender perspective emphasizes the particularity and distinct character of IPH. In contrast, the violence perspective predicts that all kinds of violence share similar roots in social disadvantage and individual traits. Some previous studies found that individuals with lower socioeconomic status had a greater chance of being perpetrators and victims among IPHs (Kuruvilla & Jacob, 2007; Vyas & Watts, 2009). Especially among male intimate partner homicide offenders, it was evident that people from socially disadvantaged groups are overrepresented. Most male perpetrators can be described as middle-aged, permanently unemployed male alcoholics with a long history of violence (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). Therefore, social position in the lowest strata of society and personal problems with substance abuse have close relations with all subcategories of homicide. Consistent with this, some previous research has found that individuals with lower socioeconomic status have more experience using violence than individuals with higher socioeconomic status (Haj-Yahia & Zoysa, 2007). In addition, some researchers found that women with lower socioeconomic status had a greater level of favorable attitudes toward the use of violence than women with higher socioeconomic status (Linos et al., 2012). Moreover, the existing research showed that prior abuse by the IPH perpetrator toward the victim was often the most important difference between IPHs perpetrated by men and IPHs perpetrated by women (Farooque et al., 2005; Smith et al., 1998; Vittes & Sorenson, 2008). It is evident that empirical studies on the social and individual-level correlates of intimate partner violence are leading toward increasing convergence between general violence and gender perspectives (Dobash et al., 2004; DeKeseredy & Dragiewicz, 2007). For male perpetrators of IPH, survey research has indicated that they tend to also be violent toward other people if they are violent toward their female partners (Johnson et al., 2008). Some research has suggested that the generality of deviance is related to a propensity to transgress social norms (Hamberger, 2009). In terms of social and behavioral deviance, even though the IPH offenders resemble other offenders, there still stand differentials in how strongly various types of homicide were connected with social disadvantage and individual traits. According to the findings, the similarity of IPHs against women and male killings of male relatives lends additional support to the general violence perspective (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012).

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2.4 Application, Gaps and Limitation of Existing Perspectives in IPH Studies 2.4.1 Application of the Existing Perspectives In the field of IPH studies, almost all the studies reference some theoretical point or at least connect the theoretical traditions of criminology with their studies. They either test hypotheses derived from a theory or use theories as heuristic sources of interpretation (Janne et al., 2014). As a result, some theoretical hypotheses are not corroborated, and some theories have no contribution to answering some questions. For instance, some IPH research on self-control (Ganpat et al., 2013) and feminist hypotheses (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012) found little or partial support for these theories. In addition, the presence of the mentioned perspectives in IPH studies has already changed. For example, of all the mentioned theories, social control theory is the most often discussed in European homicide studies, with anomie theory ranking second. In some research, the findings show that one in four articles cited evolutionary theory and self-control theory, but leaning theory and labeling theory were used by the fewest researchers (Janne et al., 2014). Meanwhile, over time, social control theory is increasingly used to understand and explain IPH, but the evolutionary perspective appears to have lost its earlier salience. Generally, the use of theoretical perspectives in IPH studies can be found as follows: Testing theoretical hypotheses and theory as heuristic. A direct approach to using theory is to test specific hypotheses derived from theory. Regarding the analysis mode, it is very common for researchers to use two alternative modes in IPH studies: the special model and the general model. The special model asserts that IPH offenders differ from those who commit other types of lethal violence. For example, it proved that IPH has no correlation with social disadvantage and alcohol use. In contrast, the general violence model predicts that IPH offenders tend to manifest similar backgrounds and problems as other homicide offenders. By analyzing all types of intentional lethal violence, some research identifies that IPH offenders manifest highly above-average levels of social disadvantage and alcohol abuse, but male-to-male offenders diverge even more from the general population (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). Thus, according to the prediction of the general model, IPH was highly correlated with social disadvantage and alcohol abuse. However, the link was not as strong as in male-to-male homicides (Janne et al., 2014). The other way of using theory is to interpret the practical findings with some theory after the empirical description. Kristoffersen et al. (2014) conducted a retrospective study to identify the characteristics of IPH in 196 homicide victims from 1985– 2009. In this study, we describe the homicide rates, nationality of perpetrators and victims, perpetrator-victim relationships, and scene of crime. For these findings, the researchers used different theoretical perspectives to explain them with comparison with other research results. For example, they found that women were killed by manual strangulation more often than men. After comparing with other studies, they explained these gender differences in that it took greater effort to manually

2.4 Application, Gaps and Limitation …

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strangulate a conscious, adult man than a woman. Similarly, Sabri et al. (2016) explored gender/ethnic subgroup differences in the characteristics of Asian IPHs. They found that gender differences appeared in the ages of victims and perpetrators, types of relationships between partners and methods of killing. In terms of this gender gap, they explain this with different perspectives. In recent years, IPH studies have also witnessed attempts at theoretical integration and synthesis (Janne et al., 2014). These attempts include integration of existing theories and raise of novel concepts as integrative cores. For example, some researchers recognize that no single factors can explain people’s involvement in genocidal violent perpetration, and they propose an integrated theoretical model in the field of genocide studies. According to this model, cognitive dissonance and structural strain, exacerbated by elite-induced learning processes, work jointly to create conditions supportive of mass atrocities (Olusanya, 2013). The proposed framework combines micro- (e.g., social control theories) and macrolevel theories (e.g., stain theories). Accordingly, social cognition is the bridge that transcends micro and macro, at least in the special case of genocide. In contrast, other researchers propose that homicide research should pay more attention to political factors. Accordingly, they introduce a new central concept and put it to empirical tests. According to their findings, political legitimacy has a close correlation with homicide rates: the higher the legitimacy of a polity is, the lower the level of homicide net of several controls (Nivette & Eisner, 2013).

2.4.2 Gaps and Limitation of Existing Perspectives As described above, even though almost all researchers invariably use some theoretical perspectives to understand and explain IPH in their studies, even though social control theory was recently the most cited theory in IPH studies, to date, there still appears to be no single dominating theoretical framework in IPH studies, which can be used to explain IPH. In many cases, the use of theory is selective and tailor-made to the research question at hand (Janne et al., 2014). Specifically, some of these theories provide generalist approaches, while some provide only partial explanatory perspectives formed by gender. From the gender perspective, because gender is a distinguishing feature of IPH, researchers try to explain not only why men are overrepresented as perpetrators but also why some women also engage in this lethal violence crime. According to the violence perspective, although male and female perpetrators both have high levels of emotional characteristics, this perspective does not adequately capture the role of emotions in homicide perpetration. Furthermore, evolutionary theory deals with the expressive features of IPH and does not extend beyond the experience of jealousy. With the background of feminist theory, the gender perspective focuses on emotive-facilitative traits, such as hypersensitivity to perceived threats, rather than emotional states. In other words, emotions play the leading role in IPH perpetration according to their understanding. Accordingly, there still lies much room

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for further theoretical exploration, such as how and why experiences of emotions are associated with homicide perpetration (Li & Paul, 2013). In fact, for IPH, whether its cause or its phenomenon, this crime is so extremely complicated that it is difficult to use one identified theory to understand and explain it. In addition, the emphasis of the IPH study lies in its characteristic description and its preventive measures determination. Therefore, it is difficult for researchers to create one specific theory to understand IPH. The aim of this current study is to describe the characteristics of IPH in China after comparison with other corresponding findings in other countries. Therefore, its focus is on the description of characteristics of IPH in China, not on the creative theoretical perspective. However, this study will not ignore explaining this serious crime with some existing theoretical perspectives to understand this lethal interpersonal violence in China.

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Kristoffersen, S., Lilleng, P. K., Mæhle, B. O., & Morild, I. (2014). Homicides in Western Norway, 1985–2009, time trends, age and gender differences. Forensic Science International, 238(2014), 1–8. Kuruvilla, A., & Jacob, K. S. (2007). Poverty, social stress & mental health. Indian Journal of Medical Research, 126(4), 273–278. Li, E. & Paul, M. (2013). A general strain theory of intimate partner homicide. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(5), 462–470. Linos, N., Khawaja, M., & Kaplan, R. L. (2012). Women’s acceptance of spousal abuse in Iraq: Prevalence rates and the role of female empowerment characteristics. Journal of Family Violence, 27(7), 625–633. Mcfarlane, J. M., Campbell, J. C., & Wilt, S. (1999). Stalking and intimate partner femicide. Homicide Studies: An Interdisciplinary and International Journal, 3(4), 300–316. Merey, J. A., & Saltzman, L. E. (1989). Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1976–85. American Journal of Public Health, 79(5), 595–599. Moffitt, T. E., Krueger, R. F., Caspi, A., & Fagan, J. (2000). Partner abuse and general crime: How are they the same? How are they different? Criminology, 38, 199–231. Moracco, K. E., Runyan, C. W., & Butts, J. D. (2003). Female intimate partner homicide: A population-based study. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, 58(1), 20–25. Moracco, K. E., Runyan, C. W., & Butts, J. (1998). Femicide in North Carolina. Homicide. Nivette, A. E., & Eisner, M. (2013). Do legitimate polities have fewer homiicides? A Cross-National Analysis. Homicide Studies, 17(1), 3–26. O’Keefe, M. (1997). Incarcerated battered women: A comparison of battered women who killed their abusers and those incarcerated for other offenses. Journal of Family Violence, 12(1), 1–18. Olusanya, O. (2013). A macro-micro integrated theoretical model of mass participation in genocide. British Journal of Criminology, 53, 843–863. Peterson, E. S. L. (1999). Murder as self-help: Women and intimate partner homicide. Homicide Studies, 3(1), 30–46. Polk, K. (1994). When men kill: Scenarios of masculine violence. Cambridge University Press. Radford, L. (1994). Pleading for time: Justice for battered women who kill. In H. Birch (Ed.), Moving targets: Women, murder, and representation. University of California Press. Robers, A. R. (1996). Battered women who kill: A comparative study of incarcerated participants with a community sample of battered women. Journal of Family Violence, 11(3), 291–304. Sabri, B., Campbell, J. C., & Dabby, F. C. (2016). Gender differences in intimate partner homicides among ethnic sub-groups of Asians. Violence Against Women, 22(4), 432–453. Sana, L. (2001). Intimate partner violence- societal, medical, legal, and individual responses (pp. 21–35). Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Serrana, Geris, & Firestone, Philip. (2004). Intimate partner homicide: a review of the male proprietariness and the self-defense theories. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9, 1–15. Shaw, M., & Dubois, S. (1995). Understanding violence by women: A review of the Literature. Correctional Services of Canada. Sherman, L. (1992). Policing domestic violence. Free Press. Shilan, C., Marianne, K., Sven, G., & Joakin, S. (2017). Trends in rates and characteristics of intimate partner homicides between 1990 and 2013. Journal of Criminal Justice, 49(2017), 14–21. Showalter, C. R., Bonnie, R. J., & Roddey, V. (1980). The spousal-homicide syndrome. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 3, 117–141. Smith, P. H., Moracco, K. E., & Butts, J. D. (1998). Partner homicide in context: A population-based perspective. Homicide Studies, 2, 400–421. Stack, S. (1997). Homicide followed by suicide: An analysis of Chicago Data. Criminology, 35(3), 435–453. Stockl, H., Devries, K., Rotstein, A., Abrahams, N., Campbell, J., Watts, C., & Moreno, C. G. (2013). The global prevalence of intimate partner homicide: A systematic review. The Lancet, 382(9895), 859–865.

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United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2013). Global Study on Homicide 2013. In Statistics and survey section, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. United Nations Publication. Unnever, J., Cullen, F., & Agnew, R. (2006). Why is “bad” parenting criminogenic? Implications from rival theories. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 4(1), 3–33. Vittes, K. A., & Sorenson, S. B. (2008). Restraining orders among victims of intimate partner homicide. Injury Prevention, 14, 191–195. Vyas, S., & Watts, C. (2009). How does economic empowerment affect women’s risk of intimate partner violence in low and middle-income countries? A systematic review of published evidence. Journal of International Development, 21(5), 577–602. Websdale, N. (1999). Understanding domestic homicide. Northeastern University Press. Wilson, M., & Daly, M. (1993). Spousal homicide risk and estrangement. Violence and Victims, 8, 3–16. Wilson, M., & Daly, M. (1996). Male sexual proprietariness and violence against wives. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 2–7. Wiltsey, M. T. (2008). Risk factors for intimate partner homicide (pp. 45–46). Drexel University.

Chapter 3

Perpetrator and Victim of IPH

Since the 2000s, there has been growth in the literature and research on male perpetrators of IPH. A core theme of research is to identify the characteristics and risk factors for IPH (Daly et al., 1997; Dobash et al., 2007; Garcia et al., 2007; Dawson et al., 2009; Taylor & Jasinski, 2011; Jaffe et al., 2014; Sheehan et al., 2015). To gain comprehensive and further insight into IPH in China, after analyzing the theoretical framework of IPH studies, it is important to describe the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims. As a lethal violence crime, IPH is perpetrated by both males and females. However, it is in general a male-perpetrated crime (Titterington & Abbott, 2004). Therefore, most IPH studies demonstrate only the characteristics of male perpetrators in IPH. In addition, there are limited deep studies on victims of IPH in this field. Based on this, the current study will supply this gap when demonstrating the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims in China. Meanwhile, to better understand the characteristics of IPH in China, this study compares the corresponding studies in other countries when describing the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims with the empirical findings. Therefore, this chapter mainly contains previous corresponding findings in other countries and the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims in China.

3.1 Approach to Identify the Characteristics of IPH Perpetrator and Victim In the field of IPH studies, almost all researchers dealt with the characteristics of perpetrators with the aim of obtaining illuminating insight into IPH. By capturing the features and patterns of these previous studies conducted by scholars, this study will demonstrate the approaches of their studies as well as their practical findings. The aim is to provide a comparative basis for subsequent studies in China. In general, there are two main approaches to demonstrate the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Zhao, The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0_3

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3.1.1 Descriptive Analysis Especially in the government report, the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims were descriptively demonstrated with little attention to the theoretical analysis. However, in academic studies, most researchers described them with the purpose of either testing theoretical hypotheses or introducing new integrative concepts (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012; Belknap et al., 2012; Janne et al., 2014; Vatnar & Friestad, 2017). In general, such studies mainly deal with the following demographic characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims. Therefore, the following will explain them separately according to the findings in previous studies.

3.1.1.1

Age

In terms of age disparity between perpetrator and victim. By examining the age differences between couples, research conducted in Canada found that young women were most at risk of being killed when their husbands were more than 10 years older than them (Wilson et al., 1993). This age discrepancy also featured husband killing. According to this kind of study, risk increased when husbands were more than 10 years older or younger than their female partner (Mari & Kevin, 2003). Data from the FBI supplemental homicide report suggested that as the age difference increased between the victim and the perpetrator, so did the murder rate (Mercy & Saltzman, 1989). Additionally, other findings identified that the prevalence of IPH was four times as great in marital relationship with large age differences. In general, younger individuals were more likely to be both victims and offenders in IPH (Websdale, 1999). In other studies, a disparity of 10 years or more was identified as a risk factor for both men and women (Aldrige & Browne, 2003; Shackelford, 2001a, b). Therefore, age disparity between partners is a key feature within spousal homicides (Jacqueline, 2017). According to the evolutionary perspective, some researchers suspect that men might be especially likely to kill expendable postmenopausal wives. However, others suggest that jealous, proprietary motives would be particularly prevalent among men with younger wives for various reasons (Daly & Wilson, 1988). In terms of the age gap, some studies demonstrated that the largest age gap between perpetrators and victims was found when the perpetrator was a male and the victim was a female (Bushra et al., 2016). According to their study, on average, female victims of male perpetrators were younger than male victims of female perpetrators. Moreover, the average age gap between male perpetrators and their female victim was significantly greater than the average age gap between female perpetrators and their male victims. In a comprehensive review of IPH studies, some research identified that the average age of male perpetrators was 34 years (Moracco et al., 2003). Another study found that the average ages of Asian perpetrators and victims were 40.5 and 36.6, respectively. In addition, most male perpetrators were under 40 years old, and female perpetrators were more common above 40 years old (Bushra et al., 2016).

3.1 Approach to Identify the Characteristics …

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However, another study identified that there was no significant difference in the mean age of male (38 years) and female (40 years) IPH offenders (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). In terms of age distribution, Jacqueline (2017) established that there was a broader variation in the age of male perpetrators, who ranged from 16 to 94 years. Accordingly, his study identified that there was a statistically significant difference in the age distribution between the gender profiles. With consideration of IPH among Asian Americans, Bushra et al. (2016) demonstrated that there were significant differences in the distribution of ages for male and female victims.

3.1.1.2

Gendered Nature of IPH

It is recognized that the majority of IPH victims are female; simultaneously, when females commit homicide, they are more likely to perpetrate against an intimate partner (Garcia et al., 2007; Stockl et al., 2013; Caman et al., 2016a, b). Thus, IPH is characterized by gender asymmetry: while female victims are more likely to be victimized by a male intimate partner than by any other type of killer, male victims are more likely to be victimized by acquaintances or strangers. Although for most crimes, males are most always perpetrators, some studies have shown that IPH is one of the few areas where women’s rates of offending approach those of men. With regard to this, Saunders (2002) found that women accounted for approximately 30 percent of all IPH perpetrators. Consistent with this, some studies proved that the risk of being killed by a partner is higher for men than for women, with 871 black men killing women and 1077 black women killing men (Block & Christakos, 1995). Even though the motivation behind IPH varies, some studies have indicated that motives account for differences in IPH perpetrated by males and females. Some studies found that male IPH perpetrators may also have a certain degree of domination, sexual proprietaries, fidelity, separation or divorce, child custody issues, substance abuse, problems on job, suicidal behavior, and mental illness. However, some studies argue that female perpetrators usually do not kill their partners for the same reasons men do (Aldrige & Browne, 2003; Angela et al., 2011; Garcia et al., 2007; Kivisto, 2015). Female IPH perpetrators committed the IPH almost always for their self-defense (Hamby, 2015; Hodell et al., 2014; Rosenfeld, 1997; Vieraitis & Williams, 2002; Vieraitis et al., 2008). Thus, these women are responding as victims of violence, who kill to protect themselves from death at the hands of their partner. As a result, some studies argue that female perpetrated homicides are the result of women’s inability to protect themselves from their male partners’ aggression. Therefore, battered women are more likely to kill their partner in response to an attack on themselves or following a threat from the abuser to harm another, usually their child (Browne, 1989; O’Keefe, 1997; Matthew et al., 2006). However, some studies have identified that men are less likely than women to have been attacked before IPH occurs (Johnson & Leone, 2005). In most homicides, the women had experienced violence from her intimate partner in the year prior to the fatal incident whether the woman was victim or the offender in

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the IPH. Accordingly, some studies explained why almost all homicides by women are IPH (Baskin & Sommers, 2018; Kim & Titterington, 2009; Verona & Carbonell, 2000; Verona & Carbonell, 2000). In female-perpetrated IPH, women are always assaulted, threatened and killed by men who are desperate to maintain their control. As a result, most of the female perpetrators feel trapped in their current abusive situation and feel that killing their abuser is the only way out of their children and themselves. Aside from the motivation of women’s self-defense, some studies provide additional reasons as to why women kill their intimate partners, such as collecting insurance payments or other financial or material gains (Flowers, 2008). Another study showed that the possible motives for female IPH perpetrators are as follows: subject by victim, psychiatric condition, the need to obtain drugs or money for illicit substances, angry retaliation, jealousy, discipline or scare tactic (Shipley & Arrigo, 2004). There were many other variables, such as weapon used, location of the homicide and homicide followed by suicide, that showed significant differences between males and females. In terms of the type of weapon used in IPH, many studies found that most IPHs were perpetrated by men with shootings, while women kill their intimate partners mostly with household instruments such as knives or poisons (Block & Christakos, 1995; Vigdor & Mercy, 2006; Garcia et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2014; Sorenson & Spear, 2018). Corresponding to this greater use by women of knives as IPH weapons, Paulozzi et al. (2001) found that men who are killed by their intimate partners are more likely than other male homicide victims to be the victims of knife attacks. In contrast, a number of studies found that firearms are the first choice of firearms used by both male and female perpetrators (Shipley & Arrigo, 2004; Smucker & Kerber, 2018; Zeoli, et al., 2017). In this regard, other studies found that guns, followed by knives, are the weapons used most often by both men and women to kill their partners. However, female perpetrators use knives at a rate that is almost double that of males (Mize & Shackelford, 2008). The reason might be explained by the sex-differentiated motives underlying the homicides. For female IPH perpetrators, knives are readily available to them when they defend themselves from intimate partner abuse. Another significant gender difference between male and female perpetrators is the location of the homicide. Some studies have shown that most IPH for estranged partners takes place in the woman’s home, regardless of her role as the victim or perpetrator (Caman et al., 2017; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). Correspondingly, some other studies identified that IPH perpetrators with a history of abuse are more likely to have fatal injuries occurring at the victim’s residence than those without a previous history (Smith et al., 2014; Yousuf et al., 2017). In addition, Browne et al. (1999) found that men are more likely to kill in a location away from a shared residence, whereas women most often kill their male partners at a shared residence or at the women’s residence. In addition to the location of the murder, the difference in gender between male and female IPH perpetrators can also be found from murder suicides. In this regard, some studies identified that male perpetrators are more likely to be involved in murder suicides than females because of the jealous nature of male perpetrators in IPH (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Garcia et al., 2007). Compared with

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female-perpetrated IPH, men are more likely to kill other people when they kill their intimate partners (Johnson & Hotton, 2003). Compared with female-perpetrated IPH, male perpetrators are more likely to kill their partner when they separate or threaten to separate from their female partners. In this regard, some studies have suggested that more than half of male perpetrators are separated from their partners when homicide occurs (Brownridge, 2006; Douglas et al., 2008; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In theory, some studies suggest that this is due to males’ inability to deal with what they perceive to be a rejection of them or their role as the dominant partner in the relationship. Therefore, leaving or threatening by female partners to end the relationship has been cited in many studies as an event that triggers homicide against female intimates (Campbell et al., 2003, 2007). Separation is one of the most important predictors of homicide for female victims. In fact, men frequently stalk and kill their intimate partners when they have left them (Wilson & Daly, 1992; Campbell et al., 2009). Especially for spousal homicide, it is more often for homicide to occur when the wife makes the decision to leave rather than when the husband leaves the union (Wilson & Daly, 1998; Shackelford, 2001a, b; Aldridge & Browne, 2003).

3.1.1.3

Alcohol Use

Many studies have shown that there is a significant association between IPH and alcohol use (Michael, 2008; Schafer et al., 2004). Studies of IPH routinely identify consumption of alcohol and drugs by perpetrators when describing the characteristics of IPH. In the United States, 55% of offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of incident (United States Department of Justice, 2005). In Austria, victims believed their partner to have been drinking prior to a physical assault in 36% (Carcach & James, 1998). In Russia, 10.5% of such offenders were intoxicated (William, 2006). In England and Wales, victims believed their partners to have been drinking prior to a physical assault in 32% (Mirrlees 1999). Even though alcohol consumption has been shown both in perpetrators and in victims, the consumption percentage varied by gender. In IPHs against women, some studies identified that 77% of offenders were under the influence of alcohol or drugs during the time of offence (Janne & Martti, 2012). With interviewed incarcerated men in Missouri, Stout (1993) identified that 48% of the men had consumed alcohol when they committed the IPH. In comparison, 22% of the men believed their partner had consumed alcohol prior to being killed. After studying IPH in Canada, Wilson and Daly (1994) found that 55% of male perpetrators had been known to drink alcohol, as had 79% of female perpetrators. Likewise, after examining the women who killed their male partners, some research found that 62% of the victims drank alcohol on a daily basis and only 10% of the men die not drink alcohol at all (Blount et al., 1994). Browne (1987) and Walker (1989) found similar percentages of alcohol abuse by male victims: 79 and 88%, respectively. Moreover, some studies found that males were more likely to be chronic alcohol abusers when victims than when perpetrators. Males, both as victims and as perpetrators, were more likely to chronically abuse

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alcohol than were females in either category (Block & Christakos, 1995; Smith et al., 1998). In addition, some identified studies also concerned the role of drink-drive limit (32 mg of alcohol per 100 mL of blood) in IPH, which indicates an unequal gender distribution in alcohol presence and level at the time of death (Jacqueline, 2017). According to this study, 52% of the male victims were above the drink-drive limit at the time of death. This percentage was halved within the female victim cohort. Therefore, this study proved that there was a significant association between victims’ gender and the presence of alcohol at the time of death. Finally, this study also found that there was also a difference by sex in the recorded levels of alcohol intoxication: female victims: 40–476 mg per 100 mL of blood; male victims: 104–422 mg per 100 mL of blood.

3.1.1.4

Illicit Drugs Use

As with alcohol consumption, the use of illicit drugs can increase the risk of becoming victim or perpetrator of IPH (Michael, 2008). In the field of IPH studies, many researchers have proven that drugs are also significantly involved in IPH (Mari & Kevin, 2003; Kristie et al., 2011; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019). Compared with alcohol use, there was lower drug use among the victims. Jacqueline (2017) found that there was an uneven distribution of the presence of drugs between the gender profiles. According to this study, 31% of males were positive for the presence of controlled drugs. In relation to female victims, 16% were positive for the presence of drugs with a mixed usage pattern. Together with alcohol and drug usage, female victims used them more frequently than male victims. In addition, 21% male perpetrators and 29% female perpetrators indicated positive results when they were arrested. In terms of kinds of drugs, this study demonstrated that suspected females used most cannabis and cocaine. Male perpetrators showed the most use of heroin, methadone, cocaine and diazepam. In all, 15% of female perpetrators and 6% of male perpetrators tested positive for the use of drugs and alcohol. In other studies, data analysis showed that the most commonly used drug was cocaine, which was used by perpetrators in more than three-fourths of the cases (Moracco et al., 1998). According to this study, alcohol was used in more than two-thirds of the cases where there was evidence of drug use. In other studies, researchers identified that significantly less drug abuse was found in cases of IPH than in cases of other homicides (Block & Christakos, 1995; Moracco et al., 1998). However, illicit perpetrator drug use was not a significant predictor of femicide in the femicide cases. If the perpetrator took aggressive action to the partner, illicit drug use was a stronger predictor than alcohol consumption. With another more powerful predictor, especially gun use, 70% of male perpetrators were using drugs and/or alcohol at the time of the homicidal incident (Sharps et al., 2003). After controlling the demographics of the IPH, some studies identified that neither victim drug nor alcohol use before or during the femicide were significant predictors for IP femicide (Sharps et al., 2001).

3.1 Approach to Identify the Characteristics …

3.1.1.5

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Criminal Careers and Criminal Records

In terms of criminal careers and previous violent acts, such essential risk factors may not be relevant for IPH (Dobash et al., 2004). Some research has identified that IPH perpetrators are significantly less likely than nonintimate partner homicide perpetrators with a history of convictions (Dobash & Dobash, 2015; WeizmannHenelius et al., 2012). With data on all homicides committed in Finland since 2002, Kivivuori and Lehti (2012) examined the social sources of intimate partner homicide against women. In their study, the prior criminal career and earlier violent crimes of the offenders were analyzed by eight variables: “known to become violent when intoxicated”, “prior recorded criminality”, “criminal record”, “criminal court convictions during the last 5 years”, “served time in prison”, “earlier homicide convictions”, “earlier homicide convictions”, “earlier drunken driving convictions” and “earlier theft/burglary convictions”. One of these variables, “known to become extremely violent when intoxicated”, was based on police assessment, and the other variables represented data from the criminal records of Finland. With these variables, they found that male killers of unrelated males displayed the highest prior criminality, and male killers of male relatives were ranked second. Meanwhile, they found that female filicide offenders were least involved in prior crime. Inconsistently, Dobash et al. (2009) found that one-quarter of the IPH perpetrators had never been convicted of any type of crime prior to the murder of an intimate partner. Based on the Murder in Britain Study, they compared IPH perpetrators with and without the experience of criminal convictions, where perpetrators without this experience were found to be less troubled, both during childhood and adulthood. After they were adults, perpetrators with no criminal conviction were less likely to have problems related to previous perpetration of intimate partner violence. However, most of them had completed their education and had been employed. According to this study, two-thirds of these perpetrators with previous convictions had been convicted six times or more, and their persistent offending was very common. In terms of female IPH perpetrators, some studies illustrated that female perpetrators of IPH were less likely to have histories of criminal offending than male perpetrators (Block & Christakos, 1995; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Although the study by Caman et al. (2016a, b) did not find significant differences with regard to history of criminal offending, their study identified that female perpetrators were more likely to have been convicted of nonviolent offenses and to have been convicted more often than their male counterparts.

3.1.1.6

Mental Illness

Due to the inconsistent definition of mental health, the studies on mental health in IPH conducted thus far display contradictory findings, where the figures of IPH perpetrators as mentally disordered vary from 20% (Oram et al., 2013) to 80% (Belfrage & Rying, 2004). Therefore, studies on mental illness in IPH are limited (Caman, 2017).

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In comparison to other male-perpetrated homicides, some studies identified that most male IPH perpetrators had mental illness (Belfrage & Rying, 2004; Thomas et al., 2011). According to some studies, almost one-quarter of IPH perpetrators have a history of severe mental illness (Thomas et al., 2011). In line with these findings, Belfrage and Rying (2004) found that 80% were considered mentally disordered, and every third IPH, the perpetrators were psychotic in commission offense. However, a large-scale study on intimate partner femicide disclosed that approximately 13% of these perpetrators had a history of major mental disorder (Lysell et al., 2016). Meanwhile, other studies have also proven that psychoses and being assessed as legally insane are less common in IPH perpetrators (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Moreover, by examining all domestic homicides committed in England and Wales between 1997 and 2008, a large-scale study demonstrated that one-third of IPH perpetrators had been diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point of life (Oram et al., 2013). In line with these findings, the study in Spain also revealed that IPH perpetrators were less likely to suffer from mental and personality disorders. The study identified that the incidence rate of mental disorders was only slightly above the incidence rate found in the general population (Echeburua et al., 2003).

3.1.2 Comparative Analysis In contrast with the simple description analysis, comparative methods were used to determine the characteristics of the perpetrator and victim more convincingly. Therefore, an increasing number of comparative studies have been conducted in this field. Depending on the focus of the comparison, such studies mainly include methods: comparison with IPH and intimate partner violence (IPV) and comparison with IPH with other homicides.

3.1.2.1

Comparing IPH with IPV

Evidence from a wide variety of studies has identified that IPH is the last link in the chain of violent behaviors, so they believe it is important to determine the predictors of such behavior (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2016, 2019). To predict IPH, some studies examine the different characteristics of perpetrators and victims between intimate partner violence (IPV) and IPH (Snider et al., 2009). In general, the perpetrators of IPV tend to be younger, undereducated, and have low socioeconomic status (Ali et al., 2011; Caetano et al., 2008; Capaldi et al., 2012). In contrast, another study revealed that perpetrators of IPH tend to be older. In terms of risk factors, some studies found that cohabiting partners have higher rates of IPV and IPH (Abramsky et al., 2011; Gass et al., 2011; Mize et al., 2009). Other studies demonstrated that male perpetrators of IPH were more likely to be together than separated at the time of the incident (Dobash et al., 2007; Sebire, 2015).

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Attitudes supporting domestic violence also appear in the literature as important predictors of IPV (Abramsky et al., 2011; Stith et al., 2004). In this regard, a study showed that more perpetrators of IPH have sexist attitudes and the legitimation of violence against women (Archer, 2006). The negative attitudes of perpetrators in IPH toward women and feminine have much connection with their bad experiences in their childhood. Generally, men are significantly more likely to use violence against their women partner if they witness domestic violence or experience physical violence in their childhood (Cummings et al., 2013). Therefore, experiences of physical maltreatment in childhood were identified as one of the most important predictors of future lethal violence in intimate relationships in IPH studies (White & Widom, 2003). Although the studies revealed many different characteristics of perpetrators in IPH and IPV, a central question remains whether there are differences in the characteristics of perpetrators and victims in IPV and IPH. In fact, this connected to how to view the crime of IPH. Some studies point to IPH as a sudden or unexpected event without a previous history of violent behavior. According to this perspective, most perpetrators of IPH have mental health problems, and some contextual or situational factors can make them commit to IPH (Wiesburd & Waring, 2001). In contrast, another view states that IPH is the culmination of a history of violence (Stark & Flitcraft, 1996). In this regard, some studies identify that approximately one-fourth to one-half of all IPH perpetrators have been arrested for a previous violent crime (Kivisto, 2015). In fact, some studies proved that some demographic characteristics of perpetrators were similar for lethal and nonlethal incidents after comparing the data concerning IPV and IPH (Wilson et al., 1995). However, some studies concluded that although some characteristics of perpetrators in IPV and IPH are the same, there seems to be a difference in degree and some differential patterns (Cunha & Gonçalve, 2013; Roehl et al., 2005). For example, Dobash et al. (2007) found that male perpetrators of IPH are more conventional in terms of childhood background, education and employment and are more possessive and jealous. In contrast, the male perpetrator of IPV is more likely to have used violence against the previous partner and to have sexually assaulted. From this, we can find that the findings remain contradictory. To identify whether IPH can be predicted by IPV, some quantitative studies identify the characteristics of perpetrators after comparing them in IPH and IPV. In the comparison of demographic characteristics of perpetrators, the following variables in IPV and IPH were used: marital status, education, employment, children, etc. After comparing them, the analysis only revealed significant differences between IPV and IPH perpetrators only in age and marital status at the time of the offense. According to this study, IPH perpetrators are older than IPV perpetrators, and a higher proportion of IPH perpetrators are single compared with IPV perpetrators (Cunha & Gonçalve, 2016, 2019). These findings can be found in other studies. For example, some studies have shown that older men are more likely to commit violence against their intimate partners (Breiding et al., 2008; Stith et al., 2004). Johnson and Hotton (2003) proved in their study that men were more likely to kill their intimate partner when they were not married to their partner. In terms of risk factors shown by perpetrators, variables such as past violation of conditional release or community supervision, family violence experience, and use of

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weapons were always compared. Compared with IPV perpetrators, IPH perpetrators were less likely to experience and witness violence in their childhood, to abuse substances, and to present a history of violating conditional release order (Caetano et al., 2008; Cummings et al., 2013; Dutton & Kropp, 2000; Kropp, 2009). In addition, some comparative studies showed that IPH perpetrators had a stronger history of suicidal ideation or intent and a stronger history of weapon use and credible threats of death against their intimate partner than IPV perpetrators did (Campbell et al., 2007; Snider et al., 2009). Despite the difference, perpetrators of IPV and IPH also have some similarities. Some studies found that both kinds of perpetrators had the experience to assault their family number and had the problem of dealing with their intimate relationships. Therefore, some studies have pointed out that we should pay more attention to men’s cognitions and orientations with regard to their intimate relationships (Dobash et al., 2009). Although many findings have shown differences in the characteristics of perpetrators in IPH and IPV with the aim of identifying the variables that predict IPH, these studies still have some limitations. For example, there are limited studies on the characteristics of victims in IPH. In this regard, some studies have already found evidence for the importance of victims’ characteristics in IPH (Cattaneo et al., 2007; Kuijpers et al., 2012). Therefore, the characteristics of victims of IPH should be included in future studies. This is also the direction that this study wants to address.

3.1.2.2

Comparing IPH with Non-IPH

Studies on the characteristics of IPH generally focus on two questions. The first pays more attention to IPV by asking if IPV perpetrators differ from IPH perpetrators (Adams, 2009; Dobash et al., 2007). The second question shifts the focus from IPV to other homicides by asking if people who kill intimate partners differ from people who kill nonintimate partners, i.e., other family members, acquaintances and strangers (Avakame, 1998; Dobash et al., 2004; Felson & Lane, 2010; Thomas et al., 2011). Therefore, in the extant literature on the characteristics of IPH perpetrators, it is also favorable to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators by comparing IPH perpetrators with non-IPH perpetrators. To improve the understanding and gain more clarification of IPH perpetrators, more comparative studies have been conducted in the research field, but the results of comparative studies show that most of the findings are contradictory. Some studies suggest that IPH perpetrators are more conventional than perpetrators of other homicides (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Thomas et al., 2011). On perpetrators both in IPH and in other homicides, the similar results of a comparative study found that IPH perpetrators are more conventional and less troubled with regard to family background, education, employment, alcohol abuse, and persistent criminal behavior (Dobash et al., 2004). Conversely, another study identified that IPH perpetrators are typical offenders who do not differentiate with regard to their characteristics and experience (Felson & Lane, 2010).

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In light of these contradictory findings and ongoing debates about whether perpetrators of IPH differ from perpetrators of other homicides, some researchers try to identify the sociodemographic and criminological characteristics of IPH perpetrators and try to explore whether they differ from non-IPH perpetrators. Normally, the sample in these comparative studies was divided into subgroups based on the relationship between perpetrators and victims. The homicide perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner, irrespective of gender, marital status, or sexual orientation, was regarded as IPH, whereas the remaining cases of homicide were defined as non-IPH. In these studies, there were always more cases of IPH than non-IPH. With regard to variables to compare, the following variables were used to compare in such studies: age, highest completed education, occupation, accommodation and criminal history (Catalano et al., 2009; Dobash & Dobash, 2011; Fox & Zawitz, 2007; Kristie et al., 2011). With the analysis of variables, some studies have indicated that perpetrators of IPH seem less socially disadvantaged than perpetrators of non-IPH with regard to employment and accommodation (Caman et al., 2016a, b). In terms of conviction experience, some studies identified that perpetrators of IPH were significantly less likely to have ever been convicted than perpetrators in nonintimate partner homicide (Caman et al., 2016a, b). However, Thomas et al. (2011) found that men who murder intimates are somehow not more conventional than those who murder others. Indeed, some studies identified that intimate offenders were substantially more likely than nonintimate offenders to have used violence against women, particularly their intimate partners (Dobash et al., 2004). With regard to the variable of employment, some studies conformed that employment is a clear indicator of differentiation between IPH perpetrators and non-IPH perpetrators. Normally, IPH perpetrators are more likely to be employed at the time of the offense (Dobash et al., 2004; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Thomas et al., 2011; Pollack et al., 2010). In general, many studies have suggested that there is a significant difference with regard to education between two kinds of perpetrators (Smucker et al., 2018; Thomas et al., 2011). Many risk factors from IPH perpetrators can be identified, but what is the difference between IPH perpetrators and non-IPH perpetrators? In this regard, many studies proved that the majority of male perpetrators in non-IPH had never been married compared with perpetrators in IPH. At the same time, separation at the time of the murder was more common among IPH perpetrators than non-IPH perpetrators (Thomas et al., 2011). In terms of mental health problems, some studies have proven that men who murder their intimate partners are more likely to have mental health problems and are more likely to be motivated to kill by emotional versus practical concerns (Moffitt et al., 2000; Thomas et al., 2011). However, Dobash et al. (2004) found that there were no differences in mental health problems between these two kinds of perpetrators. In general, IPH perpetrators appear to be slightly more mentally unstable than non-IPH perpetrators (Thomas et al., 2011). Comparative results showed that IPH perpetrators are significantly more likely to commit the murder at home. Accordingly, a higher proportion of the non-IPH cases took place either indoors in a nonhome setting or outside in an urban area (Caman et al., 2016a, b).

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In contrast to identifying the characteristics of IPH perpetrators by comparing IPH and IPV, some studies identified the characteristics of victims by comparing IPH and non-IPH perpetrators. In this comparison, the following variables were usually considered: age, occupation, accommodation and criminal history. In some studies, there were no significant differences with regard to sociodemographic characteristics. However, victims of IPH were significantly less likely to have a criminal offending history than victims of non-IPH. In fact, victims of IPH had been substantially less criminally active than victims of non-IPH (Caman et al., 2016a, b). In addition, the significant differences between victims of IPH and victims of non-IPH were related to the gender distribution: most of the IPH victims were female, compared with the non-IPH victim, who predominantly consisted of male victims (Broidy et al., 2006; Iratzoqui & McCutcheon, 2018). Despite limitations such as samples and variables, with the comparison between IPH perpetrators and non-IPH perpetrators, the studies contribute to the debate on whether IPH perpetrators constitute a distinct subtype. In terms of employment and accommodation, homicide suicide, and intoxication, many findings illustrate critical differences between IPH and non-IPH. In addition, some findings identified that victims of IPH were less likely to have a criminal offending history than victims of non-IPH. These findings are devoted to the understanding of the IPH perpetrator as a unique subset of murder with distinctions calling for focused approaches in research, practice and policy (Thomas et al., 2011).

3.1.2.3

Comparing Male and Female Perpetrator in IPH

In fact, many studies have identified that the most salient aspect of IPH is the gendered nature of the crime: men commit the vast majority of IPHs (Bachman & Saltzman, 1995; Biroscak et al., 2006; Campbell et al., 2007; Vittes and Sorrenson, 2008; Shai, 2010; Gillespiel & Reckdenwald, 2017; Vatnar et al., 2021). Consistent with this idea, most researchers have only studied male perpetrators with female victims (Caman et al., 2016a, b; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). However, an increasing number of studies have proven that women are mostly likely to kill their current or former intimate partner when they do kill (DeJong et al., 2011). Therefore, it has been suggested that female and male IPH perpetrators should be distinct groups in IPH studies (Campbell et al., 2007; Caman et al., 2016a, b). In this regard, an increasing number of studies have begun to compare male and female perpetrators in IPH to understand IPH. In general, studies on IPH perpetrators across genders have shown that there are both differences and similarities between them. In terms of marginalized population groups, economic disadvantage and ethnicity, some studies have identified that significant gender differences have not emerged (Campbell et al., 2007), and other studies have suggested that two kinds of IPH perpetrators have no significant gender difference with regard to substance abuse, for example, alcohol (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). In the country, some studies have shown that female perpetrators are more likely to be unemployed and to have suffered from substance abuse disorder (Caman

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et al., 2016a, b). In addition, male perpetrators in IPH are more likely motivated by possessiveness or problems in connection with separation and jealousy, whereas women kill their spouse in self-defense or after years of suffering physical violence (Belfrage & Rying, 2004; Dobash & Dobash, 2015; Leth, 2009; Swatt & He, 2006). Furthermore, when male victims abuse women or their mutual children, it is more likely for female perpetrators to kill their intimate partners (Campbell et al., 2007). However, some studies have revealed that women do not seem to commit intimate partner homicide solely in self-defense, as often as previously supposed (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). Many findings have conflicts and inconsistencies, mainly because the definitions of IPH are different in each study, and the sample selection is also different. In the comparison of victim and offender characteristics in IPH, there are mostly two kinds of methods to divide the sample into subgroups: first is female victim/male offender and male victim/female offender; the other is female IPH and non-IPH offenders and male IPH and non-IPH offenders. Normally, the following variables are always considered in these comparation studies: age, ethnicity, employment status, education, defendant history, pregnancy status, history of violent criminality, mental health history and motivating circumstances (Hare, 2003; Swatt & He, 2006; Garcia et al., 2007; Belnap et al., 2012; Spencer & Stith, 2018). With the findings, some studies identified that female and male IPH perpetrators differ from each other both in demographic characteristics and in risk factors. Regarding demographic characteristics, the following significant difference was found between female and male perpetrators of IPH: female perpetrators were more often unemployed, and victims were more often substance abusers. With regard to substance abuse, an increasing number of studies have proven that female-perpetrated IPHs more often involve substance-addicted victims (Vatnar et al., 2021). Furthermore, female perpetrators of IPH were more often attributed to being motivated by fear and revenge than male perpetrators in IPH (Vatnar & Bjørkly, 2018; Caman et al., 2016a, b; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Female perpetrators committed IPH mostly in self-defense or after years of suffering from physical IPV (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Campbell et al., 2007). For male perpetrators, possessiveness, separation and jealousy are the most common motivational factors (Dutto & Nicholls, 2005). In the literature, with no exact decision criteria regarding how to measure the motive for IPH, it is easy to find results that converge with previous findings (Vatnar et al., 2021). Regarding employment status, there were also significant differences in gender after comparing IPH offenders with non-IPH perpetrators: male IPH offenders are more often employed than male non-IPH perpetrators (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Similarly, in IPH cases, employment is rare among female offenders than among male offenders. Apart from that, many studies showed that there were no significant differences in the other demographic characteristics. With regard to the risk factors, some studies argued that mental illness is more often an important risk factor in female-perpetrated IPHs than in male-perpetrated IPHs (Flynn & Graham, 2010). However, most studies have identified that mental illness has not been found

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to be a factor associated with IPH, so there is no distinction between male and female perpetrators in IPH (Vatnar et al., 2021; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In the IPH study literature, female and male perpetrators of IPHs were regarded as two distinct groups (Campbell et al., 2007; Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2013; Serran & Firestone, 2004). Accordingly, an increasing number of practical findings have shown that female perpetrators of IPH are qualitatively and clinically different from their male counterparts (Vatnar & Bjørkly, 2018). Although some established theories of IPH could be expected to generalize across population groups, there are some specific risk factors associated with female IPH perpetrators (Skardhamar et al., 2014). Therefore, how to deeply study these specific factors to explain the gender difference in IPH perpetrators has become the study focus in this field. It requires not only reasonably designed variables and sufficient samples but also reasonable theories. In addition to the three main comparison methods described above, there is also a method for determining the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims by comparing the IPH among ethnic subgroups of identified people. For example, some studies explored differences in IPHs among the following ethnic subgroups of Americans: southeast Asians, south Asians, east Asians and other Asians (Sabri et al., 2016). In this study, gender differences were found in the ages of victims and perpetrators, types of relationships between partners, and methods of killing. These findings are consistent with other studies in different racial/ethnic populations and suggest that Asian women are at greater risk for IPH victimization than men (Edelstein, 2016; Frye et al., 2005). With the limited application scope of this kind of comparative study, this method will not be discussed here in detail. Although these research purposes, research methods, and sample selections are different in each study, previous studies have identified some characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims, such as gender, age, criminal careers, mental illness and some special risk factors with different research methods. These important findings provide promise and comparation objects for this study to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims because the study of IPH in China is extremely rare. To date, there has been no corresponding deep study on this topic in China.

3.2 Perpetrator and Victim of IPH in China After describing the important findings in the previous study on the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims, the study will continue to address the following questions. First, do the Chinese IPH perpetrator and victim show the same characteristics as the previous findings? If so, what kinds of characteristics are the same, and what kinds of them are different? Second, compared with the findings in previous studies, what kinds of reasons cause IPH perpetrators and victims to show special characteristics? In general, the risk of violence between intimate partners is influenced by factors linked to structures on a societal level or factors related to individual characteristics

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in perpetrators (Caman, 2017). Therefore, considerable research has been conducted regarding some personal and societal factors in IPH to inform intervention and prevention strategies. There is, however, a lack of focused analysis on the context of IPH, which is relevant for improving the prediction of risk and improving prevention efforts (Eke et al., 2011; Corradi & Stöckl, 2014; Caman et al., 2017). It has been suggested that a preferred approach when deeply understanding IPH is to identify the characteristics of perpetrators and victims (Corzine, 2011; Sturup and Caman 2015). With this point in view, many previous studies have highlighted the importance of exploring the characteristics of perpetrators and victims and situational characteristics in IPH (Block & Christakos, 1995; Loannou & Hammond, 2015; Zoeli et al., 2017). Normally, the corresponding studies are not limited to one theory or perspective but benefit from a combination of perspectives. Studies on individual characteristics, such as social background, criminal history, substance use and mental disorders in perpetrators and victims of IPH, are more popular in previous studies.

3.2.1 Characteristics of Perpetrator of IPH in China Because IPH is significantly impacted both by individuals and society, the characteristics of the perpetrator and victim of IPH are generally determined from demographic analysis and from the risk factors exhibited by the perpetrator and victim (Caman, 2017; Logan et al., 2008; Yuma-Guerrero et al., 2017). After analyzing the selected samples in this study and referring to the previous studies, the variables designed to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrator and victim according to the study aim include: gender, age, employment status, marital status, have child or not, if have child, live together with child or not, marital satisfaction for the marriage, education, income, family background, place of birth, criminal record, with experience to use violence or not, commit suicide after committing homicide, mental condition, destroy the corpse or not. However, there are some variables, such as age and education. deleted because of their missing value percentage. With these remaining variables, this study identifies the characteristics of IPH perpetrators in China after analyzing these variables. As shown in Table 3.1, after deleting the variables with low missing values, the following variables remained: “gender”, “profession”, “family background”, “experience using violence”, “criminal record”, “marital status” and “satisfaction with marriage”. According to the elected samples, we discuss “unemployed”, “peasant”, “student”, “migrant workers”, “white-collar” and “individual proprietor” in the variable “profession”. In the variable “family background”, we consider “peasant”, “worker” and “intellectual”. Compared with other studies, this study addresses variables such as “profession”, “family background”, “marital status” and “satisfaction with marriage”, which are scarcely found in other studies.

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Table 3.1 Basic information about the perpetrator in IPH

Gender

Male 802(81.9)

177(18.1)

Profession

Unemployed

Peasant

Student

41(4.2)

465(47.5)

4(0.4)

Migrant workers

White-collar

Individual proprietor 8(0.8)

459(46.9)

2(0.2)

Family background

Peasant

Worker

Intellectual

952(97.2)

24(2.5)

3(0.3)

Experience using violence

Have

No

38(3.9)

941(96.1)

Crime record

Have

No

31 (3.2)

948 (96.8)

Marital status

Unmarried

Married

Divorced

365(37.3)

560(57.2)

54(5.5)

Satisficed

Not satisficed

3(0.5)

557(99.5)

Satisfaction with marriage

3.2.1.1

Female

Gender

As a serious problem thought the world, 13.5% of all homicides worldwide are committed by a current or former intimate partner. With regard to gender in IPH, 38.6% of homicides committed against women and 6.3% of homicides committed against men are committed by an intimate partner (Stöckl et al., 2013). Therefore, to some extent, IPH is gender-based lethal violence. Generally, women are significantly more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than men. In this regard, some studies show that women are nearly four times more likely than men to be the victim of IPH (Fox & Zawitz, 2007). However, there is still an exception in previous studies. Some research has identified that the proportion of women killing their male intimate partner is roughly equal to the proportion of men killing their female intimate partner (Block & Christakos, 1995). In this regard, Wilson and Daly (1992) found that this is also true for some other U.S. cities, but it is not true outside of the United States according to the available data from these countries. Recently, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing that over half (55.3%) of the homicides committed against women from 2003 to 2014 in the United States involved an intimate partner (Petrosky et al., 2017). Considering all homicide victim-suspect relationship categories, intimate partners are the most common relationship category within which women kill (Brookman, 2005). Correspondingly, many studies have proven that women comprise a disproportionately higher percentage of IPH victims than men (Raj & Silverman, 2002; Hodel et al., 2014; Spencer & Stith, 2018). These gender ratios in previous studies indicate that killings by women are approximately 10 times greater in intimate partner

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homicides than in any other homicide category (Shackelford, 2001a, b; Fox & Fridel, 2017). In general, with quantitative and qualitative studies on the gender of perpetrators and victims in IPH, previous studies proved that men are more likely to be both homicide victims and perpetrators than women. Men are more likely to kill and be killed by strangers or acquaintances, whereas women are killed and will kill intimate partners or family members (Jensen, 2001; Liem & Koenraadt, 2018; Tyson et al., 2017). Therefore, it is clear from the literature and the IPH prevalence rates that IPH is a gendered phenomenon. This finding can also be found in IPH of China. As shown in Table 3.1, more than 80 percent of IPH perpetrators were men (81.9%), and this percentage was almost four times higher than that of women (18.1%). Therefore, as in other countries, the majority of IPH perpetrators are men in China, while female perpetrators are relatively rare. In addition, with the trend of IPH in history, the gendered characteristics of IPH can also be found. Between 1970 and 1990, global homicide rates drastically increased but have continued to decline since the 1990s (UNODC, 2013; Lappi-Seppälä & Lehti, 2014; Caman et al., 2017). However, when examining the global trends of IPH, it can be found that the decline in IPH does not follow the overall homicide trends. In fact, the rates of IPH in the world remain stable (UNODC, 2013). Even though the United States and other Western countries have seen declining trends (Stöckl et al., 2013; Corradi & Stöckl, 2014; Caman et al., 2017), this overall steady decline only in IPH perpetrated by women and not in male-perpetrated IPH (Dawson et al., 2009; Terranova & Zen, 2018). According to international reports on homicide rate trends in China, although the homicide rate has been declining since 2001, and in ten years, the rate has been cut by half: from approximately 2 per 100,000 in 2002 to 1 per 100,000 population in 2010 (UNODC, 2013), we cannot obtain the rate trends of IPH in China because we cannot obtain the IPH rate in the same period of time. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the rate trends of IPH in China.

3.2.1.2

Profession of the Perpetrator

With regard to the profession of the perpetrator, the information from Table 3.1 shows that most of the perpetrators of IPH are farmers (47.5%) and migrant workers (46.9%). Compared with perpetrators from these two professions, students, individual proprietors and unemployed perpetrators in IPHs are very rare (0.4; 0.8; 4.2%). This means that the vast majority of perpetrators of IPH are peasant and migrant workers (together 94.9%). In the literature, research on the profession of perpetrators is very rare, but it is very important to identify the characteristics of perpetrators in IPH in China. Unlike other countries, China is in the process of urbanization and modernization, and correspondingly, the population structure has undergone fundamental changes. According to the Report on Migrant’s Population (2017), the total number of migrants in China continued to grow between 2011 and 2014, from 230 million in 2011 to 253 million in 2014. Since 2015, the total number of migrants has started to decline.

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3 Perpetrator and Victim of IPH

In 2016, the migrants were 245 million. In the population of migrants, the average age of migrants in China has continued to rise during the past six years, rising from 27.3 years in 2011 to 29.8 years in 2016. Of the migrants aged 16–59, the population of migrants who were born in the 1980s rose from less than 50% in 2011 to 56.6% in 2016. From 2013 to 2016, the population of migrants born in the 1990s rose from 14.5% to 18.7%. It is foreseeable that the large-scale migration of people will continue to be an important phenomenon in the urbanization and modernization of China for a long period of time. In fact, a large number of rural people have poured into cities as migrant workers, and the traditional Chinese population structure has undergone fundamental changes. In addition, according to the sixth national census data, the population living in rural areas accounted for 50.32% of the total population, and the number of farmers was 674 million (the Population Census Office of the State Council, 2010). Therefore, this shows that farmers and migrant workers still account for the majority of the Chinese population. Compared with other occupations in China, the income of farmers and migrant workers is relatively low, although their income has increased in recent years. According to the Survey Report on Migrant Workers (National Bureau of Statistics, 2016), the average monthly income of migrant workers was 3275 yuan in 2016, with an increase of 203 yuan over the previous year and an increase of 6.6%. In 2017, the average monthly income of migrant workers maintained steady growth. Their average monthly income of migrant workers was 3,485 yuan, with an increase of 210 yuan over the previous year and an increase of 6.4%. In 2017, according to the China Statistical Yearbook-2017, the highest per capita wage was in the information computer software industry, which was 96,646 yuan more than the agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery with the lowest per capita wage level. This means that a financial practitioner with an average salary can earn more than 100,000 yuan than one farmer a year, and this gap continues to increase. In general, most farmers and migrant workers are engaged in industries with relatively low incomes, and they are generally less educated. According to the data of the employment population of the fifth and sixth censuses in China, the manufacturing, accommodation and catering industries and the construction industry have a large scale of employment, but the per capita education level is relatively low, and the growth is also slow (Zhang, 2014). In fact, most of the practitioners in these three industries are farmers and migrant workers. Although IPH is known to occur among all social classes, many studies have demonstrated a consistent link between low socioeconomic status (SES) and the occurrence of IPH (Sabri et al., 2014; Caman et al., 2016a, b). In this regard, it is generally explained by occupation, income and education (Gelles, 1997; Hotaling & Sugarman, 1986). In the literature, research has proven that IPH perpetrators with characteristics of low socioeconomic status are more likely to initiate IPH than men without such characteristics (Stöckl et al., 2013; Vatnar & Friestad, 2017). Data from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey showed that blue-collar men had a higher rate of wife abuse than white-collar men, even after controlling for the level of drinking and normative beliefs approving violence (Kantor, 1990). In terms of education, some research identified that those with less than a high school education

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were 40% more likely to report IPV than those with a high school diploma (Sorenson et al., 1996). On the other hand, some research found no significant differences in education between couples whose husbands desisted their marital violence after 2 years of follow-up and those who did not (Quigley & Leonard, 1996). In addition, individuals with lower income were identified in many studies to be more likely than those with higher incomes to commit the IPH (Gallup-Black, 2005; Raj & Silverman, 2003). With regard to the link between SES and perpetrators of IPH, social structural theory explains why couples from lower SES strata are more likely to engage in IPH than their upper SES counterparts (Lawson, 2012; Manning, 2015; Michalski, 2005). According to this theory, violence arises from institutionalized inequalities between people, and those with lower positions in the social hierarchy are subject to greater social stress, which may give rise to situational violence (Gil, 1986). In addition, individuals with lower SES are more strongly affected emotionally by negative life events than upper SES individuals (McLeod & Kessler, 1990). Compared with those with higher SES, those with lower SES may have had greater exposure to childhood violence, had higher rates of depression, experienced more alcohol-related problems and more commonly endorsed the use of physical aggression as a tactic in marital disputes. In general, these factors may also put lower SES individuals at greater risk for IPV. Although this study does not have accurate data to provide a clear explanation of China’s socioeconomic status, farmers and migrant workers have low socioeconomic status in China with regard to occupational status, income and educational level compared with other occupations. In China, the education of farmers and migrant workers is very limited. Most of them are illiterate or primary school graduates. In recent years, with the soaring modernization and urbanization in China, the income and education level of the second generation of farmers and migrant workers have increased significantly, but compared with other industries, it is also relatively low. Without good education, it is not possible to obtain a good occupation and income. Therefore, regarding income, occupational status and educational level, farmers and migrant workers mostly have low socioeconomic status. In China, among the IPH perpetrators, most are farmers and migrant workers, who have lower socioeconomic status. To some extent, this research on the profession of IPH perpetrators provides similar findings and supports the theoretical explanation.

3.2.1.3

Experience of Using Violence

Despite the experience of using violence in IPH perpetrators, the motivations for male and female perpetrators to use violence are different (Campbell et al., 2007; Swatt und He, 2006; Caman et al., 2016a, b). For male perpetrators, their violence against their partner is mainly due to possessiveness or problems in connection with separation and jealousy. However, female perpetrators kill their spouse in self-defense or after years of suffering physical violence (Belfrage & Rying, 2004; Leth, 2009). With regard to violence in self-defense, some research has identified that female violence is always self-defense, even when women use severe violence and men use only mild

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violence because women have a smaller size and weight (Saunders, 1998). However, some research has concluded that not only do women engage in a comparable amount of violence, they are “at least as likely” to instigate violence and are more likely to hit back than men in response to violence provocation by partners (Stets & Straus, 1992; Straus & Gelles, 1992). Similarly, some research revealed that only limited cases did women who had killed or abused their partners report that they did it in self-defense (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2004). Therefore, the result is difficult to explain the feminist assertion that women are more afraid of male violence than the reverse, and the findings do not support the argument that female violence is solely defensive (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). Additionally, other findings do not support the argument that female violence is solely defensive. With regard to assaulters’ motivations, some findings identified that there was no significant difference in the percentage of males and females who endorsed using aggression in self-defense (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 1998; Sauders, 1998; Hines & Douglas, 2010). In fact, female perpetrators often used violence against male partners repeatedly and used it against nonviolent male partners and used it for reasons other than self-defense (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005; Bossarte et al., 2006). Most research has identified that a history of violence abuse against female partners is a significant characteristic in most IPH cases regardless of the gender of the victim (Campbell et al., 2007). Therefore, antecedent violent episodes are key elements in all deomestic violence risk assessment tools in many countries (Campbell et al., 2009; Robinson & Howarth, 2012; Messing & Thaller, 2012). Some research has found that spousal homicide is a kind of conflict that involves sublethal marital violence (Daly & Wilson, 1988). In fact, violence plays a role in homicide perpetrated both by males and by females, and violent behavior within an intimate relationship increases the risk of death. With regard to this, some research has demonstrated that a history of violence within the home is strongly associated with residential homicide (Kellerman et al., 1993). Female perpetrators kill their batterer always because violence will always escalate both in frequency and intensity in escalating with fatal outcomes (Crowell & Burgess, 1996; Glass et al., 2004). In fact, if a woman continues to be a victim of violence from her intimate partner, she is at risk of becoming either an offender or a victim of IPH (Serran & Firestone, 2004). With regard to the history of violence in the intimate relationship, some research identified that most of the male perpetrators had abused their female victims in the year prior to the IPH and that many female offenders had been abused in the year prior to the IPH by their male victims. At the same time, nearly all male perpetrators were the first to threaten or use violence, while only a limited number of female perpetrators did so (Dobash & Dobash, 2015). According to Wilson (2005), female perpetrators were more than seventeen times less likely than male perpetrators to be the first ones to threaten or use violence against their intimate partners. In general, IPH perpetrated by females often occurred within 24 h of a recent violent incident when compared with IPH perpetrators perpetrated by males. For both male and female perpetrators, violence against their intimate partner has consistently been linked to adverse and untoward experiences in childhood. For example, some research identified that perpetrators of IPH with a history of violence in the family consistently

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47

had negative attitudes toward women and feminine attributes (Faust, 2000; Lee et al., 2013). Other research has illustrated that male perpetrators who witnessed domestic violence or experienced violence when they were children are significantly more likely to use violence against their intimate partners (Abramsky et al., 2011). With regard to violence in IPH, some researchers often deal with two kinds of violence, such as history of violence in the relationship and other violent incidents in the relationship. In describing the history of violence, most research identified it mainly with the following variables: “offender was first to use or threaten to use physical violence in relationship”, “offender ever or never injured by victim”, “most recent incident was same day or within 24 h of IPH”, and “most recent incident was in the same month of IPH”. To identify the violence of perpetrators in detail, some research also identified other violent incidents in the intimate relationship with the following variables: “offender ever throw anything at victim”, “offender ever pushed, grabbed or shoved victim”, “offender ever slap the victim”, “offender ever hit victim with an object that could injure”, “offender ever beat the victim up”, “offender ever choke the victim”, “offender ever threatened/used a knife on victim”, “offender ever injure victim with a knife” and “offender ever threatened/used a gun on victim” (Wilson, 2005). Since the sample of this study has no more detailed information on violent offenders, we cannot describe violence with these variables in detail. Therefore, this study only described the perpetrator’s experience of violence. From the information in Table 3.1, we find that very few IPH perpetrators (5.2%) have experience using violence and that almost all of them have no such experience (96.1%). At this point, the characteristics of Chinese crime are consistent with other research findings, which discussed whether perpetrators in IPH differ from other violent offenders. In this regard, some studies suggest that these perpetrators do not often fit the preconceived profile of a “dangerous killer”. In contrast, they are more “conventional” than perpetrators of violent crimes in general (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Thomas et al., 2011). Therefore, Eliason (2009) identified that IPH perpetrators have almost no violence experience and might suffer from reactions to situational circumstances, such as distress over relationship termination. Similarly, the data in this study showed that IPH perpetrators in China also have few violent experiences. Even though there were not enough variables to describe the violence of IPH perpetrators, the individual cases showed that they were not preconceived as “dangerous killers”.

3.2.1.4

Criminal Record

In recent years, some research has examined risk factors for IPH to identify individuals who may be at a greater risk of IPH perpetration or victimization (Messing et al., 2018; Spencer & Stith, 2018). One of the most recognized predictors of IPH is a previous criminal history of the perpetrators. Therefore, criminal records or criminal history were used as risk factors for IPH in previous research to make risk assessments (Angela et al., 2011; Bridger et al., 2017; Spencer & Stith, 2018), but most

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research has used it to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012, Caman et al., 2016a, b). The purpose of this research is not to provide a risk assessment instrument but to identify the characteristics of the offender with the criminal record. Previous research in the U.S. (Frye et al., 2005; Moracco et al., 1998), Canada (Dawson & Gartner, 1998; Hilton et al., 2008) and some European countries (Grann & Wedin, 2002) have identified that a criminal record, irrespective of offense type, is correlated with IPH. In this regard, Caman (2017) found that the homicdie incident was the first conviction for approximately half of male IPH perpetrators. On the other hand, the analysis of the prior convictions in this research revealed that other IPH perpetrators had been convicted repeatedly. Similarly, by analyzing the cases in murder in Britain, it was revealed that a quarter of them were committed by men without criminogenic characteristics or problematic histories (Dobash et al., 2009). Although IPH and non-IPH perpetrators for male perpetrators differ from each other in many ways, some research has identified that they do not differ with regard to prior convictions of violent offenses (Caman, 2017). In this regard, Dobash et al. (2004) explained that this difference is mainly manifested in the stability of intimate relationships and violence to their previous women partners, and these male perpetrators tend to “specialize” in violence against women, particularly their intimate partners. In view of the relationship between criminal records and IPH perpetrators, prior criminal careers and earlier violent crimes of offenders were analyzed by the following seven variables: criminal records (earlier prison sentences; any offence), criminal court convictions during the last 5 years, served time in prison, earlier assault/homicide convictions, earlier homicide convictions (excluding attempted homicides), earlier drunken driving convictions and earlier theft/burglary convictions. With these variables, Kivivuori and Lehti (2012) found that male killers of unrelated males display the highest prior criminality, male killers of male relatives are ranked second, and both male and female IPH perpetrators come close behind the latter group. The relationship between prior crime and male IPH perpetrators reflected the fact that IPH perpetrators were at least involved in prior crime, and the findings can support the general violence perspective (Johnson et al., 2008; Moffitt et al., 2000). However, IPHs committed by females more often involved prior victim violence toward the offender than IPHs committed by men (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Caman et al., 2016a, b). These findings are consistent with the gender perspective and the notion that IPHs perpetrated by females are related to defensive reactions to the violent behavior of male victims, which was predicted by the gender power framework (Browne et al., 2000; Swatt & He, 2006; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2016 2019). On the contrary, the studies by Block and Christakos (1995) and Weizmann-Henelius et al. (2012) demonstrated that female perpetrators of IPH were less likely to have criminal records than male perpetrators. The main reason for this difference is that the scope of the criminal record is different. For example, in contrast to the study by WeizmannHeielius et al. (2012), the study by Caman et al. (2016a, b) analyzed all previous convictions and not only convictions restricted to property offenses.

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In previous research, the question of whether IPH is committed by average people as opposed to socially disadvantaged people has both theoretical resonance and practical salience. According to the gender perspective, IPH perpetrators are socially and individually less disadvantaged than other homicide offenders. In contrast, the violence perspective predicts that they tend to come from socially disadvantaged groups. In this regard, the previous findings do not fully support these two different viewpoints because the research issues, research purpose and data collection are different (Felson & Lane, 2010; Dobash et al., 2004; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Spencer & Stith, 2018). In China, our findings cannot fully support either of these main theoretical approaches in contemporary Western intimate partner homicide research. In terms of criminal records and experiences of violence use, IPH perpetrators in China are “average people” because perpetrators with criminal records and experiences of violence use are very limited (3.2, 3.9%). With these two variables, the findings in this research support the gender perspective, which believes that intimate partner homicide could be caused by individual or social deviance. Therefore, the gender perspective shows that any deviation-based interpretations were seen to dissociate the offender from the average man, serving the theoretical link between violence, gender and power (Leander, 2006; Gillespie & Reckdenwald, 2017; Pelvin, 2017). Contrary to this perspective, the violence perspective emphasizes the similar causes of all types of violent behavior and stresses the links between intimate partner violence and individual deviance or social disadvantage (Felson & Lane, 2010). According to this perspective, offenders tend to break various types of social norms instead of focusing on a particular type of transgression. In China, most of the IPH perpetrators come from peasant families (97.2%), and most of them are farmers (47.5%) and migrant workers (46.9%). These factors show that they come from the bottom of society and have social disadvantages. With these factors, the findings in this research support the general violence perspective. These theoretical dilemmas are now reflected in practice. According to Swedish research, professionals typically “claimed that violent men are quite ordinary and that practically any man can transgress and use violence” (Edin et al., 2008). In contrast, professionals have found that individual psychological deviance lies at the core of male intimate partner violence and emphasizes the social structural normality of IPH perpetrators (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). Faced with these theoretical and practical controversies, we ensure that any theory has its own limitations when it reveals and explains complex criminal phenomena such as IPH. Therefore, we must conduct a pioneering and in-depth study of this criminal phenomenon from all aspects.

3.2.1.5

Marital Status

In theory, the idea identified that women subjected to intimate partner homicide should be encouraged to separate and divorce from their partners with the aim of avoiding lethal violence (Broadhurst et al., 2018; Wooldredge & Thistlethwaute, 2006). However, this idea has not received uniform support in previous research (Wilkinson & Hamerschlag, 2005; Brownridge et al., 2008; Vatnar and Bjorkly 2012).

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Accordingly, few studies have examined the impact of marital status on IPH. In terms of marital status, some studies have focused on the impact of different marital separations, such as prior separation or post separation, on the IPV or IPH (Brondrige, 2006; Rhatigan et al., 2005). With the identification of intimate femicide in different marital status groups, Brondrige (2006) found that separated women are at the highest risk of intimate femicide. However, other findings demonstrated that divorced women are less likely to be murdered by their former partners than married women are to be murdered by their husbands (Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Szalewski et al., 2019). In general, most research has shown that divorced women have a much higher likelihood of being murdered by their intimate partner than married women. However, for women with abusive experience from their partners, some research has demonstrated that married women have a much greater possibility of being murdered by their partners than divorced women (Maneta et al., 2013; Pico-Alfonso et al., 2008). In this regard, some research made clear that some women may be reluctant to leave their abusive husbands because of social pressures such as religious beliefs prohibiting divorce (Mize et al., 2009; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2016, 2019). Moreover, relative to marriages, some research has demonstrated that nonmarital cohabiting and dating intimate relationships are much more likely to be terminated and therefore less stable. A lack of stability in marital relationships can lead to an increase in hostility within the couple and finally to IPH (Shackelford, 2001a, b; Szalewski et al., 2019). With this, some research has shown that marital status predicts homicide risk for intimate partners (Dawson & Gartner, 1998; Wilson & Daly, 1993a, b; Wilson et al., 1995; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). Accordingly, some research has identified that men who kill their cohabiting partners are nine times more likely than men who kill their legally married partners (Shackelford, 2001a, b). Therefore, marital status is an important predictor of IPH. With regard to marriage status, Durkheim’s social integration theory holds that marriage should have protective benefits with respect to homicide victimization. However, some corresponding research has suggested that single women are no worse than married women because any advantageous marriage might otherwise have for women is offset by the IPH risk they face from their spouses (Kposawa & Singh, 1994; Breault & Koposowa, 1997; Reckdenwald et al., 2018). In line with this, some research has identified that married women have a 90% greater chance of being homicide victims than married men (Kposawa & Singh, 1994). In comparison with married women, single women may have a lower possibility of engaging in risky behavior that makes them killed by men. In addition, this finding can be shown from the facts of widowed. Some research has shown that widowed women, in a comparison between them and married women, are less likely to be victims of IPH because most of them have almost no significant attachments with the opposite sex (Breault & Kposowa, 1997; Kposowa & Breault, 2005). For divorced women, some research found that they may have urgency to find a mate and that this unwittingly increases their risk of being victimized by their intimate partners. Therefore, in comparison with single and married women, divorced women face much higher homicide risks. Therefore, marital status has an impact on IPH victimization (Breault & Kposowa, 1997; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019).

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With the findings in previous research, we identify that marital status has a significant impact on IPH, but these findings are mainly concentrated in the limited early literature, and few people today, especially in Western countries, pay much attention to marital status in IPH research. According to my understanding, this is more related to the trend of the decreasing crude marriage rate in the world. For example, the marriage rate in the EU declined from 7.8 per 1 000 persons in 1965 to 4.4 in 2016. At the same time, the crude divorce rate has more than doubled, increasing from 0.8 per 1 000 persons in 1965 to 1.9 in 2016 (Eurostat, 2019). According to the OECD report (2019), the average marriage rate is 4.8, even though the marriage rates differ considerably across OECD countries. With the declining rate of marriage, some research has found that it plays a leading role in much of the decrease in IPH (Rosenfeld, 1997). According to the Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Civil Administration in 2018, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China showed that the marriage rate dropped from 9.1 in 2009 to 7.2 in 2018 (MCA, 2019). Compared with the crude marriage rate in other countries, this rate in China is relatively high, although this rate in China is gradually decreasing as other countries. In addition, with the soaring development of urbanization and modernization, the traditional concept of marriage and family structure have also undergone great changes, and these are the main background of the IPH, which has become more serious year by year in China in recent years. Correspondingly, the variable marital status, especially together with other variables, is important to demonstrate the characteristics of perpetrators and victims of IPH in China. Based on this fact, this research considered marital status as a variable in identifying the characteristics of IPH perpetrators in China. Depending on whether the perpetrator has marital experience, we divide marital status into three different cases, such as “unmarried”, “married” and “divorced”. Compared with “married” and “divorced”, “unmarried” means here that the perpetrator has no marital experience when he or she committed IPH. As shown in Table 3.1, more than half of perpetrators’ marital status was “married” (57.2%). This means that more than half of the IPH perpetrators were married when they committed IPH in China. For marital status of divorced, the information in Table 3.1 shows that very limited perpetrators were divorced from their marital partners (5.5%). Comparatively speaking, perpetrators with “unmarried” marital status were relatively more common but unexpected (37.3%). According to the general understanding, IPH perpetrators were almost the person with marriage. However, the current research identifies that more than onethird of IPH perpetrators were people without marriage experience. In essence, this comes from the great changes of marriage and family concept in current China. Despite this, IPH perpetrators in marriage still have complete dominance in perpetrators with two other marital statuses. Together with the “divorced”, the IPH perpetrator with marriage experience in China is 62.7%. Together with other variables, such as “satisfaction with the marriage” and “kinds of intimate relationships”, we can identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators much clearer. Although marital status no longer attracts much more attention in the current literature, marital status has no doubt a significant impact on IPH in China. Especially with other variables, we can understand IPH in China much more and give much

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reasonable explanations for this lethal interpersonal violence because marital status and other corresponding variables provide some significant background for this lethal violence in China. Therefore, it is not so much that the main aim here is to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators with marital status as to use marital status to illustrate the deep-rooted reasons for IPH together with other variables in the latter part of this research.

3.2.1.6

Satisfaction for the Marriage

High or low levels of marital satisfaction, as risk factors associated with IPH, have been frequently examined in previous research (Saunders, 1995; Farooque et al., 2005; Lawrence & Bradbury, 2007; Mackay, 2018). Despite some inconsistencies (Murphy et al., 1993; Sugarman, 1996), most previous research has demonstrated the relationship between IPH victimization and decreased marital satisfaction. Whether low marital satisfaction leads to IPH was not found in previous studies. Although most previous research has demonstrated that marital satisfaction has a significant association with IPH, the significance of the correlation between male and female perpetrators was different. In addition, the research remains unclear, which contributes to the difference in these findings. To show the significant link between marital satisfaction and IPH, some research has used measures of marital discord (Aldarondo & Sugarman, 1996; Feldbau-Kohn et al., 1998), while other research has used measures of marital satisfaction (Cano & Vivian, 2003; Sagrestano et al., 1999). The problem of whether marital satisfaction or marital discord is highly correlated with IPH is still unclear. With the aim of clarifying this, some previous research has demonstrated the level of marital satisfaction in terms of the gender of the IPH perpetrator and victim, the individual role in violence and power imbalance (Twenge et al., 2003; Stith et al., 2008; Henning & Connor-Smith, 2011). With regard to the gender of perpetrators in IPH, some research has examined the relationship between marital satisfaction and IPH for both male and female offenders (Byrne & Arias, 1997; Feldman & Ridley, 2000; Sagrestano et al., 1999; Yucel & Koydemir, 2015). Stith et al. (2008) found that there is a stronger relationship between marital satisfaction and IPV for male perpetrators than for female perpetrators. In addition, some previous research has shown the relationship between marital satisfaction and IPH for male and female victims (Pereira, 2016; Vivian & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 1994; Vivian & Malone, 1997). With meta-analysis, some research found that the relationship between marital satisfaction and IPH for female victims is stronger than that for male victims. Finally, some research has examined the association between marital satisfaction and IPH and tried to differentiate the individual’s role in violence (Cano & Vivian, 2003; Howell et al., 2018). Thus, even though previous research has demonstrated that marital satisfaction has a significant impact on IPH, much more research has identified the extent of the association between marital satisfaction and IPH with meta-analysis to better understand this lethal IPV.

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In terms of marital satisfaction, previous research scarcely dealt with it as a factor describing the characteristics of IPH perpetrators rather than as a risk factor in identifying IPH risk factors. The present research considers marital satisfaction in showing the characteristics of perpetrators in IPH mainly because marital satisfaction, together with marital status, can better describe the characteristics of perpetrators. Another reason is limited with the main aim of this research, which mainly identifies the characteristics of IPH and gives the social and cultural background of IPH in China instead of identifying and estimating the risk factors. Therefore, marital satisfaction is considered in demonstrating the characteristics of IPH perpetrators. With regard to this variable, we pay no attention to how much the perpetrators satisfy their marriage but only ponder whether they satisfy their marriage or not. As shown in Table 3.1, almost all the IPH perpetrators were not satisfied with their marriage (99.5%), and only a very small part of them felt satisfied with it (0.5%). In general, marital satisfaction refers to the attitude and opinion of the person toward his or her spouse and marriage. In addition, it is regarded as a key factor affecting the quality and outcome of marriage (Johnson et al., 2005; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Malouff et al., 2010). Correspondingly, Chapman and Guven (2016) showed that the impact of marriage on subjective well-being is correlated with marriage satisfaction. According to their findings, people with poor marital satisfaction are less happy than people who have not married, while people with higher marital satisfaction in general have higher happiness. In terms of marital satisfaction, some research identified it from the following aspects: to confess with each other, to share with each other, to enjoy leisure time together, to make love harmoniously, to take action closely, to have same hobby, to feel security and to believe in each other. With these 8 aspects, research has shown that married couples after the 1980s have generally achieved better marital happiness and satisfaction in China (Zhenhua & Xizhe, 2019). Conversely, the latest research conducted by the Chinese professional marriage website Zhenai demonstrated that more than 90% of the interviewees were not satisfied with their marriage (Zhenai, 2019). In this research, marital satisfaction was surveyed according to different regions, ages, incomes and education levels among a group of married people who were chosen at random from different cities in China. They found that people were “not satisfied with marriage and eager to change the current situation” (72.15%), “very dissatisfied with marriage and urgent to change the current situation” (18.94%), “satisfied with marriage and enjoy the current situation” (4.92%) and “very satisfied with marriage and very enjoy the current situation” (3.98%). Regarding marriage satisfaction, the findings of most current research have shown that the rate of marital satisfaction among married Chinese has continued to decrease in recent years (Fei et al., 2014; Ting und Xuezheng, 2016). This trend can also be explained by the continued high divorce rate in China in recent years (Hongmei & Xiangmei, 2008; Wuyezi & Zhaoxiang, 2016; Yutong, 2018). In the above description and analysis, the characteristics of IPH perpetrators are demonstrated by comparison with previous research from the following aspects: gender, profession, family background, experience using violence, criminal records, marital status and marital satisfaction. Although these limited variables can meet

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the demands to demonstrate the characteristics of Chinese IPH perpetrators in this research, there is still more room for effort in future research. These efforts are mainly made from the following aspects. First, we had better use more variables to determine the characteristics of IPH perpetrators, such as age, education and income, and violence experience. Together with these variables, we can better identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators in China. Second, for the existing variables, we can understand the characteristics of IPH perpetrators in much more detail if we have much more information. For example, for marital satisfaction, if we have information on the difference between male and female perpetrators in marital satisfaction, then we can better understand the marital satisfaction of IPH perpetrators in China.

3.2.2 Characteristics of Victim of IPH in China Developing strategies to prevent IPH remains a pressing policy challenge worldwide and demands a detailed understanding of the wide range of individual, social, economic, cultural and environmental factors that can contribute to IPH (Heise & Kotsadam, 2015). However, most research to date focuses heavily on perpetrators of IPH rather than victims, especially on their characteristics, which creates gaps in a better understanding of IPH. Although many studies have identified the significance of more comprehensive research on victims in IPH (Gnisci & Pace, 2016), most of them either briefly identified a certain percentage of female victims (Caman, 2017; Caman et al., 2017; Salari & Sillito, 2016) or presented only high-level epidemiological information on victimization (Corradi & Stockl, 2014; Spencer & Stith, 2018; Holder, 2019). Mcphedran et al. (2018) identified the Reason is that IPH victims cannot directly provide information on their own experiences and circumstances. With the aim of deeply understanding IPH victimization, previous research either extrapolated the victimization in IPH from the findings on nonlethal IPV (Capaldi et al., 2012; Petersson et al., 2018) or simply gave a statistical description of victimization in IPH (Campbell et al., 2009; Smith et al., 2014). Although such research has demonstrated some of the victimization or the characteristics of victims in IPH, there is an evident difference between nonlethal IPV and IPH in terms of the characteristics of victims (Wilson et al., 1995; McFarlane et al., 1999; Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Dobash et al., 2007; Loinaza et al., 2018). In addition, simple statistical description analysis cannot meet the requirements for a deep understanding of victimization in IPH. In fact, regarding female IPH victims, according to the latest report from UNODC (2019), a total of 87,000 women were intentionally killed in 2017, and more than one-third of them (30,000) were killed by their current or former intimate partner. In addition, the annual number of female deaths worldwide resulting from intimate partner or family-related homicide seems to be increasing. Compared with male victims, even though they are the principal victims of homicide globally, the findings show that women continue to bear the heaviest burden of lethal victimization as a

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result of IPH (UNODC, 2019). Therefore, the value of identifying IPH victimization, especially the characteristics of victims in IPH, is clear, and the challenge to better understand the victim is to obtain comprehensive, in-depth information on victims in IPH. In this regard, McPhedran et al. (2018) suggested gaining improved victim-focused knowledge on IPH and taking effective policies and practices to assess risk and effectively support women is critical to gain the goal of reducing IPH victimization. Although previous research, especially the dominant methodological approaches to studying IPH victimization, contains a range of challenges and limitations, an indepth study on victimization is critical to better understand IPH. In China, limitations and changes are also faced in the study of victimization in IPH. Similar to the fact in other countries, it is also difficult to obtain comprehensive and in-depth information on victimization in China. The main reason for this is that many statistical data in China are not accessible to researchers as state secrets, and most of the data that can be obtained are deleted based on the consideration of citizen privacy protection (Feifei et al., 2017; Yingmao, 2018). As a result, this makes it difficult to take effective policies and practices to assess risk and effectively support women in the recent time with the aim of reducing IPH victimization. Despite such limitations and realities, demonstrating the characteristics of IPH victims is the right direction in IPH studies. Therefore, this research also determines the characteristics with basic information on victims in IPH with limited information. However, it should still be explained that the purpose of this research is not to identify the characteristics of perpetrators and victims in IPH but to explain the significance of intimate relationships between intimate partners in understanding IPH in China. In this case, demonstrating the characteristics of IPH victims with limited variables has limited influence on the quality of this research. As in the case of demonstrating characteristics of IPH perpetrator, roughly the same variables were used as shown in Table 3.2 to identify the characteristics of victims in IPH, such as “gender”, “profession”, “family background”, “experience using violence”, “experience to be maltreated” and “satisfaction for marriage”. For these variables, before the final decision, we prepared more than twenty variables used in the previous research to demonstrate the characteristics of victims in IPH, but some of them were either deleted from the judgments with the aim of protecting the privacy of victims, or some of them could not be used as variables in this research because of their great missing value. Finally, this research chose these 7 variables to demonstrate the characteristics of victims in IPH.

3.2.2.1

Gender of Victim

The global study on homicide demonstrates that 95% of the perpetrators and 80% of the victims of homicide are male. On the other hand, two-thirds of victims are female in IPH (UNODC, 2013). The same fact can also be found in China. As shown in Table 3.2, it can be demonstrated that female victims are nearly five times as many as male victims in IPH in China (male 17.5%; female 82.5%). At the same time,

56 Table 3.2 Victim Characteristics of IPH

3 Perpetrator and Victim of IPH Gender

Male 171(17.5)

808(82.5)

Occupation

Unemployed

Peasant

Student

27(2.8)

453(46.3)

12(1.2)

Migrant workers

White-collar

Individual proprietor

Marital status

479(48.9)

0(0)

8(0.8)

Unmarried

Married

Divorced

334(34.1)

583(59.6)

62(6.3)

Satisfaction for Satisficed marriage Family background Experience using violence

Female

Not satisficed

4(0.7)

579(99.3)

Peasant

Worker

Intellectual

959(98)

20(2)

0(0)

Have

No

51(5.2)

928(94.8)

even though females account for a smaller share of total homicide than males, lethal violence against women accounts for approximately 20% of the estimated annual homicide deaths worldwide (UNODC, 2014). These findings identified in a consistent manner that even though men are the principal victims of homicide globally, women continue to bear the heaviest burden of victimization as a result of gender inequality (UNODC, 2019). Therefore, the dramatic overrepresentation of female IPH victims makes this form of violence an unquestionably gender crime (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2013; Mcphedran et al., 2018; Pence & Paymar, 1993). However, because the majority of victims of IPHs are female, the corresponding theories focused on male-perpetrated IPH. As a result, it is critical to take into account the gender inequality of victims in IPH studies to advance scientific knowledge and to identify possible prevention and intervention actions. In terms of lethal victimization as a result of gender inequality, the theoretical explanation from the feminist perspective holds that women’s dependence on their male partners increases with economic and social disparities and marginalization. According to this perspective, men’s lethal partner violence is posited as an extended control tactic and motivated by fear of separation, jealousy, stress and frustration (Sebire, 2013). Women’s inequality in economic and political avenues of exit increases their exposure to lethal violence, and as a result, they perpetrate homicide because the only resort and exit strategy is available. Therefore, It is believed that

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gender equality best addresses the homicide rate associated with women’s subordination in unequal social systems. In such a gender-unequal system, women’s disadvantage reinforces their traditional role in the family and public spheres. Accordingly, theoretical research suggests that IPH as gender-specific crime should be better explained by the low degree of gender equality (Hamel, 2018; Jensen, 2001). However, those who oppose this point believe that enhancing women’s position and providing opportunities to leave their violent relationship will increase male partners’ fear that their partner will leave them and that they will lose the control of their relationship, which will increase the level of stress and ultimately lead to an increase in IPH events by both men and women (Dugan et al., 2003; Vieraitis et al., 2007; Reckdenwald & Parker, 2010; Porter & Purse, 2010; Brison, 2019). In fact, the causes of IPH are extremely complicated and can be by no means with women’s disadvantage in gender explained clearly. As a criminal phenomenon, IPH has deep social and cultural reasons, and it is not possible to give a convincing explanation only with some identified aspects. To date, various theories have only made their own contributions to the in-depth understanding of this lethal violence between intimate partners in some respects. In addition, research suggests that society increasingly accepts male violence when females transgress defined rules and expectations. According to the findings by Waltermaurer (2012), many females, especially noneducated rural females, supported marital punishment when women had burnt food, neglected children or were unfaithful. For male perpetrators, most justify and rationalize their actions because of loss of control, feelings of betrayal and a pervasive sense of ownership over their spouse. In addition to the attitude of the individual, the condoning of domestic violence in society has also to some extent been devoted to IPH. For this, survey data showed that social acceptance of such violence can also be found among law enforcement agencies. The survey data conducted by Canadian police officers proved that there lays the consensus of attitudes in victim blaming (Loue, 2001). Gender inequality studies emphasize the importance of economic and social mobility as a potential factor in IPH, although its effects have not been definitively identified in some studies. Although many studies on gender inequality have proven that male perpetrators have a desire to control their spouse, lethal violence from women is essential associated with inequality in society and the role of self-defense. The perspective of gender inequality has provided a platform for understanding domestic abuse and female victimization in IPH. However, the perspective cannot sufficiently test men’s use of lethal domestic violence as the result of social structures. In fact, men’s abusive behavior against their intimate partners may not be a direct result of such structures but of nonsocial or institutionalized dynamics (Dixon & Graham-Kevan, 2011). With women comprising a disproportionately higher percentage of IPH victims than men, more studies have conducted in-depth discussion on gender differences, especially among diverse racial and ethnic groups (Azziz-Baumgartner et al., 2011; Cho, 2012; Lilly & Graham-Bermann, 2009). Azziz-Baumgartner and colleagues (2011) identified in their research that Black and Hispanic women were at higher risk of being victimized by IPH than women from other racial or ethnic groups.

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Similarly, Wu (2009) found differences in IPHs between Asians and non-Asians. However, it is very rare for research to examine gender differences in IPH across ethnic subgroups. In this regard, Sabri et al. (2016) explored gender subgroup differences in the characteristics of Asian IPHs. Consistent with numerous studies in different racial or ethnic populations, this research suggested that Asian women were at greater risk for IPH victimization than men. Meanwhile, gender differences were found in the ages of victims, types of relationships between partners and methods of killing. In contrast, some studies examined gender differences in the characteristics of IPHs after comparing them with U.S.-born victims with foreign-born victims. In 2018, Sabri and colleagues found that foreign-born women victims were much more prevalent than U.S. -born women victims in the U. S. A. In addition, foreign-born women victims were more likely than U. S. -born women to be young, married and killed by a young partner who stabbed, strangled or suffocated them. In terms of victim gender, similar to the findings in previous research, the results of this study demonstrate that women are far more likely than men to be victimized by IPH in China. Although there are many different reasons for female victims of IPH, we found that women with lower socioeconomic status have a much greater chance of being victims of IPH in the context of China today. In fact, the majority of findings have shown that low-income families are significantly more likely to have to contend with domestic violence and that poverty increases the risk of violence for women (Browne et al., 1997; Pandey et al., 2009; Slabbert, 2016). In such families, the pressure of men is increased because of poverty, so men cannot meet the expectation of traditional culture for male roles, which eventually leads to violence by men against their partners. In China, the traditional role of men is to support the family. If a man has a low income, he will believe that he has no ability to be husband and the pillar of a family. Over time, he will become increasingly hopeless in life. From the profession of the perpetrator and victim, we find that peasants and migrant workers are decidedly in the majority. In addition, almost all of them come from peasant families. In China today, most low-income people take this profession and come from this kind of family. Although the reason for female victims of IPH is very complicated, the poverty of victims and perpetrators is a risk factor that cannot be ignored in China today. In addition, with this gender gap in victims of IPHs, some research has demonstrated the gender characteristics of victims from subethnic groups and accordingly represented an important population for prevention efforts. Although the present study can only determine that Chinese IPH is a gender-specific crime, as in most studies, a more in-depth study of the gender characteristics of victims is the direction of the corresponding research in the future.

3.2.2.2

Occupation of Victim

From an individual perspective, the more disadvantaged the socioeconomic position is, the more frequently women and men are victims of violence (Krug et al., 2002; Wilkinson, 2004). Therefore, there is an association between socioeconomic position

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and IPH considering the perspectives of men and women as victims and perpetrators and as both (Costa et al., 2016). In general, the profession, together with education and unemployment duration, are important socioeconomic indicators. In previous research, the relation between socioeconomic indicators and IPH has been essentially studied considering female victims (Khalifeh et al., 2013; Zorrilla et al., 2010). In these studies, according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations, occupation was classified and categorized into three groups: upper white collar (executive civil servants, industrial directors and executives, professionals and scientists and middle management and technicians), lower white collars (administrative and related workers and service and sales workers) and blue collar (farmers, skilled agricultural, fisheries workers, skilled workers, craftsmen and similar, machine operators and assembly workers and unskilled workers). The findings in these studies showed that low occupation was significantly associated with victimization in IPH or IPV (van der Meer, 2014; Costar et al., 2016). Therefore, discussing occupation can lead to a better understanding of victims in IPH. Similar to the offender’s occupation, this study also discusses the victim’s occupation from the following kinds of different professions: unemployed, peasant, student, migrant worker, white-collar and individual proprietor. As shown in Table 3.2, almost all of the victims were peasants (46.3) and migrant workers (48.9), and they accounted for 95% of the victims. In contrast, the ratio of other professions, such as students (1.2), unemployed (2.8), individual proprietors (0.8), and whitecollar (0), is very low. Similar to the occupation of the perpetrator, almost all the victims also come from these two kinds of occupations. In fact, for either perpetrator or victim, the proportion of other occupations is very low, for example, the whitecollar and individual proprietor. In addition, as shown in Table 3.2, in terms of family background, almost all the victims in IPH come from peasants (98%). However, victims from other family backgrounds are extremely rare (worker: 2%; intellectual: 0%). In China, the occupation of peasant and migrant workers and such a family background are regarded as low socioeconomic status. Although China has made great achievements in economic development in recent years and the people are more satisfied with the achievements, economic development has also expanded the differences in income and status of social members, especially for peasant and migrant workers. In the literature, socioeconomic status is generally discussed with indices, such as education and income, which are key indicators for sociologists to compare the socioeconomic status of different groups of people (Duncan, 1961; Kylie et al., 2005; Tammaru et al., 2020). However, the subsequent research found that the explanatory power of these indices is not so strong, and the researchers questioned why not directly use education and income to replace the social and economic index to analyze the related issues if there is a strong causal relationship between them (Haller & Bills, 1979; Susan, 2005)? Therefore, some researchers have added the social status self-evaluation indicator to their research (Evans & Jonathan, 2004; Ostrove et al., 2000; Xiaoguang & Yunsong, 2015). In China, the disparity between the socioeconomic status of peasants and migrant workers and their social contributions is a serious social problem (Feng, 2017; Jingyi & Guangchun, 2010; Peilin & Wei, 2007). They are always engaged in the

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most dirty and tiring work, but their social and economic status is always at the bottom of China. In this regard, previous studies have shown that their low socioeconomic status is related not only to discrimination in the labor market but also to their own low education level (Yijie & Nongfei, 2016). In the last ten years, with the rapid growth of China’s economy and the continuous shortage of labor supply, the absolute income level of peasants and migrant workers has risen significantly. At the same time, due to the reform of the household registration system and the education system, the education structure of peasants and migrant workers has also been improved to a certain extent. However, their socioeconomic status has not risen with it. This is mainly reflected in the following aspects: their relative income level has not improved but has continued to decline. In addition, their self-evaluation continues to decline, which is related to the continuous increase in their relative deprivation of life experience (Feng, 2017). Thus, even though China has made great achievements as a whole in economic development, the social and economic status of farmers and migrant workers has not improved, and they have always been at the bottom of society. In IPH, our findings indicate that both perpetrators and victims are mainly farmers and migrant workers, who are regarded as people with lower socioeconomic status. Therefore, when making and implementing policies for such lethal domestic violence, the government should focus on improving the social and economic status of migrant workers. The government’s current efforts to change the household registration of peasants and migrant workers will not improve their socioeconomic status but may form a social bottom layer with migrant workers and peasant as the main body in the process of urbanization in China.

3.2.2.3

Marital Status

A large body of previous research has identified that marital status is a wellestablished correlate of criminal victimization (Brownridge et al., 2008; Siddique, 2016; Wilkinson & Hamerschlag, 2005). In a review of extant research, most studies identified that separated women possessed an elevated risk for both lethal and nonlethal violence from their intimate partner (Brownridge, 2006; Teachman, 2008). However, divorced women are less likely to be murdered by their former intimate partners than married women are to be murdered by their husbands (Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Wilkinson & Hamerschlag, 2005). Therefore, intimate relationship status was used to predict homicide risk for intimate partners (Wilson & Daly, 1993a, b; Wilson et al., 1995; Dobash et al., 2007). Generally, men and women in cohabiting, nonmarital relationships are at greater risk of being killed by their partners than are spouses (Mize et al., 2009). Within the scope of criminology and victimology, these differences in risk due to the different marital statuses have often been explained with lifestyle-exposure theory and routine activity theory (Siddique, 2016). These two theories have had a significant influence on the study of criminal victimization since their introduction in the 1970s (Cohen & Felson, 1979; Hindelang et al., 1978). A basic premise

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61

of these two approaches is that victimization risk is determined by the extent to which daily activities bring one into contact with motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardians (Bunch et al., 2015). Lifestyle–exposure theory argues that broader lifestyle behaviors increase victimization risk through exposure to motivated offenders in situations ripe for crime (Hindelang et al., 1978). Therefore, demographic characteristics, such as marital status and age, are associated with structural constraints and behavioral expectations that shape personal lifestyles and daily activities (Emerson & Roulstone, 2014; Reyns & Scherer, 2019; Scherer et al., 2016). In addition, a lifestyle–routine activity approach to explaining criminal victimization considers both mundane daily routines and broader lifestyle choices as sources of criminal opportunities (Miethe & Meier, 1990). For example, for married middleaged women, their age and marital status may cause structural constraints, such as family responsibility or behavior expectations, such as expectations to take much more time with their families at home (Siddique, 2016). In contrast, young unmarried women have few such constraints and behavioral expectations, so they are more willing to spend leisure time with themselves or with friends. According to this perspective, different ages and marital statuses may result in variations in victimization rates among women with different demographic characteristics. Compared with lifestyle-exposure theory, routine activity theory, developed by Cohen and Felson (1979), emphasizes the circumstances in which a crime takes place rather than on victim characteristics alone, even though it shares much in common with lifestyle-exposure theory (Siddique, 2016). According to this theory, the occurrence of a crime must have three elements, namely, motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians against a violation (Bunch et al., 2015). The theory was originally used to explain changes in U.S. property crime rates across time and later to explain individual-level victimization risk (Fisher et al., 1998; Mustaine & Tewksbury, 1998). Applied on the individual level, this theory contends that an individual’s daily activities affect his or her opportunity to be victimized. With regard to sexual victimization, the theory holds that the motivated offender may choose to assault the women who are alone even though he may be equally motivated to assault any women within access. For the offender, the offender believes that the woman is less likely to resist and that she is the more suitable to be an attack target. The comprehensive theoretical approach, which combines lifestyle-exposure theory and routine activity theory, proposes that demographic characteristics, such as age, profession and marital status, provide person-specific structural constraints and behavioral expectations that shape personal lifestyles and daily activities, and in turn, they moderate exposure to risky situations by regulating the convergence of suitable targets with motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardianship (Siddique, 2016). In fact, these two theories were applied in criminology studies of microlevel predictors of sexual victimization. For the victim of IPH, lifestyle-exposure theories predict that single people have higher rates of victimization due to their routine activities. The findings identify that people who have never been married are more likely than married people to suffer victimization in IPH (Catalano, 2006). In addition, single people and married people have different lifestyles. For example, single individuals go out socially more frequently than married individuals, and thus, the

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lifestyles of never married individuals may result in greater exposure to risky environments. Lifestyle-routine activity theory predicts that the effect of demographic characteristics on victimization risk is mediated by routine activities. It explains both mundane daily routines and broader lifestyle choices as sources of criminal opportunities. Generally, empirical records support these hypotheses (McNeeley, 2015). In previous studies, marital status, age and the relationship between perpetrators and victims showed a correlation between them and the risk of sexual victimization (Franklin, 2011; Siddique, 2016). In these studies, age and marital status were the stronger predictors of victimization risk for intimate partner assaults in the context of certain types of lifestyles and socialization activities. Younger and unmarried women were much more vulnerable to situations in which their intimate partner used violence to reassert power and control in their relationship; therefore, they were much more suitable targets for victimization. Compared with married women, never married, separated and divorced women were more likely to be the victim of IPH than married women. Of these women, separated women were the most at risk for intimate partner victimization. These findings do seem to be consistent with the combined theoretical approach (Siddique, 2016). As a strong predictor, the association between marital status and other demographic characteristics across different perpetrator-victim relationships has been identified in many different studies (Bunch et al., 2015; Rand, 2009). However, the relationship between marital status and victimization is often overlooked, although it is well established (Catalano, 2006; Rennison, 2000). For example, some research showed that although the elevated victimization risk for never married people can be explained by routine activities, routine activities did little to explain why those who were previously married are victimized at higher rates than are married people (Bunch et al., 2015). For this, we can identify that other theories may be needed to explain such a high rate of victimization. Therefore, either lifestyle-exposure theory or routine activity theory cannot solely provide reasonable explanations for the correlation between marital status and victimization in IPH. In the current research, marital status is not dealt with as a predictor for victimization but as a description of the characteristics of victims. As shown in Table 3.2, marital status was categorized into unmarried, married and divorced. With regard to the marital status of IPH victims, we find that most of the victims are married (60%) and 34% of the victims are unmarried. Together with the marital status of married and divorced, we find that more than 66% of the victims have marriage experience. Therefore, as a risk factor, victims with marital experience are more likely to be victimized. Compared with victims of other marital statuses, why are victims with marital experience more likely to be victimized in China? Although there are many factors that can explain this phenomenon, very low marital satisfaction is an important factor. As shown in Table 3.2, we find that victims with marital experience have very low marriage satisfaction (1%). For these victims, 99% of them were not satisfied with their previous or current marriage. Why is the rate of dissatisfaction with marriage by victim so high? In this regard, the long-term separation between spouses is of great significance in low satisfaction with marriage. In China today, with its high-speed

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modernization and urbanization, a large number of peasants leave their village and work in cities. In general, for the family, it is mainly the husband who works in the city to support the family. For the wife, most of them stay at their hometown to care for the children and the elderly. In addition, even though the couple can work in the same city, they have no chance to live the normal family life because they cannot afford the high rent in the city. Therefore, the peasant couples remain separated from each other for most of the year. Such long-term separation leads to very low marital satisfaction among peasant couples. In previous studies, most findings have identified that long-term separation is an important risk factor for IPH (Vatnar et al., 2021; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2016, 2019). In China, as shown in Tables 3.1 and 3.2, most of the perpetrators and victims are peasants and migrant workers (perpetrator: 94.4%; victim: 94.4). For these perpetrators and victims, most of the couples remained separated from each other for a long time, and they had no chance to live the normal family live. In addition, with the popularity of the internet and smartphones, most Chinese people have enjoyed the convenience of the Internet. At the same time, data websites and apps have gradually become popular among Chinese people. For migrant workers, their main entertainment is to play smartphones after their work. Because these migrant workers are far from their hometown and family, loneliness may make them much more willing to make friends online. With strong market demands, more companies have developed many online dating apps. Therefore, it is very convenient for migrant workers to find extramarital intimate partners, especially in cities such as the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, where migrant workers are concentrated. In recent years, an increasing number of temporary couples have increasingly appeared among migrant workers in large cities, such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen (Zhang &Yang, 2011; Peng & Jiang, 2014; Xue, 2015). In fact, all these migrant workers have their own marital partner, but it is the long-term separation from their own wife or husband that makes them live together as temporary couples. The temporary couple refers to the couple mode in which both parties are married, and they temporarily form the family-like partner relationship and live together as spouses. In previous research, many more researchers attributed this phenomenon of the temporary couple to individual factors such as loneliness, sexual stress, and physical exhaustion among migrant workers (Liu, 2015; Tao, 2019; Wu, 2014). However, the phenomenon of temporary couples is inseparable from the process of social transformation in China today, especially as the urbanization process accelerates, a large number of migrant workers enter the city, and their living and working space have correspondingly made great changes. Aa the result, this caused great changes in their own marriage and family concepts. Therefore, the temporary couple of migrant workers must be explained from the social background of China today. This phenomenon of temporary couples can be explained in the following three ways. First, before the migrant workers left their hometown and worked in the city, their marriage was generally influenced by the traditional concept of marriage and family, which focused on the responsibility and maternity of the husband and wife, so marriage, love and sex are normally unified together. In rural China, marriage and family are not only the union of men and women but also the obligations of both

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spouses to the family of both parties. Therefore, the traditional concept of marriage and family has played a decisive role in the stability of the marriage and family of migrant workers. When migrant workers enter the city, their living and working space have undergone great changes, and the traditional concept of marriage and family gradually loses their restraint on them. However, the modern marriage concept with the base of legal contracts in modern society has not fully established their binding power. Therefore, migrant workers easily find temporary couples when they feel lonely and helpless in the city. Second, with the aim of reducing the pressure of life at the bottom of society to live in the city and saving the cost of living, migrant workers, both men and women, are eager to combine into temporary couples. For migrant workers, their purpose to work in cities is to increase their economic income and improve their family’s economic conditions. However, due to China’s traditional urban–rural dual structure, migrant workers and urban residents have significantly different incomes and social statuses. Therefore, migrant workers have no way to live in cities such as urban citizens to own similar basic social welfare; for example, their children cannot go to school in cities, and the couple cannot live the normal family life in cities. With this fact, migrant workers face great pressure in their lives in cities. Especially since most migrant workers are engaged in manual labor, their income is relatively low. Therefore, to save the cost of living to the greatest extent, many agricultural workers choose to form temporary couples. Among the temporary couples, their purpose to save living costs is not for the current temporary family but for their children, husband or wife of their original families, so this purpose reduces their moral self-condemnation and guilt. Third, under the demonstration and influence of temporary couples, other migrant workers gradually imitate these temporary couples to find their partners outside the marriage. In general, men among temporary couples are always so-called successful farmers, such as self-employed owners and small business managers. Peasants who work in cities choose these “examples” among these so-called successful migrant workers rather than white-collar in the city because migrant workers have the same social relationship environment and are much more eager to keep contacted and interact with these so-called successful “examples”. For example, migrant workers often discussed with their “examples” on the topic of temporary couples, such as the feelings of temporary couples and the skills to find temporary couples (Cheng, 2014). By observing the daily life of temporary couples around them, the migrant workers gained in-depth knowledge of temporary couples. In addition, through the matchmakers around them, the migrant workers found others to form temporary couples. Therefore, to some extent, it can be said that the phenomenon of temporary couples among migrant workers is the result of their learning and imitation (Xue, 2015). Although with the rapid development of China’s modernization and urbanization, people’s traditional concept of marriage and family has undergone great changes, the traditional concept of marriage and family is still deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and this concept is still deeply connected with individuals’ social and family responsibilities. There are temporary couples in conflict with the traditional concept of marriage

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and family. In reality, once the marital partner of the temporary couple knows that her husband or his wife is living together with another person as a temporary couple, then the wife will usually seek help from her peasants’ family to beat her husband, and the husband will usually use violence directly against the unfaithful wife. This usually caused many domestic violence. Therefore, the phenomenon of temporary couples among migrant workers, which appears in the process of large-scale urbanization population migration, should not only be considered from individual factors but should also be analyzed from the impact of social structure and systems. In fact, this phenomenon is part of some changes that have taken place in the transformation of traditional rural society into industrial society in China. With soaring urbanization and modernization, the gap between the traditional urban and rural structures in China is increasing, which causes more migrant workers to choose to work in cities. However, the traditional urban–rural dual society structure and household registration system made migrant workers face much more serious institutional pressures than economic difficulties in terms of living conditions and social security. On the other hand, restricted by factors such as material conditions, job opportunities and household registration systems, it is difficult for migrant workers to settle down and live the normal family life in cities, which has caused the spatial and psychological distance between migrant workers and their families to increase (Xue, 2015). Accordingly, it can be seen that how to improve the living conditions of migrant workers in cities from the social system is a direction of the Chinese government to maintain family stability and reduce lethal interpersonal violence.

3.2.2.4

Experience of Using Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV), defined as violent or coercive acts perpetrated by one intimate partner against the other, either in an existing or past relationship, is a serious physical and mental health concern worldwide (Ali et al., 2016; Smith et al., 2017). In the United States, approximately 33% of women and 28% of men have experienced one or multiple forms of psychological, physical, and sexual IPV at some point in their life, either as a perpetrator or as a victim (Cameranesi, 2016; Coker et al., 2002). Worldwide data have shown that almost one-third (30%) of all women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner. In some regions, 38% of women have experienced intimate partner violence (WHO, 2013). Compared with male victims of IPV, women are much more likely to sustain more severe and more frequent injury of IPV. In recent years, even though IPV, especially physical aggression in men toward their partners, has decreased over time (Kim et al., 2008), the consequences of IPV can be lifelong and even lethal (Peterman et al., 2015). In fact, IPV is the leading cause of IPH and an important risk factor for suicidal attempts (Krause-Utz et al., 2019). In the literature, IPV victimization and perpetration have identified an association between various types of traumatic childhood experiences and IPV (Cascio et al., 2020). Accordingly, the person who suffered interpersonal traumatic events during childhood is considered a crucial explanatory viable for IPH in adulthood. Many

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studies have underlined the role of childhood physical and sexual abuse or witnessing violence in increasing women’s likelihood of adult IPV (Fritz et al., 2012; Fry et al., 2012). However, the corresponding research has sometimes shown contradictory findings (LoCascio et al., 2018). For example, Renner and Whitney denied that there were associations between childhood abuse and IPV in adults. In addition, Stith and his colleagues (2000) discussed that the direct childhood experience was key in IPV development. Despite such conflict in the findings, most studies have examined the relationship between IPV and childhood abuse or maltreatment, such as psychological or emotional abuse (LoCascio et al., 2018). Regarding whether and to what degree psychological abuse increases the risk of being victims of adult IPV, studies in the literature should remain a need. For this, some research tried to identify which kind of childhood maltreatment is the strongest predictor of IPV. Among different kinds of childhood maltreatment, some studies confirmed that childhood psychological abuse is significantly associated with IPV (Zamir & Lavee, 2014). However, other kinds of childhood maltreatment, such as antipathy, neglect, physical abuse, and witnessing violence, had no significant effects on IPV (LoCascio et al., 2018). In addition, among the different kinds of childhood maltreatment, a growing body of research has identified psychological abuse as a particularly insidious form of childhood abuse with long-term effects (Infurna et al., 2016). However, some studies showed that physical abuse was not significantly associated with IPV in women (LoCascio et al., 2018). In recent years, an increasing number of studies have tried to examine the role of a wide range of childhood maltreatments, such as antipathy, neglect, physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and family and social dysfunctions, such as separation from partners, financial hardship, parental psychiatric disorders, and poor social support, in predicting IPV (Cascio et al., 2020). With the findings, Cascio and his colleagues (2020) demonstrated that only sexual abuse, psychological abuse and poor social support have a significant direct effect on IPV. Although previous research identified that childhood maltreatment increased the risk for IPV, the underlying psychological mechanisms of the relationship have not yet been entirely understood with the aim of investigating the effect of childhood maltreatment severity on IPV perpetration and victimization. Therefore, some studies have tried to illustrate the role of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in understanding the relationship between childhood maltreatment and IPV, differentiating between perpetration and victimization in IPH (Krause-Utz et al., 2019). In the literature, the features of BDP, such as affective instability, disturbed sense of self, unstable identity, interpersonal disturbances, and self-harming impulsivity, are thought to develop under the influence of childhood maltreatment and remain associated with IPV (Crowell et al., 2009; Moore et al., 2018). In line with previous studies (Afifi et al., 2017; McMahon et al., 2015; Widom et al., 2014), Krause-Utz and his colleagues illustrated that a history of childhood maltreatment, especially emotional and physical maltreatment, increased the likelihood of perpetrating and victimizing IPH. Moreover, this study identified that BP features played a significant role in the relationship between childhood maltreatment severity and IPV. In fact, findings in some studies have demonstrated that BPD symptoms are an important risk factor

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for IPV (Armenti & Babcock, 2018). According to some findings, the presence of BPD features can put individuals at higher risk of being perpetrators and victims (McMahon et al., 2015). In addition, individuals with a higher level of BP features may be more likely to experience more severe childhood abuse and suffer more traumatic re-experiencing (Baker & Festinger, 2011). Together with BPD features, other studies have shown that other personality characteristics or symptoms, such as antisocial personality features and substance abuse, play a role in the link between BPD and IPV (Jackson et al., 2015). Compared with the previous in-depth study of IPV from all aspects, the corresponding studies in China are too simple. In this study, the experience of using violence among perpetrators and victims is only discussed. However, the relationship between IPV and childhood maltreatment and other interpersonal characteristics was not addressed in this study because not every sample contained childhood maltreatment or other interpersonal characteristics. In such a deep study on the influence of childhood maltreatment on IPV, most of the samples come from either cross-sectional surveys or participant interviews, and the researchers can obtain much more information according to their research aims. However, the sample in this study comes from criminal judgments that mainly deal with crime information, as well as some personal information that affects the criminal responsibility of the perpetrator, such as mental disorders. In these samples, the information relating to violence is limited only to the experiences of perpetrators or victims in IPH, but childhood maltreatment or another interpersonal characteristic, such as childhood abuse or posttraumatic stress, is very scarce. From the samples, the present study has no way to conduct the same in-depth study on the significance of childhood maltreatment in IPV. However, the previous study has provided different perspectives for the study in the future. For this reason, the present study cannot address the correlation between childhood maltreatment and IPV but discusses the experience of using violence from perpetrators and victims. Since the focus of this part is to reveal the characteristics of the perpetrator and the victim, the lack of in-depth study on the significance of childhood maltreatment in IPV does not affect the purpose of this study. As shown in Table, the vast majority of victims had no experience using violence (95%) in IPH. For the victims who have experience using violence, the ratio is only 5%. In this study, violence includes physical violence, sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression by a current or former intimate partner. Before the occurrence of IPH, one of the intimate partners used violence against the other; then, this partner was deemed to have experience using violence in IPH. The findings in this study identify that almost all victims, just as perpetrators, have no experience using violence. Therefore, the experience of using violence is not a risk factor for either the perpetrator or the victim. Compared with other serious violent crimes, it is very rare that both the perpetrator and the victim have the experience to use violence. Since there are no other relevant variables for in-depth analysis of the causes and predictive characteristics, we only performed a descriptive analysis of the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims in the context of China.

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3.3 Conclusion After describing the different methods to identify the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims in previous studies, this section addresses the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims in the context of China in terms of gender, profession, marital status, marital satisfaction and experience in violence use. With the descriptive analysis, the findings in this part identify that IPH is a gender-specific crime with most male perpetrators and female victims (male perpetrators: 82%; female victims: 83%). In terms of profession, the data findings show that almost half of the perpetrators and victims are engaged in peasants (perpetrator: 48%; victim: 46%) and migrant workers (perpetrators: 47%; victims: 49%). In China, migrant workers and peasants are regarded as having lower socioeconomic status. This can also be proved with the family background. For the perpetrator and victim in IPH, almost all of them come from the peasant family (perpetrator: 97%; victims: 98%). Relatively speaking, compared with these two kinds of occupations and family backgrounds, the ratio of perpetrators and victims in other occupations and from other family backgrounds is very low. In the literature, the intimate relationship between the perpetrator and victims is often dealt with, including the relationship state and status. In this part, the relationship status is also discussed. For this, the data findings show that more than 60% of the perpetrators and victims have marital experience (perpetrators: 66%; victims: 63%). As an important risk factor, marital satisfaction has been discussed in many previous studies. In this regard, more than 99% of perpetrators and victims are unsatisfied with their marriage. This proves that the quality of marriage in China is very poor and may put individuals at higher risk for perpetrating and victimizing IPV and finally to make the occurrence of IPH. Although the basic characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims are described in this part, such characteristics have not yet been deeply revealed due to the limitations of research purposes and variable selection. For example, for perpetrators and victims in IPH, what is the gender distribution in the different intimate relationship statuses, such as spouses, ex-spouses and lovers? In addition, in what age group are the perpetrators and victims mainly concentrated in? How old is the age difference between perpetrators and victims who are much more likely to perpetrate and victimize in IPH? Therefore, future studies should deeply demonstrate the characteristics of perpetrators and victims of IPH with many more variables. Moreover, some previous studies speculated that IPH perpetrators and victims may share more similarities than differences, and some studies accordingly found that there was overlap between victims and perpetrators in IPH. From the data findings in this study, there stands the overlap between perpetrators and victims, such as the gender, profession, family background, experience to use violence, marital satisfaction and marital status. With this idea of overlap between perpetrators and victims, this study should provide a deeper understanding of their characteristics in the context of China. In fact, it is not possible to maintain a single role in IPH either as a perpetrator or as a victim. Therefore, acknowledgment of the overlap in behaviors

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among perpetrators and victims has allowed future researchers to further understand the complex relationship between victimization and offending in IPH.

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Chapter 4

Intimate Relationship Between Perpetrator and Victim

Although describing the characteristics of perpetrators and victims in IPH is of significance in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence in China, the relationship between perpetrators and victims is dispensable for deep understanding such lethal interpersonal violence, especially in the context of China today. In reality, strangers do not always present the greatest threat of criminal perpetration. For us, it is much more likely to be victimized in our own homes by our loved ones rather than attacked by strangers on the street. Generally, the occurrence of IPH is the result of the interaction between the perpetrator and victim. Therefore, the relationship between perpetrators and victims is critical to understanding the context and dynamics of homicide, especially the intimate relationship between them in IPH. Why does the perpetrator-victim intimate relationship play a leading role in the deep understanding of IPH in China? With the rapid development of modernization and urbanization, China has experienced the largest population migration in history, which is based on migrants from rural areas or economically undeveloped areas to economically developed areas. This large-scale population migration has caused a great change in the traditional Chinese family structure and family functions (Yang, 2016; Mu & Jeung, 2019). On the other hand, with China’s economic development and cultural progress, the concept of sexual equality and free marriage has gradually gained popular support (Delia, 2018; Xie, 2020). As a result, traditional Chinese ideas of love and marriage have correspondingly undergone great changes. Intimate partner relationships are currently not limited to wives and husbands in traditional families in China, and various types of intimate partner relationships have correspondingly arisen. In fact, most Chinese people have extra affairs and maintain a lover relationship status with others outside their marriage (Densley et al., 2017). However, traditional Chinese culture has attached great importance to marriage and family, and the state and society have always linked it with individual social responsibility. In the process of modernization and urbanization, although the traditional concept of marriage and love has undergone tremendous changes in China, the core position of this concept in personal marriage and family evaluation has not changed (Wu, 2019). As such, the © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Zhao, The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0_4

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emergence of a large number of intimate relationships outside of marriage conflicts with the traditional concept of marriage and family. Therefore, the perpetrator-victim relationship is an important clue to understand and explain IPH in the context of China today. As early as 1958, some studies identified the importance of the relationship between perpetrators and victims in understanding the context and dynamics of homicide. According to this study, the majority of homicides occurred between individuals with a close relationship, such as intimate partners, family members or friends (Wolfgang, 1958). Additionally, in homicide, perhaps more than in any other kind of crime, the perpetrator-victim relationship played a significant role in determining the reasons for the crime. For example, the causes of homicides occurring within intimate relationships are different from the causes of homicides by strangers (Silverman & Kennedy, 1993; Dawson & Gartner, 1998). Moreover, it has long been recognized that homicide occurs more often in certain types of relationships than others; that is, intimate relationships seem to be more prone to lethal violence than other relationships (Wolfgang, 1958). With the explanatory power of the intimate perpetrator-victim relationship in lethal interpersonal violence, a growing body of studies has been devoted to analyzing the perpetrator-victim relationship to understand the dynamics of intimate partner homicide (Brownridge, 2008; Rennison et al., 2013; Sutton & Dawson, 2018). It is with the importance of the perpetrator-victim relationship in IPH that the present study will deal with its significance in the understanding of IPH in contests in China today after discussing the characteristics of perpetrators and victims. To obtain an in-depth understanding of IPH in China, the study will also provide a corresponding discussion on the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence in the international context. Therefore, the study will first illustrate the discussion on the relationship between perpetrators and victims in previous studies and then make comparisons with the findings in the context of China. In the literature, after scholars have identified the significance of the perpetratorvictim relationship in determining the dynamics of homicide, a substantial body of research has tried to examine the way in which relationship status, state, and duration between the perpetrator and victim may provide an in-depth understanding of IPH along with the corresponding studies in the literature (Haynie & Armstrong, 2006; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2009; Reckdenwald & Simone, 2017; Rennison et al., 2013; Sutton & Dawson, 2018). Of these studies, some have shown that the perpetrator-victim relationship is an important factor in understanding offending behavior (Cao et al., 2008; Osho & Williams, 2013). Some proved that the intimate relationship is useful to explain the motives in IPH as well as weapon choice (Au & Beh, 2011; Last & Fritzon, 2005). Other research has pointed out that the intimacy and status of the relationship are equally important in understanding IPH (Sutton & Dawson, 2018). With the aim of deeply understanding IPH in China, we will first demonstrate the findings in previous studies and then compare them with our findings in China today.

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4.1 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship in Understanding IPH Since Wolfgang (1958) identified that homicides occurred much more often between individuals with a close relationship, some scholarly attention has begun to focus on the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship and presented a better understanding of IPH (Regoeczi & Riedel, 2003; Haynie & Armstrong, 2006; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2009). Of these studies, some have shown that the perpetratorvictim relationship is an important factor in understanding offending behavior (Osho & Williams, 2013). Some proved that the relationship is useful to explain the motives in IPH as well as weapon choice (Au & Beh, 2011; Last & Fritzon, 2005). Other research has pointed out that the intimacy and status of the relationship between perpetrators and victims are equally important in understanding IPH (Karlsson et al., 2018). In general, existing findings of the perpetrator-victim relationship in IPH have shown the following results.

4.1.1 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Risk Factor In the literature on IPH, a substantial body of research has examined the risk factors for IPH, and some have even developed risk factor assessment tools to identify and assess the risk factors for IPH (Murphy et al., 2016; Dawson & Piscitelli, 2017; Spencer & Stith, 2020). As research began to pay attention to the intimate relationship between perpetrators and victims, some research has conducted an in-depth analysis on the risk factors together with the influence of intimate relationship status and state in IPH (Sutton & Dawson, 2018). This research is of significance, as the risk of victimization varies according to the relationship status and state (Sinha, 2012). For example, subsequent research identified that people in cohabitation relationships may face a much higher risk of IPV than those within marital relationships (Johnson et al., 2015). Moreover, research on IPH has also directed attention toward analyzing the relationship state, including the intact or estranged relationship (Rennison et al., 2013; Spencer and Stith, 2018; Sutton & Dawson, 2018). This is mainly because the relationship state has become the most well-documented risk factor for IPH (Capaldi et ail., 2012; Haynes, 2016). Therefore, the following section will separately discuss the relationship status and state as risk factors in IPH.

4.1.1.1

Relationship Status

In general, relationship status refers to the type of union, whether it is a marital, common-law/cohabiting, or a dating relationship (Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Tillyer & Wright, 2014). In recent years, relationships have undergone profound change over the past decades, and the proportion of marital union in some countries has been

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declining while cohabitation has been increasing (Sánchez Gassen & Perelli, 2015). For example, in Canada, it is with the growing popularity and acceptance of cohabitation that many more individuals keep their cohabitation relationship with their intimate partners (Brownridge, 2008). Similar to the United States, cohabitation has replaced marriage as the modal form of the first coresidential union, with cohabitation rates increasing dramatically (Bumpass and Lu, 2000). According to the estimation by the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 4.6 million households were classified as cohabiting households (Fields, 2003). While the extent and speed of the intimate relationship changes vary, the overall increase in cohabitation has been similar across Europe (Perelli-Harris et al., 2010). The findings in some research showed that cohabitation has increased and marriage rates have decreased across Europe (Sobotka & Toulemon, 2008). Today, cohabitation levels are still rising in Europe (Sánchez Gassen & Perelli-Harris, 2015) compared with other types of family households. With varying relationship trends, one area that has been receiving increased attention in previous research is the IPH risk among women in cohabiting relationships, even though some research has suggested that IPH is present across all types of intimate relationships (Shannon et al., 2007). For example, some findings have shown that the frequency and severity of IPV is usually higher among cohabitation relationships than among marital relationships (Brownridge & Halli, 2001). In addition, it has been suggested that the cohabitation relationship is a significant risk factor for IPH (Shackelford, 2001; Shackelford and Mouzos, 2005). For this, some research found that women in cohabiting relationships were at much greater risk of being killed by their partner than were women in marital relationships (Shackelford, 2001). For example, research using Canadian homicide data identified that, first, women in cohabiting relationships, compared to women in marital relationships, incurred higher rates of homicide victimization by a male partner and that, second, there were age differences associated with this risk (Wilson et al., 1995). According to key findings in this research, women in cohabiting relationships were 9 times more likely to be killed by a partner than were married women in Canada. Moreover, within marital relationships, women in their early 20 s were at greatest risk of being killed by a partner. Within cohabiting relationships, in contrast, women who were in their 30 s and 40 s were at greatest risk of being killed. With further understanding the risk factors for women in different intimate relationships, some research has tried to use national-level homicide data from Australia and the United States to calculate the rates at which men kill their intimate partners among cohabiting or marital relationships, by the ages of the partners, and by the age difference between partners (Shackelford and Mouzos, 2005). This crossnational finding indicated that the increased risk of victimization faced by cohabiting women crosses international boundaries. Moreover, within marital relationships, the risk of victimization faced by women decreases with a woman’s age; however, the victimization risk was highest for cohabiting women at the youngest age. For men, their perpetration risk is also different in different age groups. This cross-national finding illustrated that the perpetration rates were highest for younger married men

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in both countries. For cohabiting men, younger men display the highest perpetration risks in Australia, whereas in the United States, the highest perpetration risk is for men older than 45 years. For the different victimization risks faced by women within different relationships, some research has tried to provide plausible explanations for the differences in demographic characteristics between persons in different relationships. For example, persons in cohabiting relationships tend to be younger, have lower education, occupation, and income levels and are more likely to misuse alcohol. Additionally, stepchildren are an important possible explanatory factor in some research (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; James & Daly, 2012). According to the explanation, the presence of stepchildren increases the victimization risk faced by women. Another explanation focuses on the tenuous nature of cohabiting relationships, which may increase the risk of victimization faced by cohabiting women. With the evolutionary psychological idea, men in the cohabiting relationship might feel less control over their partners and be more threatened by intrasexual competitors. Therefore, men in cohabiting relationships might be more likely than married men to kill their partner (Kenney & McLanahan, 2006). As an important risk factor, is there any difference in the frequency and severity of violence in the different relationship statuses? Previous research has revealed that violence among intimate partners is much more frequent and severe in cohabiting relationships than marital relationships (Brown & Bulanda, 2008). Generally, violence within intimate partners includes physical, sexual, and psychological violence perpetrated by a current or former partner, which also includes dating and ongoing sexual partners (Niolon et al., 2017). For the individual, being married, cohabiting, or dating may also increase opportunities for violence (Johnson et al., 2015). Especially for women within intimate relationships, they tend to tolerate escalating levels of violence from their intimate partner and rationalize the behavior for the sake of preserving the relationship (Machado, Martins, & Caridade, 2014). Therefore, as intimate relationships become more meaningful for individuals, especially for women, the occurrence of interpersonal violence may increase. For this, most research has indicated that females are more often victims of such violence even though both males and females can perpetrate and be victims of IPV (Niolon et al., 2017). Moreover, some findings revealed that much more violence was reported by cohabiters compared with those who were married, regardless of occupation, age, and education, but for male-perpetrated violence only (Brown & Bulanda, 2008). In contrast, other research found that marital relationships had a greater frequency and severity of violence than cohabiting relationships (Machado et al., 2014). In the cohabiting relationship, some research has shown that males report greater rates of victimization than females (Novak & Furman, 2016). In response, some research has suggested that individuals within cohabiting relationships have much more associations with some factors, such as younger age, lower education and income, employment instability and drug abuse (Brownridge, 2008). Although there are contradictory findings in the literature, the general consensus is that interpersonal violence among intimate partners is more common and severe among cohabiting relationships than among cohabiting relationships. To demonstrate whether this interpersonal violence is different by prevalence and severity

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within different intimate relationship statuses, some research tried to use focal variables, such as intimate status and situational variables, to reveal the differences and tried to give reasonable explanations (Sutton & Dawson, 2018). With regard to physical violence, the findings in this research revealed that there were no significant differences between marital relationships and cohabiting relationships. Generally, violence in intimate relationships is always accompanied by the use of weapons (Sorenson, 2006; Zeoli et al., 2020; Overstreet et al., 2020). With regard to this, Sutton and Dawson (2018) found that weapon use was more common among marital compared with cohabiting relationships. However, when considering the perpetrator gender, they found that male perpetrators were less likely to use weapons in marital relationships than males in cohabiting unions. Female perpetrators in the cohabiting relationship were more likely to use a weapon than married females when they killed their partner (Machado et al., 2014). To this difference, some research has found that females may rely on weapons as a means of self-defense or to compensate for their lack of physical strength compared with males (Kernsmith & Craun, 2008; Melton & Sillito, 2012). With regard to the different rates of IPH among different relationship statuses, one of the more consistent findings is the higher rates of IPV and IPH among cohabiting couples than among married couples (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In response to this, some research has theorized that the higher rate of IPH among cohabiting couples is due to institutional differences between married and cohabiting relationships (Nock, 1995; Skinner et al., 2002; Brown et al., 2017). Some argued that the presence of marital norms and greater investment in the relationship contributed to lower levels of violence in marital relationships (Leavitt et al., 2015). Within the cohabiting relationship, weaker norms favoring sexual exclusivity might lead to heightened sexual jealousy, which increases the risk of violence by cohabiting men (Wilson & Daly, 2001). Although these interpretations are appealing, some findings have revealed that much of the difference in violence between cohabiting and married couples may be caused by their different selection of intimate relationship status rather than institutional factors (Kenney & McLanahan, 2006). For selection into marriage and cohabitation, some research has identified that many differentiating factors, such as age, education, employment stability, family-structure history and substance abuse, have been proven to be associated with violence in IPH (Mojahed et al., 2020; Petersson et al., 2019; Rodriquez et al., 2001). With some identified factors, some research found that those who remained in cohabiting relationships were less educated, less committed to the relationship, and more likely to have used violence against their partners (Manning and Smock, 2002; Apel, 2016; Hall & Adams, 2020). However, for those who made selection out of cohabitation into marriage, their characteristics and behaviors differed in important ways from the characteristics of the population of cohabiting couples, and they less used violence against their partner (Lundberg & Pollak, 2001; Martín-Lanas et al., 2019). Moreover, for the separation selection from intimate partners, some findings showed that married couples with violent relationships, with lower levels of education and lower income, were more likely to select

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separation from intimate relationships. However, for those with higher socioeconomic status, married couples were less likely to select separation to end the intimate relationship (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Repetti, 2001). To some extent, the differential selection of intimate relationship statuses appears to be an important part of the explanation for the differences in violence between married and cohabiting couples.

4.1.1.2

Relationship State

With the relationship state becoming one of the most well-documented risk factors, research on IPV has also directed attention toward analyzing the relationship state, such as the separation or estrangement of the union (Capaldi et al., 2012; Haynes, 2016; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In the literature, some researchers operationalize relationship state as a measure of whether individuals are in an intact or estranged relationship (Brownridge, 2006; Vatnar & Bjorkly, 2012). Similar to women in the cohabiting relationship, separated women were more likely to be the victimization of IPH than divorced or married women (Brownridge et al., 2008). In addition, estranged women faced an increased likelihood of experiencing violence from their partner when they lived in rural locales than those in urban areas (Rennison et al., 2013). Furthermore, some findings suggested that estranged women were more likely to be assaulted with a weapon than those who were still within their intimate relationship (Kernsmith & Craun, 2008). In this regard, some researchers explained that separation for the male perpetrator was a challenge to his control and finally increased the likelihood of engaging in aggressive behavior against his partner (Haynes, 2016). Do individuals face different risks of victimization of IPH when they are in different relationship states, such as estranged or intact relationships? With regard to this, most prior research has revealed that estranged individuals were at an increased likelihood of experiencing violence after compared with victimization in intact relationships (Brownridge et al., 2008). In addition, women also had different risks of victimization when they were within different relationship statuses. For example, Spiwak and Brownridge (2005) found that estranged women were at the greatest risk of violence, followed by divorced and then married women. In the different relationship states, some previous research concluded that the IPV was more severe for the victim and that the perpetrator had a greater likelihood of taking physical injury and weapon use in the estranged relationship (Kernsmith & Craun, 2008). Regardless of relationship status, some findings identified that weapon use was more pronounced in estranged relationships than in intact relationships (Sorenson, 2006; Zoeli et al., 2020). However, Sutton and Dawson (2018) found the reverse to be true in their research because the perpetrator within estranged relationship was less likely to cause physical injury or use weapon during the IPH than those who kept the intimate relationship with the victim. In addition, it is less possible for the male perpetrator to use weapons in IPH against his estranged partner than against the intact partner.

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In identifying risk factors, some research has revealed the different characteristics of IPH in different relational states (Abrunhosa et al., 2020; Reckdenwald et al., 2019). Some research has suggested that the length of the intimate relationship may be associated with varying characteristics and the prevalence of intimate violence (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; Shannon et al., 2007). The contextual nature of intimate violence varied with the length of the intimate relationship. To more deeply understand the risk factors, some research has tried to reveal that the different characteristics of IPH vary by the intimate relationship state (Dawson and Gartner, 1989; Trojan & Krull, 2012; Reckdenwald et al., 2019). Compared to victims in intact relationships, especially female victims, those in estranged relationships were much more likely to be employed. At the same time, the estranged killers were much younger and more likely to have a criminal record. For this, Dawson and Gartner (1989) found that perpetrators who were estranged from their victims were more than twice as likely to have a criminal record than those who killed their female partner. In terms of the homicide event, some research revealed that homicide events that distinguished between estranged victims and intact victims stood in substance use, location of crime, method of killing and presence of witnesses (Elisha et al., 2010; Reckdenwald et al., 2019). In the estranged intimate relationship, either perpetrator or victim had less possibility to be drinking or using drugs during the IPH occurrence than those in intact intimate relationship (Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Sheehan et al., 2015). Male victims in the estranged relationship were much more killed in a public place than in the victim or perpetrator’s home (Reckdenwald et al., 2019). In addition, the estranged perpetrator was more likely to shoot his victim than the intact perpetrator (Adinkrah, 2014; Sorenson, 2006).

4.1.2 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Decreased Trend in IPH After continuous growth in the 1960s, homicide declined from the early 1990s in the U.S. and Western Europe (Weiss et al., 2016). In particular, substantial declines have been noted for killings that occur between intimate partners (Thompson and Mercy, 2000). Parallel to this declining trend in IPH, increasing awareness of IPH as a serious social problem has promoted researchers to examine many factors that may contribute to the decrease in IPH (Rosenfeld, 2000). For this kind of research, its emphasis has been on the sources of exposure reduction, which may prevent or reduce the likelihood of violence between intimate partners (Dugan et al., 2003). The premise of exposure reduction is the well-documented finding that chronic and persistent violence in intimate relationships often precedes intimate partner homicide (Dawson et al., 2009). In regard to this, findings have revealed that mechanisms that help abused partners exit violent relationships or inhibit the development of such relationships may reduce the rate of victimization in IPH (Dugan et al., 1999).

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Although the rate of IPH showed a downward trend as a whole within a specific period, the trends in different kinds of intimate relationships performed differently. By examining the trends in IPH, some findings reveal different victimization rates based on gender and relationships. Among maritally intimate partners, female victims experienced a greater increase in victimization rates than male victims. In contrast, homicide victimization rates for unmarried males steadily declined (Browne et al., 1999). For unmarried females, victimization rates increased as spousal homicide decreased over time (Browne & Williams, 1993). In addition, Puzone and colleagues (2000) found that husbands and ex-husbands experienced approximately twice as great a percentage homicide rate decrease as did wives and ex-wives. Moreover, some research has examined the trends of IPH by relationship type and by race. For example, Wells and DeLeon-Granados (2004) found that all the categories of partner victims, e.g., white married males and black unmarried females, except unmarried white females, experienced a decrease in IPH victimization rates. Some research found that blacks experienced a significantly greater decrease in the victimization rate than whites when they were spouses and unmarried partners (Puzone et al., 2000). However, some research identified that blacks were still at greater risk than whites of being killed by their intimate partners (Sabri et al., 2016). Some research attributed the declining trend of IPH to the changing nature of the perpetrator-victim intimate relationship in IPH (Rosenfeld, 2000). Some researchers have argued that both males and females have increasingly delayed entry into first marriage or remarriage during the past few decades. As a result, the traditional family structure and intimate relationship status have made great changes, and commonlaw unions and dating relationships of longer duration have become more common (Dawson et al., 2009). Correspondingly, falling marriage rates have reduced the number of opportunities for intimate partner homicide (Rosenfeld, 2000). To some extent, compared with the IPH occurring between unmartial intimate partners, the documented declines in marital partner homicide have proven the correlation between the low rate of marriage and the decrease in IPH (Dawson et al., 2009). Moreover, the delay in the first marriage provided people much more chance to look for their intimate partner, which also reduced the rate of IPH (Rosenfeld, 2000). In this regard, some findings indicated that the occurrence of IPH between marital partners dropped by 30% in the United States in the 1990s as the time at which couples lived together became much more limited (Rosenfeld, 1997). According to such findings, it was the falling marriage rates and rising rates of separation and divorce that contributed the most to decreases in IPH when the perpetrator and victim were marital partners. In fact, some findings have demonstrated that domesticity was related to the rate of spousal homicide (Dugan et al., 1999). However, high divorce rates only reduced the rate of IPH in which wives killed husbands, and the rates of IPH with husband perpetrators had not accordingly reduced (Rosenfeld, 2000). With the expansion of research time and region, some researchers have identified that divorce is positively correlated with spousal homicide (Dugan et al., 2003). In general, ending the relationship increases the risk of lethal victimization. According to some research, women face a much higher risk of victimization when they are

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separated from their husband, especially in the first few months (Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In view of the decline in IPH among marital partners, some studies have explained the social mechanism. For example, some studies found that the availability of shelters and crisis lines had the strongest impact on declines in IPH between spouses (Walklate et al., 2019; Wells et al., 2010). Other studies identified that some of the social changes affected spousal homicide rates (Dawson et al., 2009). With the increasing education levels for both females and males, women have a much greater chance of obtaining better jobs and higher incomes than before, and they also have more opportunities to leave their violent relationships (Wells & DeLeon-Granados, 2004). With the improvement of women’s economic and social status, they are more willing to end the threat of violence through divorce and thus avoid being victimized by their husband. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that a high divorce rate will inevitably lead to a decrease in IPH among spouses. However, higher divorce rates generally lead to higher rates of spousal homicide and other types of homicide (Dawson et al., 2009). In general, divorce is regarded as an indicator of social disorganization in society, which means that the social controls on marriage have broken down. The rate of crime, including violence, accordingly also increases (Dawson et al., 2009; Graham et al., 2020). In line with this perspective, most findings identify that divorce rates and homicide rates have a positive relationship. Thus, divorce does not seem to explain the declining trend in intimate partners or spouse homicide. With illustrating the motivational differences in female- and male-perpetrated spousal homicides, some studies demonstrated that women were killed by their male partner most because the women attempted to leave the relationship (Spencer & Stith, 2020). Therefore, some studies identified that higher divorce rates made women face much more risk of being killed by their partners (Uzone et al., 2000). In contrast, some studies have shown that higher divorce can make it less likely for women to kill their partners because women often kill their male partner when they fear their own lives or the lives of their children threatened by violence from their male partner (Dugan et al., 2003). A large number of previous studies have shown that more than 80% of female victims were killed by their husbands, but with the change in intimate relationship status, approximately 40% of them were killed by their husbands and the others by nonmarital intimate partners (Parker, 2017). This trend reflected the changing intimate relationship status of the population. In general, the number of people heading to marriage is declining, and people are seeking alternative intimate partner relationships. The data of a wide-ranging report released by UN Women identified that marriage is on a decline and single living is on the rise across the globe. In fact, for younger generations, it becomes increasingly harder to start a family, and they are starting to view marriage as obsolete. Additionally, relatively high rates of divorce are painting a grim picture for those even considering marriage in the first place. It is also one of the factors why many people do not want to get married at all. For example, a Statista survey in America in 2010 showed that almost half of Americans aged between 18 and 29 thought that marriage was already becoming obsolete. Data below show that the annual number of marriages in the US has slowly but

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steadily declined over the last 20 years (Zuckerman, 2020). As the marriage rate continues to decline, IPH outside marriage has steadily increased (Shackelford and Mouzos, 2005). For example, some research has suggested that dating or cohabiting couples may have even higher IPH than couples in marital relationships (James & Daly, 2012). In Australia, married women were killed by their partners at a rate of 4.7 women per million married women per annum, whereas cohabiting women were killed at a much higher rate of 44.9 women per million cohabiting women per annum (Shackelford and Mouzos, 2005). In the United States, Shackelford (2001) found that cohabiting women incurred more than 8 times the uxoricide risk than married women. These findings encourage research to examine the trends of IPH in nonmarital relationships, such as cohabiting or dating intimate partners (Bows, 2019). Although most findings have identified that the declining trend of IPH, the declining trend in marital and unmartial relationships, especially by gender, revealed differences (Corradi & Stöckl, 2014). For unmartially intimate partners, the identified period of time witnessed a decline only in the rate of female victimization, but the rate of male victimization sharply increased in the identified period of time (Browne & Williams, 1993; Fondevila & Meneses-Reyes, 2019). On the whole, the trends of IPH reveal quite different patterns for the different intimate relationship statuses. The downward trend revealed in marital homicide may be attributed to the increasing shift from marital to unmarried relationships, such as cohabiting or dating relationships. However, further analysis of the trends of IPH by gender showed that the victimization rate for men in unmarried relationships varied unsystematically, while the rate of unmarried women being killed by their male partners increased significantly. Although many studies have provided some explanations for some clear shifts in the patterns of intimate relationship statuses, such as the percentage living as unmarried couples, this change in intimate relationship status cannot alone account for the different trends in IPH by gender. In this regard, previous studies have mainly tried to explain the following aspects: social control, gender differences in motivations and relational differences (Vatnar et al., 2019; Graham et al., 2020). According to the social control perspective, the effectiveness of social prevention mechanisms, such as the establishment of community shelter and other supportive services for victims, legislation, and policies, plays a decisive role in the reduction of such lethal victimization in IPH (Graham et al., 2020; Lynch et al., 2019). For example, the presence of domestic violence legislation and other resources, such as crisis lines and legal aid for abused women, was associated with the total decrease in female-perpetrated IPH (Browne & Williams, 1993). For example, social mechanics allow threatened women to escape or be protected from violence from their partner and thus may have offset some of the killings that occurred in desperation and self-defense by females in IPH (Ellis et al., 2020; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). Concerning the difference in the trends of IPH by gender, some studies tried to illustrate the differences in motives underlying the perpetration of severe aggression against intimate partners (Browne & Williams, 1993). Most findings demonstrated that male perpetrators in marital homicides took violence to control or dominate their female partner when they felt their female partner was independent or that they

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were out of control (Elisha et al., 2010; Graham et al., 2020). In dating intimate relationships, females kill their partner frequently for self-defense or for vengeances (Kivivuori and Leht, 2012). For the male perpetrator, most of them took their violence to intimidate or frighten their female partner to do something (Foshee et al., 2007). For IPHs perpetrated by males, they cannot accept the fact that their role of dominance over their intimate partner was rejected (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019). Male perpetrators cannot endure the tolerance of the threat of separation from their partner. In addition, the findings showed that most of the male perpetrators were living separately from their partners at the time of the homicide (Graham et al., 2020; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). Compared with marital couples, dating or cohabiting partners may appear much more open. However, the settings in turn threatened men’s instinct power to control their female partner through violence when they faced threat of separation (Elisha et al., 2010; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012). In contrast, women within dating or cohabiting relationships have much more latitude in staying or leaving their intimate partner, but they face increased risk from their partner in retaliating against separation with violence (Browne and Willams, 1993). Therefore, female partners face a much higher risk of victimization in IPH. Overall, an increasing number of findings have established significant correlations between the perpetrator-victim relationship and the declining trend of IPH. In view of this correlation, some studies tried to provide explanations from various aspects, such as the high rate of divorce, decrease in the marriage rate of young people or economic and cultural factors. However, it is important to note that the trends of IPH were not consistent in different relationship statuses and states even though IPH declined overall. Moreover, in the same relationship status or state, IPH showed different trends in different genders or other aspects of the perpetrator and victim. Therefore, while many previous studies have demonstrated the downward trend of IPH, an increasing number of studies have tried to identify the difference in the trends of IPH shown in the different intimate relationship statuses and states and have provided a much more reasonable explanation. With these in-depth and differentiated studies, the trend of IPH and the reasons behind it have been discussed and understood much more deeply.

4.1.3 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and the Motive for IPH The perpetrator-victim relationship is of significance not only in identifying the risk factors and describing the declining trends in IPH but also in evaluating the motive for IPH (Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Karlsson et al., 2018). In fact, regardless of the relationship status of the perpetrator and victim, male or female perpetrators have different motives in killing their intimate partners. Within different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses, the rates of IPH occurring in the relationships that ended were higher than in situations with current intimate partners and that violence by past partners was more serious on average and more frequent (Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In fact, female victims were often assaulted

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and killed by their extremely jealous and possessive partners who tried their best to maintain control over their partners when they were desperate to escape from them (Vatnar et al., 2019). Moreover, these tend to occur in the immediate aftermath of separation (Spencer & Stith, 2020). In general, common-law and dating relationships may involve higher levels of jealousy, which therefore lead male perpetrators to use lethal violence against their intimate parterns (Pietrzak et al., 2002). For women, leaving or attempting to leave their violent partners can be a particularly risky time (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Especially in the estranged intimate relationship, men are more often motivated by jealousy when their intimate relationship is challenged. Compared with estranged female perpetrators, estranged male perpetrators were more likely to kill their ex-partners in their own homes and to kill their dating partners (Johnson & Hotton, 2003). For female victims who separated from their intimate partners, the fact that estranged male perpetrators attempted to seek out those close to their victims showed that their frantic attempts to regain control over their intimate partners (Vatnar et al., 2019). However, similar behavior was not found when estranged female perpetrators killed their intimate partner (Sheehan et al., 2015). In evaluating the motivation for IPH, an increasing number of studies have identified that weapon use and killing methods reflect the motivations of perpetrators in IPH (Weekes-Shackelford & Shackelford, 2004). Findings in previous studies indicated that killing methods were associated with the gender of the perpetrator and victim and the perpetrator-victim relationship status and state in IPH (Suonpää & Savolainen, 2019; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). For example, in dating or nonmarital cohabiting relationships, perpetrators, especially men, were much more likely to kill their partners by violently beating them (Mize et al., 2009). For them, they usually used their bare hands to kill their partners, but the women were much more likely to use weapons when they were perpetrators of IPH (Mize et al., 2009). Therefore, men killed their intimate partners by beating more frequently than dead women. In this regard, some nature of the men perpetrators themselves were the main causes of this phenomenon. For example, men were more prone to physical aggression than women, and men had an advantage over women in size and strength. Therefore, male perpetrators may be physically more able to beat a person to death (Johnson et al., 2019). However, there were different severities of violence against the victim when the perpetrator and victim were in different relationship statuses (Suonpää & Savolainen, 2019). For example, man killed his girlfriends with much more violent killing, such as by beating, when they had much more intense jealousy and rage, relative to when a man killed his wife. One reason for this is that nonmarital cohabiting relationships may be less stable than legally married relationships (Shackelford and Mouzo, 2005; Corradi & Stöckl, 2014). It is also in line with some findings that there is an increased risk of victimization among cohabiting partners relative to married partners (Shackelford and Mouzos,2005; Spencer & Stith, 2020). Compared with ex-wives, legal wives are more likely to be beaten to death by their husband (Graham et al., 2021). Although the commitment of a married woman is higher than that of a woman who has defective from a relationship, there still stands the accessibility of the victim to the perpetrator (Mize et al., 2009). According to some findings, proximity increased the risk of uxoricide in legally married couples because

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husbands had access to their wives to be able to beat them to death (Shackelford and Mouzos, 2005). In addition, the perpetrator beat the victim mostly in their privacy of their own home, and few others had a chance to stop the beating. In contrast, the perpetrator and victim within the estranged relationship were likely to live in different residences, which limited the access the man had to his former partner. Therefore, the man perpetrator killed his partner mostly with other methods, such as shooting, which did not require close contact with the victim (Reckdenwald et al., 2019). Furthermore, for the man estranged perpetrator, he killed his partner in a more violent manner with the lack of commitment, which may lead to a higher level of jealousy (Cheng & Jaffe, 2019; Krystal et al., 2009). In the social psychological literature on social conflict and coercion, violence is often regarded as one of a number of influence tactics that adversaries use to pursue their interests (Felson & Messner, 2000). For the perpetrator, especially man, he may use violence to influence the target’s behavior during the immediate situation. Influenced by the feminist perspective, some studies attributed violence by men against their intimate female partners to a control motive (Elisha et al., 2010; Spencer & Stith, 2020). According to this point of view, when male perpetrators used violence against their female partners, their purpose was to influence and control their partner’s behavior because they believed that males should be dominant in intimate relationships (Spence and Stith, 2018; Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Graham et al., 2020). With men attempting to control women’s sexual behavior and women resisting that control, the conflict causes male jealousy, which discourages sexual infidelity or terminates existing relationships by women (Schmitt & Buss, 2001). Why did men against their female partners with violence have a much more control motive? According to feminist theory, men have a greater desire to influence their female partners because they seek to establish a patriarchal family structure. With men attempting to control women’s sexual behavior and women resisting that control, the conflict causes male jealousy, which discourages sexual infidelity or terminates existing relationships by women (Schmitt & Buss, 2001). Therefore, evolutionary psychologists argue that IPH is the extreme outcome of the use of mate-retention tactics resulting from the motivation of jealousy (Duntley & Buss, 2005). However, the findings in previous studies showed that it was not certain that male dominance in the intimate partner relationship must be associated with violence against female victims (Dardis et al., 2021; Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2005; Murshid, 2017). According to other studies, men and women may be similar in their desire to influence their partners (Graham et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2019). In fact, some studies proved that the interdependence between intimate partners may stimulate a desire to control each other’s behavior, but men are more likely to use physical means against their intimate partners because they are usually larger and stronger (Felson & Messner, 2000). Compared with men, who used violence to control their partner, women are more likely to control their partners in a nonviolent way, such as often complaining of their partner (Bailey, 2018). From the research topic of IPH in the literature, it can be found that scholarly attention has mainly focused on the two fields, such as description of characteristics of IPH and identification of risk factors in IPH. As murder occurs more among

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individuals with close relationships than among strangers, perpetrators and victims are increasingly valued by researchers in IPH research. In fact, to some extent, IPH is the result of interaction between perpetrator and victim who are in the intimate relationship. Therefore, the perpetrator-victim relationship is an important factor in understanding IPH, and scholars have already made various attempts to use the perpetrator-victim relationship as an important factor in understanding such lethal interpersonal violence. For example, in some descriptive studies, researchers have changed the early research pattern, which identified the risk factors for IPH from the characteristics of perpetrator and victim, and they instead began to attach the importance to perpetrator-victim relationship in determining risk factors in IPH, including the perpetrator-victim status and state. Along with public awareness and measures to address this lethal interpersonal violence, including criminal justice systems, social services, and health care, the incidence of IPHs has steadily decreased in many countries. With the downward trend as a whole in IPH, some studies have found that this trend was different in IPH in which the perpetrator and victim were among different intimate relationships and even showed an opposite growth trend in some relationship statuses. In addition, determining the motive of a crime is a major way to deeply understand the cause of a crime, and it also provides a reasonable basis for effective crime prevention. With the deepening of research on IPH, some scholars have begun to pay attention to the motivation of the IPH perpetrator and victim, and these motives have shown their differences in IPH, in which the perpetrator and victim were in different relationships, including different relationship statuses and different states. In the early literature, the common viewpoint is that IPH was treated as a problem belonging to the individual rather than the intimate partners. In contrast, an increasing number of researchers have agreed that IPH is the result of the interaction between perpetrators and victims in intimate relationships. Accordingly, the perpetratorvictim intimate relationship has gradually gained attention in the research of this field to deeply understand such lethal interpersonal violence. All these efforts in the existing findings have demonstrated that the study of IPH has changed greatly in depth and in breath. At the same time, they also provide the possibility for a deeper understanding of IPH in the context of China today. At the same time, they also provide a reasonable perspective and method for further study on IPH in the context of China today. These will be the focus of the next part of this study.

4.2 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship in the In-Depth Understanding of IPH Along with public awareness and policy and law responses to IPH (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2012; Vatnar et al., 2019; Graham et al., 2020), this lethal interpersonal violence showed a downward trend in Western countries as a whole, which is also inseparable from the devotion of an in-depth understanding of IPH in the research

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field. Overall, research on IPH has focused on describing the characteristics of this crime, such as the characteristics of the perpetrator and victim, and identifying risk factors in IPH (Zhao, 2019; AbiNader, 2020; Overstreet et al., 2020). Compared with the consistent and in-depth research on IPH in Western countries over the past decades, research centered on China has been extremely scarce (Du et al., 2019; Li, 2016). However, as mentioned before, with rapid economic development and rapid urbanization in China, traditional Chinese marriage and family structures have undergone major changes. Accordingly, people’s understanding and ideas of love and marriage have also undergone fundamental changes. In China today, an intimate partner relationship is not limited to traditional marriage in the family setup, and various types of intimate partnerships outside marriage have also emerged. This fact has a major impact on the traditional concept of marriage and has caused many social contradictions and conflicts. In fact, China has recently witnessed a soaring increase in IPH (Zhao, 2020). As extramarital intimate relationships between perpetrators and victims have resulted in a rise in the number of instances of IPH, the status and state of the perpetrator-victim relationship are of great significance in better understanding IPH in China today. To deepen our knowledge of IPH and improve prevention strategies in the future, most research should be conducted. As the focus of this study, the following section illustrates the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship as an important clue in understanding IPH and attempts to use the perpetrator-victim relationship to explain this lethal interpersonal violence in contemporary China.

4.2.1 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship as Focal Variable As discussed above, prior research has made some progress analyzing the perpetratorvictim relationship in understanding the dynamics of IPH. In this study, we also find that the perpetrator-victim relationship has significance as a focal variable in analyzing IPH in China today. To facilitate a deeper understanding of IPH in the context of China today, we will analyze the correlation between intimate relationships as a focal variable and other variables, such as IPH characteristics and risk factors, which makes it possible to understand the prevalence of IPH in greater detail. To do this, we first need to give a detailed description of the focal variable perpetrator-victim relationship in the following.

4.2.1.1

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship

For lethal interpersonal violence, the perpetrator either does not know his victim at all or they are mere acquaintances. Unfortunately, however, some people are victimized by those they love and trust most, such as a husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. Others may become victims long after their relationships with the murderer have ended. Therefore, intimate partner homicide occurs when someone murders a person with whom he has shared an intimate relationship. For example, a person’s intimate

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Table 4.1 Status and state of perpetrator-victim relationship in IPH Perpetrator-victim

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

Relationship status

476(48.6)

39(4)

464(47.4)

Perpetrator-victim

Existing

Previous

Relationship state

887(90.6)

92(9.4)

What cause the relationship

Having an affair

Opposition from family

Living Domestic separately for a violence long time

Others

Broken

241(24.6)

51(5.2)

16(1.6)

609(62.2)

62(6.3)

partner may be his spouse or ex-spouse or a lover with whom he has cohabited. The term intimate partner may also apply to people who are dating each other or have been dating partner in the past. In fact, intimate relationships between perpetrators and victims vary in level of commitment as a function of their status and state. In the early literature, research focused primarily on IPH within marital relationships, while increasing research has paid attention to cohabitation when analyzing the impact of relationship characteristics (Johnson et al., 2015). Typically, perpetratorvictim relationship status in the literature refers to the type of union, whether it is a marital, common-law/cohabiting, or a dating relationship (Sutton & Dawson, 2018). Moreover, in recent years, research on IPH has also directed attention toward analyzing the relationship state—whether the union is intact or estranged. Finally, more researchers regard relationship duration and relationship termination as risk factors in IPH (Kernsmith & Craun, 2008). As with previous studies on perpetrator-victim relationships, the present study also discusses relationship status and state. However, limited by the purpose of this study, the variables of the perpetrator-victim relationship, including its status and state, are shown in Table 4.1. As shown in Table 4.1, perpetrator-victim relationship status includes spouse, exspouse and lover. A spouse only means a husband and wife but not a common-law husband or common-law wife. In China, common-law spouses do not actually exist. For the lover, they are girlfriend, boyfriend and extramarital lover. For the cohabiting girlfriend and boyfriend, no matter how long they cohabit together, their intimate relationship will always belong to lover, but not the common-law spouse. In terms of relationship state, we only consider whether the perpetrator-victim relationship is in existence or had ended at the time of the occurrence of the IPH. According to the findings in previous studies, the end of an intimate relationship is one of the main reasons for the occurrence of IPH. However, what events caused the intimate relationship between perpetrators and victims to break in China? For this, we considered the following events: “having an affair”, “opposition from family”, “living separately for a long time”, “domestic violence” and “others”. With regard to intimate relationship status, we found that most perpetrators and victims were spouses (49%) and lovers (47%), and very few were ex-spouses (4%). According to the previous description of marital status in this study, we find that

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approximately 60% of the respondents were married at the occurrence of IPH. However, as many as 48% of them are lovers and 49% are spouses. Up to 91% of the perpetrators were in intimate relationships at the time of committing the offense. Almost half of the perpetrators and victims in the study maintained their intimate relationships with people other than their spouses. For the relationship state, it can be found that over 91% of the instances of IPH took place when the perpetrators and victims were in their intimate relationships. Only 9% occurred after the intimate relationship had ended. For the events that caused the intimate relationship to break, we found that affairs constituted a major cause for breakups (24%). However, unexplained trivial matter is dominant (62%).

4.2.1.2

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Other Variables

With an in-depth study on IPH, an increasing number of studies have treated IPH as a problem affecting both partners rather than an individual (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019). Accordingly, as discussed above, an increasing number of studies have focused on the perpetrator-victim relationship as a focal variable to understand this lethal interpersonal violence. In these studies, by analyzing the correlation between perpetratorvictim relationships as a focal variable and other variables, such as IPH characteristics and risk factors, a deeper understanding of IPH has emerged (Allen et al., 2020; Johnson & Hotton, 2003). In view of this, this study tries to demonstrate the significance of the perpetrator-victim relationship as a focal variable in an in-depth understanding of IPH. At the same time, this study also tries to use this focal variable to understand the prevalence of IPH in the context of China today. However, in addition to this focal variable, which variables can analyze together to achieve this purpose? Owing to the significant impact of IPH for both individuals and society in terms of health, social welfare, and criminal justice (van Wormer & Roberts, 2009), most research has collected the following meaningful data as variables from the samples: “gender,” “marriage satisfaction,” “family background,” “experience with the use of violence,” “experience of being mistreated,” and “marital status” (Caman et al., 2017; Eke et al., 2011; Johnson et al., 2020; Vatnar et al., 2019). With these data, research has provided a descriptive analysis of IPH, including the basic characteristics and risk factors involved. The perpetrator-victim relationship, especially the status and state of the relationship, plays an important role in enabling an in-depth understanding of IPH (Allen et al., 2020; Peterson et al., 2019; Sebire, 2017; Sutton & Dawson, 2018). According to the research purpose and referring to previous research in other countries, we designed a questionnaire with variables concerning the basic information of the perpetrator and the victim, the perpetrator-victim intimate relationship, and the actus reus of this crime. However, among these variables, which of them can be used to understand IPH deeply with the clue of perpetrator-victim relationship?For these variables, with the clue of perpetrator-victim relationship, can these variables explain IPH in the context of China today?

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Table 4.2 Perpetrator-victim relationship status and others Perpetrator-victim relationship status Chi-square tests Perpetrator-victim relationship status versus

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

476(48.6)

39(4)

464(47.4)

Pearson Chi-square

P

Profession(p)

179.235

0.000

Profession(v)

185.588

0.000

Income(p)

4.610

0.330

Family background(p)

4.671

0.323

Family background(v)

0.137

0.934

Experience to use violence(p)

17.410

0.000

Experience to use violence(v)

38.691

0.000

Occurrence time

1.169

0.557

Where happened

211.467

0.000

The scene of the crime

115.453

0.000

Alcohol

12.619

0.002

Employment status

0.337

0.845

Situation to be murdered

129.300

0.000

Murdered or not another person

3.693

0.158

Directly- causedhomicide events

251.385

0.000

The variables shown in Table 4.2 may have correlations with the focal variable perpetrator-victim relationship, and these variables can be used with this focal variable to obtain an in-depth understanding of IPH. These variables involve the basic characteristics of the perpetrator and victim, risk factors and reuse of this crime. The variables usually used to describe the characteristics of IPH include “profession,” “income,” “family background,” and “employment status”. For the risk factors, the following variables are used to illustrate them: “experience to use violence,” “occurrence time,” “where happened,” “the scene of the crime,” “alcohol,” “situation to be murdered,” “murdered another person or not,” and “directly-caused-homicide events”. After performing chi-square tests of these variables with the focal variable “perpetrator-victim relationship status”, we found that there was a correlation between this focal variable and the following variables: “profession,” “experience to use violence,” “where happened,” “the scene of the crime,” “alcohol,” “situation to be murdered” and “directly-caused-homicide events”. With the correlation analysis,

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we try to obtain an in-depth understanding of IPH and try to understand the prevalence of IPH in the context of China today. This is also the focus of this study in the following section.

4.2.2 Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue in Understanding IPH The variables discussed above mainly deal with the basic characteristics of IPH and risk factors in this crime, which is the main element of an in-depth understanding of such crime in previous studies. Therefore, with analysis of the correlation between the focal variable perpetrator-victim relationship and these variables, a deeper understanding of IPH has emerged. At the same time, the significance of the perpetratorvictim relationship can also make it possible to understand the prevalence of IPH in the context of China today.

4.2.2.1

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Profession of Perpetrator and Victim

Although a general description of the profession of perpetrator and victim in IPH has been provided in the above section, it is not clear what profession they most engage in when perpetrator and victim stay in the identified relationship. To further understand the professional characteristics of perpetrators and victims among different relationship statuses, we try to examine the correlation between their profession and perpetrator-victim relationship status. For the IPH perpetrator, as shown in Table 4.3, most perpetrators take up the profession of peasant (67%) and migrant workers (27%) when the intimate relationship between perpetrators and victims is spouse. However, in this relationship status, Table 4.3 Relationship status and profession of perpetrator Relationship status Profession(p)

Chi-square tests

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

Unemployed

22 (4.6)

2 (5.1)

17 (3.7)

Peasant

321 (67.4)

19 (48.7)

125 (26.9)

Student

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

4 (0.9)

Migrant workers

126 (26.5)

18 (46.2)

315 (67.9)

White-collar

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

2 (0.4)

Individual proprietor

7 (1.5)

0 (0)

1 (0.2)

Pearson Chi-square

P

185.588

0.000

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the percentage of perpetrators engaged in the profession of unemployed (5%) and individual proprietors (2%) was very low. For the perpetrators, it is extremely rare to be student (0%) and white-collar (0%). When perpetrators and victims were exspouses, the vast majority of perpetrators were peasant (49%) and migrant workers (46%), but the proportion of other professions was very low, such as unemployed (5%), student (0%), white-collar (0%) and individual proprietor (0%). Similar to the fact in the other two perpetrator-victim relationship statuses, most perpetrators among the intimate relationship of lover were peasant (27%) and peasants (68%). Other perpetrators with this relationship status are less engaged in the profession of unemployed (4%), student (1%), white-collar (0%) and individual proprietor (0%). On the whole, regardless of the relationship status between the perpetrator and victim, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators were farmers and migrant workers. Among the various types of intimacy, the percentage of these two occupations exceeds 94%. Additionally, when perpetrators were peasants and individual proprietors, their intimate relationship with their victims was primarily spouse. When perpetrators were unemployed, most of their relationship with their victims belonged to ex-spouses. For migrant workers, white collars and students, intimate relationships with their victims are more likely to be lover. In addition, with correspondence analysis of relationship status and perpetrator profession, it is clear that relationship status is much closer to spouse when the perpetrator is engaged in peasants. Furthermore, for migrant workers, the status of their intimate relationship with their victims is much closer to lover. Compared with these two relationship statuses, the relationship status of ex-spouses has not formed a clear correspondence with the perpetrator’s profession. In addition to peasants and migrant workers, other professions of perpetrators, such as individual proprietors or students and white-collar workers, have no obvious correspondence with relationship status (Fig. 4.1). Similar to the findings in the correlation between profession of perpetrator and relationship status, we also find that the vast majority of victims in IPH come from farmers and migrant workers. In addition, it can also further illustrate that the perpetrator-victim relationship status is much more inclined to spouse when the profession of victim is peasant, and when the profession is migrant worker, the intimate relationship status is much more inclined to lover. Table 4.4 illustrates the profession of the victim by different relationship statuses. When the victim and perpetrator are spouses, most of the victims are peasants (66%), followed by migrant workers (29%). The other four types of professions, student (0%), white-collar (1%), individual proprietor (1%) and unemployed (4%), account for a very small percentage. Compared with other professions, peasant (49%) and migrant workers (46%) dominate most for the profession of the victim when the victim and perpetrator are the ex-spouse. Similarly, among lovers, most victims are migrant workers (69%) and peasants (26%), but other professions, such as unemployed (1%), white-collar (1%), student (3%) and individual proprietor (1%), are very rare. On the whole, as is the case with perpetrators, most IPH victims are peasants and migrant workers in China. However, when the victim is peasant, the perpetrator-victim relationship

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Fig. 4.1 Correspondence between profession of perpetrator and perpetrator-victim relationship status

Table 4.4 Relationship status and profession of victim Kind of relationship Profession(v)

Chi-square tests

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

Unemployed

19 (4)

2 (5.1)

6 (1.3)

Peasant

315 (65.5)

19 (48.7)

119 (25.5)

Student

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

12 (2.6)

Migrant workers

137 (28.5)

18 (46.2)

324 (69.4)

White-collar

5 (1.0)

0 (0.0)

3 (0.6)

Individual proprietor

5 (1.0)

0 (0.0)

3 (0.6)

Pearson Chi-square

P

179.235

0.000

status is more spouse, and when the victim is a migrant worker, the relationship status is lover. Such an inclination of the victim’s profession and perpetrator-victim relationship status can be seen more clearly from the correspondence analysis in Fig. 4.2. As shown, the correspondence between the victim’s profession and perpetrator-victim relationship status is obvious. When victims are mainly engaged in peasants, their

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Fig. 4.2 Correspondence between profession of victim and perpetrator-victim relationship status

intimate relationship between perpetrators is evidently closer to the spouse. In addition, when the victims are migrant workers, their intimate relationship with the perpetrators is obviously much closer to the lover. For the third relationship status of exspouses, even though the profession of unemployed individuals is slightly close to it, their correspondence is not obvious. Furthermore, the other two professions of victims, such as individual proprietors and students, have no obvious correspondence with relationship status. As found in the discussion of the characteristics of perpetrators and victims, most perpetrators and victims were farmers and migrant workers in comparison with other professions, such as unemployed, student and white-collar workers. As far as the profession of perpetrator and victim is concerned, we find that most of them are peasant (p:46.9%; v: 48.9%) and migrant worker (p: 47.5%; v: 46.3%) in description of characteristics of perpetrator and victim in the previous part. These two kinds of professions account for almost half of the perpetrators and victims of IPH. Therefore, the emphasis here is on the correlation between their profession and perpetrator-victim relationship status, while other professions, such as student, individual proprietor and white-collar, can only be used for comparison. For most criminals with professions of peasant, why is their intimate relationship between victims mostly spouse? Compared with other countries in the world, China’s divorce rate is relatively low, and marriage is also more stable (Ye & Xu, 1999). The divorce rate in rural areas is relatively low compared to that in urban areas. Generally, the intention of divorce is the most direct indicator of marital stability (Li, 2012). In this regard, a study showed that only 0.7% of all the interviewees stated that they “frequently” had the idea of

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divorce from their spouse within a year. Among all the interviewees, 2.9% of them “sometimes” had the idea of divorce, 7.1% of them had this idea “occasionally”, and 89.3% of them had “never” had this idea (Ye & Xu, 1999). In other words, only one in 10 people had the idea of divorce in the past year, which indicates that high stability is still the principal feature of marriage in China today. However, as found in the characteristics of perpetrators and victims, the marriage satisfaction rate in China is very low (p: 0.5%; v: 0.7%), but why do they not divorce their partners, especially in rural China? Generally, there are three different reasons: first, it is not easy for both men and women to get married. For the man, it took many gifts to marry his wife, and it was still more difficult to find another after his divorce. Although the chance of women remarrying is higher than that of men, it is still difficult for them to ensure that they can find the man who is better than their ex-husband (Li et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2017). In rural areas, the choice of remarried objects is almost all limited to divorcees or older youth, so it is not easy for remarried people to find a suitable partner. Second, farmers have a very strong tolerance for their unsatisfactory life (Blair & Madigan, 2020). Regardless of how hard and boring life is, they can live peacefully and bear the burden of humiliation, even in married life. Due to the hard and busy life, little leisure time, and low level of education, there is a lack of romance, interest, tenderness and understanding in the life of peasant couples (Yeung & Hu, 2016). Even so, peasant couples still keep their promises and sometimes quarrel or fight when they do not go well; everything returns to peace after these incidents, and it is no possible to divorce their spouse after quarreling or scolding. Third, compared with urban couples, farmer couples attach importance to the parent–child relationship. There is an old saying in China that “there are three unfilial acts; bearing no descendant is by far the largest”, which is the traditional value that the Chinese have long adhered to (Li et al., 2003). Especially for farmer couples, they often have to have children in the second year after marriage; otherwise, they will be gossiped about, which makes the couple unable to raise their heads before the others. After they have children, the possibility of divorce is even smaller (Diamant, 2000; Shu, 2020). The mother does not want her child to have a stepfather, and the husband also does not want his child to have a stepmother. For most peasant couples, although both parties are dissatisfied with their married life, they do not divorce only for the sake of their children (Guo et al., 2015). They would rather tolerate their unsatisfactory marriage life with the other parts and lead a disharmonious life, rather than let their children suffer for this (Li et al., 2004). Finally, most farmer couples still maintain an ambivalent attitude toward the notion of “to be loyal to one’s spouse until his or her death” and still clove to this ideal of “to remain a devoted couple until the hair turns gray” (Cai & Feng, 2021; He, 2021). For divorced men and women, public opinion in Chinese society, especially in rural China, despises them too much, and the public generally believes that “no divorce will occur if there is nothing wrong between husband and wife” (Wang, 2019). According to their understanding, divorced women are similar to “sluts”, and divorced men are similar to “villains”. Divorced and remarried individuals are often gossiped about by their relatives, friends, neighbors and acquaintances. When they quarrel with

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people who are divorced or remarried around them, the divorce or remarriage is often a weapon for them to ridicule, mock and personally humiliate the remarried or divorced (Cai & Feng, 2021; Tan, 2008). It is so often that they curse divorce and remarriage with the fate of the individual, which often creates a fatalistic fear in the heart of remarried people. This fact has caused many people to hesitate when thinking about divorce. Although Chinese family law stipulates “freedom of divorce”, divorce is actually not free in China, especially in rural areas. When a couple’s relationship breaks down and they want to ask for divorce, a public attitude toward divorce will make them hesitant. Therefore, for couples who want to divorce, divorce or not is a pain for them, and the people around them have not divorced even though these people’s marriage life is worse than them. “Why is it me to take risk divorcing?” Accordingly, they prefer to maintain their marriage status rather than divorcing to look for their new happiness (Pimentel, 1994; Zang and Wu, 2000). For most Chinese, even though they were unsatisfied with their marriage, they made do with such an unhappy marriage. Chinese marriages, especially those in rural areas, show a stable trend, which should be largely attributed to the large number of such “make-up marriages” (Li, 2020). Therefore, for most couples in rural areas, even if they are sometimes dissatisfied with their marriage, it is difficult for them to resist all kinds of pressure and take the step of ending their marriage with divorce. From the correspondence analysis results, it is also found that perpetrator-victim relationship status is mostly lover when perpetrators are migrant workers, whitecollar workers and students. For the latter two occupations, they account for a very limited proportion, so here is the main discussion, why most perpetrators are migrant workers when their intimate relationship with victims is a lover? Since China implemented the reform and opening policy in the early 1980s, a large number of peasants were liberated from the land and began to influx into cities on a large scale. Henceforward, China has begun large-scale urbanization and population mobility (Luo & Chen, 2021). This large-scale urbanization and modernization have had a fundamental impact on the traditional Chinese concept of marriage and family structure. The emergence of a large number of extramarital affairs among migrant workers is, to a certain extent, a microcosm of the dysfunction of marriage and family, which is the result of changed rural family structure and family management mode with the social transformation in China today (Li & Liang, 2016; Zhou, 2019). This can be illustrated from the following aspects. First, with large-scale population mobility in China, a great number of peasants left their villages to work and live in the cities, which is a strange society for them. Compared with cities, the countryside is an acquaintance society, where marriage is not only the combination of men and women and the establishment of sexual relations between them but also involves an association between both their families. Thus, marriage, love, and sex in the Chinese countryside are intricately connected. Under the influence of the traditional Chinese concept and family structure, as well as the supervision and restriction of social interpersonal relationships with such acquaintances, marriages are relatively stable in the countryside (Ip & Peeren, 2019; Yeung & Hu, 2016). However, with a large number of migrant workers pouring into

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the city, they enter a society of strangers and their social interactions are mainly with strangers (Ren et al., 2018; Tian & Xu, 2015). The mobility, concealment, and openness of cities have made migrant workers unfamiliar with the people surrounding them. This has caused traditional marriage constraints to weaken over time. At the same time, migrant workers have not fully accepted the modern concept of marriage based on legal contracts in the city, so marriage becomes unstable (Li, 2018). In other words, the “exiting” of traditional marriage morality and the “not entering” of modern marriage concept put migrant workers in a state of confusion. For migrant workers, when they are faced with emotional and physical needs in the society of strangers, they will look for lovers outside their marriage to form temporary couples with the aim of solving such problems (Zuo, 2008). Thus, more extramarital affairs have sprung up among migrant workers in China (Xu, 2015). In essence, this temporary couple among migrant workers is a phenomenon in which migrant workers use “fictitious couples” to compensate for the lack of normal functions of couples in the process of social mobility due to the weakening of normal marital function. Second, migrant workers face pressures to live from the bottom of society and the temptation to save living costs in cities. With the soaring urbanization and modernization process in China, the land in rural areas is keeping shrinking, the yield of agriculture and industry is seriously unbalanced, and the income gap between rural and urban residents is becoming increasingly larger (Liu & Long, 2021). To raise economic income and improve the economic situation of families, due to the pressure of life brought about by the transformation of the social structure, a large number of peasants have left their homes to enter urban society and engage in nonagricultural work. However, after they entered the city, there was a clear difference in social status between them and the urban residents with the influence of the Chinese dual-urban structure (Huang, 2020). Accordingly, migrant workers cannot enjoy social security, children’s schooling, and family reunion like urban residents, which puts migrant workers under greater pressure in terms of living costs and social status (Liu et al., 2017). For migrant workers, increasing economic income is the main reason for them to work in cities, but with their poor education and limited work experience, they can only engage in low-income manual work (Booth et al., 2021). To save the cost of living, migrant workers are more willing to look for extramarital lover to set up temporary couples to reduce the pressure of life and save the cost of living. This kind of temporary couple is the result of mutual choice between the two parties and with the consideration of mutual economic benefits (Wen & Wang, 2009). For migrant workers, such temporary couples can not only meet the emotional and physical needs of each other but also reduce their daily expenses and spend much more money for their own family. Third, migrant workers are willing to learn from and imitate those who keep extramarital intimate relationships with others. For migrant workers, most of their behaviors originate from the learning and imitation of their similar groups. Although these reference groups also come from migrant workers, they have become “models” among the migrant workers group. For these “models”, including contractors, individual bosses or managers of subordinate enterprises, their success in economic status has caused them to confuse the concepts of norms, ethics, and behavior (Li and

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Guan, 2017; Li, 2017). Therefore, they are the first to cross ethical lines to search lovers outside their marriage to establish temporary couples (Yang et al., 2015). Other farmers learn from so-called “models” to imitate and strengthen themselves what they learned from the “models”. Migrant workers and these “models” grew up in the same environment, and they maintained close contact every day, so they were much easier to learn from and imitate these “models”. They could interact face-toface with these “models” and discuss the emotions, values, attitudes, motivations of temporary couples, as well as the skills and methods of seeking a temporary lover (Liu et al., 2021). It can be said that with these discussions, the theme of “temporary couples” has become the deviant subculture among migrant workers. How does this subculture translate into the deviant behavior of these migrant workers? First, through observation and learning of the daily life of temporary couples around them, migrant workers gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of temporary couples; another way is through the introduction and matchmaking of their “models”, migrant workers directly experience the life of “temporary couple” (Tao, 2019). Affected by the temporary couples of the groups around them, migrant workers believe that this is a widespread social behavior rather than their own unique one. Therefore, it is difficult for them to feel guilty about their extramarital affairs, and many migrant workers regard temporary couples as their capital to show off before others (Zhai and Zhang, 2017). In short, the formation and practice of the subculture of “temporary couples” among migrant workers is the result of learning and imitation among those migrant workers who have had close contact. Fourth, the popularity of the internet and smartphones facilitates migrant workers to find their extramarital lovers and form temporary couples. In reality, most migrant workers are engaged in construction, manufacturing and service industries, in which their jobs are relatively repetitive and monotonous, but they can have very limited entertainment when they have a rest (Gao & Zheng, 2013). In addition, the place where migrant workers work is generally relatively far from the downtown areas, so the entertainment facilities around them are very limited. For migrant workers, when they were out of work, most of them played smartphones to spend their spare time. In addition, with the popularity of a large number of dating websites and apps, migrant workers can easily find friends around themselves with their smartphones (Jian, 2015). Since they have relatively few friends in real life, migrant workers are more willing to find virtual friends through the Internet to chat with each other and spend their spare time (Guo et al., 2019). In the virtual space, there is no social fear, and the chat topic is very easy, so this has attracted a large number of migrant workers to find friends in the virtual network (Li et al., 2008). Migrant workers have been separated from their spouses for a long time, so sex is always the main topic of their chats in the virtual network. With the deepening of communication between them, these migrant workers will soon become online lovers, and their intimate relationship will soon move from virtual space to real life and finally become temporary couples (Liu et al., 2021). In fact, a large number of temporary couples among migrant workers set up their temporary couples through dating websites and apps.

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4 Intimate Relationship Between Perpetrator and Victim

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Experience of Using Violence

In assessing risk in IPH, some findings have shown that the type of past violence, recency of attack, and frequency of violence are three key risk factors for violence against women (Graham et al., 2021; Echeburúa et al., 2009). Women who have recently been severely attacked are more likely to be murdered. Some studies found strong correlations between partner alcohol and substance abuse and the killing of women by their intimate partners. Therefore, men who murdered their partners were more likely to be drunk every day or to use drugs than those who abused but did not murder (Elisha et al., 2010; Sheehan et al., 2015). However, in identifying the characteristics of perpetrators and victims in IPH, one debatable topic is whether they, especially perpetrators of IPH, differ from other violent perpetrators. Some studies suggest that IPH perpetrators do not often fit the preconceived profile of a “dangerous killer”. In contrast, they are not typical violent offenders with regard to experiencing violence (Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Kivivuori et al., 2014). In line with most such findings (Hayes, 2018; Bridges et al., 2008; Karlsson et al., 2018), the current study also identifies that either perpetrators or victims rarely have experience of using violence in IPH. However, with regard to the experience with violence of perpetrators and victims, what characteristics do they have in the different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses? Experience of using violence refers to the history of intimate partner violence in the present study. Table 4.5 presents the correlation between perpetrator-victim relationship status and experience with violence from perpetrators and victims. In line with the findings in most previous studies, most perpetrators (94%) and victims (90%) had no previous history of intimate partner violence without consideration of their intimate relationship status. Perpetrators with the experience of using violence were very scarce among ex-spouses and lovers. Victims rarely had any experience of using violence in IPH. However, compared to perpetrators, victims used violence more often than perpetrators. Among the different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses, the rate of victims with experience of using violence is relatively higher in spouses (10%) than in ex-spouses (5%) and lovers (6%). Table 4.5 Relationship status and perpetrator with experience using violence Relationship Status Spouse

Ex-spouse

Chi-square tests Lover

Pearson Chi-square

P

17.410

0.000

38.691

0.000

Experience using violence(p)

Yes

31(6.5)

0(0.0)

7(1.5)

No

445(93.5)

39(100)

457(98.5)

Experience to use violence(v)

Yes

46(9.7)

2(5.1)

3(6.1)

No

430(90.3)

37(94.9)

46(93.9)

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In previous studies, much more consistent findings indicated that both perpetrators and victims rarely have experience with violence (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Spencer & Stith, 2020). However, with the analysis of the correlation between relationship status and experience with violence, it can be further illustrated that both perpetrators and victims among spouses have a relatively higher rate of using violence than others (p: 7%; v: 10%). In addition, regardless of the perpetrator-victim relationship status, many more victims have experience with violence than perpetrators. Specifically, 6% of the victims in couples and 7% of victims in former couples. Specifically, 6% of victims in spouses have experience with violence, while 5% of victims in ex-spouses and 6% of victims in lovers. Compared with the other relationship statuses, such in-depth analysis makes us wonder why do both perpetrators and victims have much more experience with violence in the relationship status of spouses? Moreover, why do victims of any relationship status have much more experience than perpetrators? Why is the ratio of perpetrators and victims with violent experience in the intimate relationship of spouses relatively high? Previous studies attributed the experience with violence of perpetrators and victims among spouses to the following four major factors: personal factors, social factors, sociocultural factors, and social structural factors (Walby & Towers, 2018; Zhang & Zhao, 2018). From the social structural perspective, previous studies have shown that the distribution of experience with violence from IPH perpetrators and victims in society is uneven (Du et al., 2019; Frías & Angel, 2012). Although intimate partner violence exists in all kinds of socioeconomic status, those with lower economic and social status, especially women, are more attracted to violence from their husbands (Dalal & Lindqvist, 2012; Eze-Ajoku et al., 2020). Thus far, it is not very clear in theory why poverty increases the risk of violence among spouses. Some scholars often associate such violence with related facts, such as housing congestion and lack of hope in the future to understand violence in IPH (Williamson, 2010; Singh et al., 2014). According to such perspectives, poverty in life will increase the pressure on husbands, and they will be frustrated by their roles that cannot meet traditional cultural expectations, so they can use violence against their partners to alleviate their emotions. In this regard, some findings have shown that husbands with financial and decision-making power in the family often resort violence to resolve the conflicts between spouses (Mondal & Paul, 2021). Therefore, many people suggest providing women with stable social support, such as providing more opportunities to work to improve women’s status in the family, thereby reducing the threat of domestic violence faced by women (Levinson, 1988; Signorelli et al., 2018). However, the phenomenon in which people of low socioeconomic status are prone to violence from their intimate partners has not been verified in domestic violence research in China (Tang & Wang, 2019; xu, 2001). In this regard, most studies have found that there is no significant correlation between experience with violence and some factors, such as an individual’s education, resources possessed and power to decide in the family (Jiang et al., 2006). Women who have higher economic income in the family suffer from a higher proportion of domestic violence than those without financial income (Li et al., 2003). In other words, economic independence has not

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become a protective factor for Chinese women from domestic violence. In this regard, some research also found that wives with higher income are more likely to experience violence from husbands in Chinese urban cities (Wang, 2006). In this regard, this study found that most perpetrators and victims in IPH are peasants and migrants, who are regarded as people with lower socioeconomic status in China. Moreover, the perpetrator-victim relationship status is mainly spouse. However, it cannot be determined why they have more experience with violence among spouses than those in the other two kinds of intimate relationships. Therefore, we need to try from another perspective to explain this phenomenon. The fact that perpetrators and victims among spouses have much more experience with violence may be illustrated with traditional Chinese family culture. Compared with the perpetrator and victim, among other intimate relationships, husbands and wives are very familiar with each other. Before they get married, such as when they fall in love, men and women will be very tolerant of each other, and all they see is only the good points of each other (Yang & Fang, 2009). Even if they encounter conflicts, they will find ways to solve them through communication with each other. However, after the two parties get married, the love between the couples will slowly fade due to daily family life, and their love will enter a period of calm (Lara, 2015). Their previous sweet love was gradually replaced by trivial matters of family daily life (Li et al., 2018). Coupled with the pressure of life and uncomfortable work, their conflicts after marriage will become increasingly more common in daily life. Before marriage, they were very polite and friendly to each other, they cared about their own image regardless of what they said or dealt with, and they would not use violence when confronted with conflicts or bad moods (Li et al., 2020). However, as both parties become increasingly familiar and their love returns to peace, they will not be particularly rational and care about their own image in handling many things (Choi & Marks, 2008). Therefore, when they encounter some conflict, they often turn from the quarrel into violence in some conditions. However, for people with intimate relationship status, such as ex-spouses and lovers, both parties will care too much about their own good image in front of each other and will try their best to be a very polite gentleman or lady (Zhou & Buehler, 2017). Even if their two sides encounter some conflicts, they will control their emotions and will not resort to violence. In traditional Chinese culture, people treat their family members as their own side. If they speak and do things very politely in front of them, these family numbers will think that they do not regard themselves as their family members (Wang, 2013). Therefore, they may not pay much attention to their family numbers when they talk with them or handle matter together with them. They always think that they are their own family members, so why bother to be so polite to them and pay too much attention to their feelings. However, when they interact with people other than their family numbers, they are actually very polite and friendly to others. This is a phenomenon unique to Chinese culture. Once the Chinese couple does not care too much about the other side’s feelings when he or she speaks and does things in front of the other side, simple problems will always trigger or inspire serious conflicts and eventually cause violence between spouses (Tang, 2019).

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According to common understanding, perpetrators with violent experiences in intimate partner homicides have much more violent experiences than victims. This is because IPH is a gender-specific crime in which most perpetrators are male and most victims are female. In common sense, violence between intimate partners mainly comes from males rather than females. In other words, it is mainly perpetrators who have violent experiences. However, from Table 4.5, we can be surprised to find that there are more victims with violence experience than perpetrators regardless of perpetrator-victim relationship status (among spouse: p: 7% v: 10; among ex-spouse: p: 0 v: 5; among lover: p: 2 v: 6). Why do more victims have violence experience than perpetrators in IPH? In traditional Chinese marriages and families, men are always in a dominant position, and important things in the family are ultimately decided by them, while women seldom decide important matters in the family (Ikels, 1981; Zhao, 2014). In this way, men will be very powerful in front of women, while women have only to obey what their decision. In addition, the man’s dominance over the entire family is also manifested in his control over his wife, including mental and material control (Huang, 2001). This is also a manifestation of a man’s desire to control his partner. For the wife, her greatest virtue is to be subservient to her husband. Under such a traditional cultural background, once the family faces conflicts between husbands and wives, husbands will always resort to violence (Cao et al., 2013; Mulawa et al., 2018). In addition, if the husband is in a bad mood, such as being unemployed or unhappy at work, he will be grumpy when he goes home (Xu, 2010). At this time, if the wife does not follow him, he will also use violent against his wife. Therefore, the victims of domestic violence are mainly women. However, with the development and progress of society and the improvement of people’s comprehensive quality, men who use violence against their wives or intimate partners are often condemned and regarded as barbarians (Hämäläinen et al., 2019). Therefore, men have scruples in the use of violence against their intimate partners, and the relationship between intimate partners has also undergone great changes. Men are no longer in a dominant position in the family, and women are no longer subordinate to men forever (Cao et al., 2014; Zhang & Zhao, 2018). Correspondingly, the concept of equality between men and women has been fully recognized by people in China. This change has also strengthened women’s awareness of rights protection. When they are violated, they will always use violence to defend their rights and fight back against their intimate partners (Leisring et al., 2016; Chen, 2007). From this point of view, we can roughly understand why many more victims have experience with violence than perpetrators among various intimate relationship statuses in China today. Regarding the experience of violence, the findings of this study are in line with the conclusions of most previous studies. For perpetrators and victims in IPH, only a very limited portion of them have experience with violence. However, this fact is different in different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses. For example, compared with two relationship statuses, ex-spouses and lovers, perpetrators and victims with violent experiences are mainly concentrated in the relationship status of spouses. In all different relationship statuses, victims with violent experiences are relatively more likely than perpetrators who have experiences of using violence. For these

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puzzled findings, a reasonable explanation may only be obtained from Chinese cultural background today.

4.2.2.3

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Location of IPH

As situational characteristics, the location of IPH has been examined in previous studies to better understand and prevent such lethal interpersonal violence (Overstreet et al., 2020; Catalano, 2013). The existing research understands “situational characteristics” as aspects of the immediate environment when IPH occurs (Overstreet et al., 2020; Allen & Fox, 2013). When discussing situational characteristics of IPH, location of the incident and use of alcohol are always important factors (Matias et al., 2020; Spencer & Stith, 2020). Additionally, such situational characteristics are typically examined by comparing IPH incidents to homicides that are not committed by intimate partners (Overstreet et al., 2020; JeJong et al., 2011). However, limited research is available concerning the situational characteristics of IPH, especially the location of IPH in the literature (Spencer & Stith, 2020; Thomas et al., 2011). In addition to firearm use and alcohol or drug use, existing studies have found that IPH mainly occurred significantly more often in private locations than in other homicides (Swatt & He, 2006; Thomas es al., 2011). In recent years, some studies have discussed in depth whether IPV incidents occurring in a private residence will be much more likely to result in IPH (Swatt & He, 2006). For the location of incidents definitions created by Bernasco et al. (2013), some studies deal with the following three variables: public, semipublic, and private locations. Public locations are those that all the public can access to, such as buses, banks, supermarkets, etc. Semipublic locations are those that need some kind of membership, payment, hotel or bar, etc. Private locations refer here to somebody’s residences or homes (Overstreet et al., 2020). In these studies, the findings showed that over three-fourths of IPV incidents occurred in a private location and that very limited IPHs occurred in public locations (Overstreet et al., 2020). In the literature, previous studies have analyzed various situational factors, including weapon use, alcohol use and location of incidents, and analyzed the correlation between various perpetrator-victim relationship statuses to predict which situational factor is much more likely to cause IPH (Catalano, 2015; Cooper & Smith, 2011; Corsaro et al., 2017). Although these studies have reached the corresponding conclusions, what are the characteristics of IPH that occur in different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses in different kinds of locations of incidents of this lethal interpersonal violence? In this regard, these existing studies have been limited. To address these gaps in the literature, the current study performed a correlation analysis of perpetrator-victim relationship status and location of incidents in IPH. For the purpose of this study, the location of the incident refers to the place where IPH occurred. For instance, these locations in this study include “home”, “hotel”, “rental house” and “outdoors”. As shown in Table 4.6, when the perpetrator and victim are spouses, the location of the IPH incident is mainly at home (68%). In hotel, it is least likely to occur IPH (2%). For another two locations, such as rental

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Table 4.6 Relationship status and location of Incidents Kind of relationship Where happend

Chi-square tests

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

At home

323 (67.9)

13 (33.3)

100 (21.6)

Hotel

8 (1.7)

2 (5.1)

44 (9.5)

In rental house

91 (19.1)

14 (35.9)

205 (44.2)

Outdoors

54 (11.3)

10 (25.6)

115 (24.8)

Pearson Chi-square

P

211.467

0.000

houses and outdoors, IPH is less likely to occur (in rental houses: 19%; outdoors: 11%). Regarding the relationship status of ex-spouses, IPH among such relationship statuses mostly occurred at home (33%) and in rental houses (36%), but the location of incidents in hotels is very rare (5%). When the perpetrator and victim were lover, IPH mainly occurred in rental houses (44%) and outdoors (25%). However, the occurrence of incidents in hotels is comparatively low (10%). When the perpetrator and victim are spouses, the location of the IPH incident is mainly at home. This finding is not surprising because the most common place where the couples are frequently together is at home. It is only at home that perpetrators can have much more chance to commit IPH. Therefore, it is consistent with the factual situation that IPH between spouses mainly occurred at home, and this is also in line with the findings in the existing research (Adinkrah, 2014; Caman et al., 2017). For ex-spouses, the locations of IPH between them are mainly at home (33%) and in rental houses (36%), and both are very close in the ratio. Since the conjugal relationship between perpetrator and victim in such relationship status has ended, it is very unlikely that they will still live together at home. The main reason why a large part of such crimes occurred at home may be that one party went to the other party’s home and killed him or her. However, this situation mainly occurred at home of the perpetrator or victim. Our research does not have more detailed information on this. Furthermore, we can perform an in-depth study on this topic with much more information. For example, we can try to illustrate whether IPH mainly occurs in the victim’s home or the criminal’s home. What is the main reason for this? Compared with the location of incidents, such as at home, in hotels and outdoors, most IPH occurred in rental houses when perpetrators and victims were among the relationship statuses of the lover (44%). The occurrence of incidents in rental houses is almost twice as high as that outdoors, which stands at second place in terms of the rates of occurrence of IPH (25%). Why do IPH mostly occur in the rental house when perpetrators and victims are lovers? In fact, it is inseparable from the actual situation in China today, which includes profession of IPH perpetrators and victims, soaring urbanization and modernization in China today. As previously shown in this study, 47% of perpetrators and 49% of victims are migrant workers, and almost all of them come from peasant families (p:

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97%; v: 98%). Additionally, in terms of marital status, more than half of the perpetrators (57%) and victims (60%) are married, but the perpetrator-victim relationship status in IPH is nearly half of lovers (47%). Therefore, it is important to discuss why IPH perpetrators are mainly migrant workers and why many of them maintain intimate relationships, such as lover. Since China implemented its reform and opening policies in the early 1980s, its process of urbanization and modernization has been significantly accelerated (Xue & Zhong, 2012). Such soaring urbanization and modernization have brought profound changes to Chinese society. The most obvious perception of such changes to most Chinese people is mass population mobility and profound changes in individual concepts (Liang et al., 2002). After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China began to implement reform in rural areas, which resulted in the liberation of many surplus rural laborers from the land and the rapid development of township enterprises to absorb such rural laborers. During this period, migrant workers mainly left their own land to work in the local township enterprise. In the 1990s, with the development of China’s market economy, the eastern coastal areas and large cities had an increasingly strong demand for labor because such areas remained rapidly industrialized at that time. Accordingly, many farmers left their hometown to work or do business in cities (Zhu, 2016). Although large numbers of farmers flowed to cities, cities do not regard them as city dwellers. They and city dwellers still maintain the urban–rural dual system of traditional Chinese society in terms of income, job stability, and social welfare. In other words, they truly have not integrated into the city where they live. Correspondingly, they do not enjoy the same treatment as city dwellers in terms of housing, family reunion, children’s schooling, and medical care (Frenkel & Yu, 2015). In addition, due to the relatively low level of education of migrant workers, it is difficult for them to find high-income and stable jobs in highly competitive cities. Therefore, it is almost impossible for them to settle in cities and live a normal life in cities (Songyan, 2004). In this way, one of the couples often works in cities to earn money to support their family, while the other stays at their hometown to take care of the elderly and children. This is the most common phenomenon for migrant workers in Chinese cities today. For most migrant worker couples, it is only during the Spring Festival that they can get together and live a normal family life. At other times, migrant worker couples rarely have the opportunity to meet each other within a whole year. With limited income and high rents, even for couples who work together in the same city, it is impossible for them to settle down in the city and lead a normal family life (Zhao, 2021). As discussed in the correlation between profession and relationship status, most migrant workers keep living alone in their unfamiliar cities for a long time, and their personal emotional needs are in fact completely concealed by the pressure of their life. With industry upgrading, economic development models transforming, and various national guarantee policies implementing, the income of migrant workers has obviously continued to increase in recent years, but most migrant workers still have no ability to settle down in cities and live a normal life (Ren et al., 2018). This objectively caused the couples of migrant workers to keep living apart for a long time, and their normal emotional needs could not be met. In addition, with China’s rapid

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modernization, people’s concepts of marriage, family and intimacy have undergone great changes. Maintaining close relationships with people outside of marriage is no longer a heinous thing in China today. In contrast, many people think it is something to be proud of. Therefore, there is no conceptual obstacle for migrant workers to maintain intimate relationships with people outside their marriages. At the same time, with the popularity of the internet, smartphones, and dating websites and apps in China today, it is very convenient for migrant workers to find intimate partners outside of marriage (Li, 2018; Ma and Cheng, 2005). The demonstrative effect of those with extramarital intimate partners allows more migrant workers to follow in their footsteps (Zhao, 2021). In this context, most temporary couples have appeared among Chinese migrant workers in recent years, which has become a true portrayal of the emotional life of these migrant workers (Zhao, 2021). For temporary couples, its most obvious feature is that the two parties still maintain legal spousal relationships with their own spouse while maintaining temporary sexual partnerships with others outside their marriage. Temporary couples live together and take care of each other when they work in cities to fill in the lack of emotional life and sexual needs caused by long-term separation from their wife or husband. However, once they leave the city where they work and return to their hometown, they still return to their married life as before. Therefore, so-called temporary couples are only “couples” in the city where both parties are working, and they will not interfere with each other’s marriage and family when they return their hometown (Li, 2018). When migrant workers find their intimate partners in various ways in the city, they will rent a house and live together as a temporary couple with the purpose of better enjoying the two-person world and saving their living expenses. In recent years, as the income of migrant workers has increased, an increasing number of migrant workers can rent a house outside to live as a temporary couple with their intimate partners (Ma and Cheng, 2005). Once they conflict with each other, IPH is much more likely to occur in rental houses. However, for some other perpetrators and victims who are in intimate relationship of lover because they have no fixed common residence, so some of IPHs occurred outdoors. Professionally, nearly half of perpetrators and victims in IPH are mainly migrant workers in the present study, and the main perpetrator-victim relationship status is lovers. Therefore, for those IPHs, the location of accidents is mainly in the rental house.

4.2.2.4

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Alcohol Use

Alcohol use means that perpetrators or victims drank alcohol when IPH occurred. In the existing studies, alcohol use is always regarded as a risk factor for assessing the risk of occurrence of IPH (Roberts, 2009; Graham et al., 2021; Spencer & Stith, 2020; Dawson & Piscitelli, 2017). However, with attempts to better understand and prevent IPH, some existing studies have also begun to address alcohol use as situational characteristics of IPH in parallel with the location of the incident and weapon use (Overstreet et al., 2020; Thomas et al., 2011). Regarding the characteristics of IPH

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perpetrators and victims, the current study dealt with the findings on alcohol use in IPH. In fact, previous research has continued to highlight the importance of continued focus and attention on identifying risk factors for IPH (Sheehan et al., 2015; Dobash et al., 2007; Spencer & Stith, 2020). In general, previous studies have linked IPH with both alcohol use and drug abuse (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; Oram et al., 2013; Roberts, 2009). Some studies identified that drug use was a stronger predictor of IPH perpetration than alcohol use (Campbell et al., 2003; Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019). However, Dobash and colleagues (2004) found that 37.9% of IPH perpetrators in their sample had problems with alcohol and 14.7% had problems with drug use. Although it may be unclear whether alcohol use is a stronger predictor of IPH, existing studies have found a connection between alcohol use and IPH perpetration (Spencer & Stith, 2020). In addition, even though the finding is more significant only among women than among men, some studies have shown that quarrels related to drinking increased the odds for IPH (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Furthermore, some studies identified that the victim being intoxicated at the time of the offense as well as quarrels mostly due to intoxication increased the likelihood of IPH among females (Salmi et al., 2009; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). As a risk factor, most studies have demonstrated that alcohol use increases the risk of IPH (Aldridge & Browne, 2003; Garcia et al., 2007), but this finding was not the case in some studies (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). The possible explanation for this is probably that alcohol intoxication at the time of the offense was very high among both the IPH and non-IPH perpetrators. However, when perpetrators drank alcohol, it is a risk factor for female victims but not for male victims in IPH (Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2012). Generally, when both males and females of intimate partners are drunk, violence from females tends to cause themselves to be killed by their intimate partners (Elisha et al., 2010; Swatt & He, 2006). For this reason, Weizmann-Henelius and his colleagues (2012) found that the state of intoxication more often always led to quarrels, which resulted in their death when their partners were also intoxicated. In Finland, some studies demonstrated that both perpetrators and victims were intoxicated at the time of the offense in 60% of IPHs (Salmi et al., 2009). In addition to being a typical risk factor, alcohol abuse is also considered a significant situational characteristic of IPH by researchers (Thomas et al., 2011; Kivivuori & Lehti, 2012; Overstreet et al., 2020). In this regard, some related studies suggest that perpetrator alcohol use is common during IPH incidents (Dobash et al., 2007; Sharps et al., 2003 Thomas et al., 2011), and a majority of IPH perpetrators have a history of substance use (Robert, 2009). According to some studies, the rate of such cases in IPH has increased by 85% (Spencer & Stith, 2020). Similar to these findings, Walsh and Hemenway (2005) found that an overwhelming proportion (70%) of IPH perpetrators were under the influence of alcohol use when the crime occurred. However, they found that alcohol use does not have a significant overall influence on IPH. Regarding this, some studies further compared the rate of alcohol use by perpetrators in nonlethal IPV and IPH and found that perpetrator alcohol use was less common in incidents resulting in IPH: perpetrators were intoxicated in approximately 47% of IPV cases (Dobash & Dobash, 2011), compared to 20–50% of IPH cases (Dobash

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Table 4.7 Relationship status and alcohol use in IPH Kind of relationship Alcohol

Chi-square tests

Spouse

Ex-spouse

Lover

With

26 (5.5)

1 (2.6)

6 (1.3)

Without

450 (94.5)

38 (97.4)

458 (98.7)

Pearson Chi-square

P

12.619

0.002

et al., 2007). Therefore, these studies have concluded that alcohol use appeared to be significant for IPV but was less important for IPH because most IPH perpetrators were not drunk at the time (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019; Dobash et al., 2007). In line with these findings, Overstreet and his colleagues (2020) identified that IPH was less likely to occur when the perpetrator was using alcohol at the time of the incidents. The reason for this may be that intoxication weakens or disorients an attacker, thereby reducing the possibility of homicide occurring during violent encounters. In the case of alcohol use, whether as a risk factor or as a situational factor, what significance does it have for the occurrence of IPH in China? Furthermore, what significance does it have for IPH in different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses? As illustrated in Table 4.7, whether among spouses, ex-spouses or lovers, almost all the perpetrators had no alcohol use when they committed IPH, especially the perpetrators with the status of lover (spouse: 95%; ex-spouse: 97%; lover: 99%). However, for perpetrators who used alcohol, most of them had a relationship of spouse with a victim (6%), and perpetrators among ex-spouses and lovers used alcohol very rarely (ex-spouse: 3%; lover: 1%). This illustrated that alcohol use has almost no significance for the occurrence of IPH in China. However, what needs to be explained is why perpetrators among intimate spouse relationships use alcohol the most in China? Regarding the violence among spouse, some. Studies have shown that such violence from alcohol users, especially from husbands, is the result of multiple factors, among which economic reasons are an important external reason (Brisibe et al., 2012; Galvani, 2006). In line with these findings, some studies illustrated that violence from drunk husbands could decrease by 20% when wives’ income increased by 20 dollars (Looman et al., 2004). In fact, the profession of the person is directly related to the income of one family, and the income of unemployed or manual laborers is always low. The results of some studies show that IPH perpetrators who have alcohol use and domestic violence are more unemployed and engaged in physical labor, and their family income is relatively low (Chowdhury et al., 2021; Cao et al., 2014). In general, the impact of poor family financial status on the use of domestic violence by alcohol drinkers may have the following aspects. First, perpetrators would always take their anger out on their family numbers due to their dissatisfaction with the lower family financial status, which always results in domestic violence (Ahmadabadi et al., 2020; Bell, 2003). Second, it is so easy for alcohol users with lower family financial status to have a

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sense of inferiority and thus reduce their interactions with others and society, thereby increasing their risk of domestic violence (Haobijam & Singh, 2021). Third, unemployed alcohol users face great social pressure, which causes their dissatisfaction with society, thus making it easier to relieve their mental pressure and dissatisfaction by using violence against their families (Mayshak et al., 2020; Yuan and Hesket, 2019). In addition to alcohol use due to low income, which leads to violence against family members, the decline in the quality of marriage due to alcohol use is also an important cause of domestic violence. In some studies, alcohol consumption has been shown to increase the risk of marital dysfunction (Halford & Osgarby, 1993). Together with anger, alcohol use hastens the rate at which marriages deteriorate (Heyman et al., 1995), and it increases the likelihood of domestic violence (FalsStewart, 2003). Therefore, some studies have established the significance of alcohol use in predicting marital violence (Chartier & Caetano, 2012; Johns et al., 2007). In this regard, previous studies have reported a negative association between alcohol use and marital satisfaction (Homish & Leonard, 2007). Whisman et al. (2006) found that people with lower marital satisfaction were 3.7 times more likely to have problems with drinking than satisfied partners. Overall, due to alcohol use, the decrease in marital satisfaction is mainly reflected in the following aspects: poor spousal communication; increased anger and distress; reduced intimacy and sexual desire; and increased marital abuse (Dethier et al., 2011; Stuart et al., 2003), which objectively increase the risk of domestic violence (Henning & Connor-Smith, 2011). From another perspective, the evidence in some studies suggested that cessation of problem drinking after alcoholism treatment involving the spouse is associated with significant and substantial reductions in marital violence (Whittle & Hall, 2018). For perpetrators in intimate relationships with spouses, whether their alcohol use caused domestic violence due to lower socioeconomic factors or due to lower marital satisfaction, these findings provide an important clue to illustrate why many more perpetrators in such intimate relationships have alcohol than perpetrators in other relationships. In terms of financial status, the profession engaged by the perpetrator is an important factor to show their economic status in society. As found in the perpetrator profession, almost half of perpetrators are engaged in lower-income professions, such as peasants (48%) and migrant workers (47%). Additionally, almost all the perpetrators come from peasant families (97%). In China, all those engaged in such professions are manual workers with lower incomes, so their economic status is indeed very low. Together with a great pressure of life, these people will always relieve the pressure in their lives by drinking. However, the ineffective results of relieving pressure from alcohol use, together with the inability to change the lower family financial status, will increase their anger toward their family members, thereby resulting in domestic violence. Additionally, for these perpetrators, their lower financial status and the resulting inferiority will create obstacles to their social interactions. Once they encounter setbacks in their life, they will seek to use violence against their family number. To some extent, it is with alcohol to relieve various pressures of lower economic status that perpetrators use violence against their family number. On the other hand, it has been found that the negative association between alcohol

4.2 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship …

123

use and marital satisfaction has also been identified in China. As shown in this study, for both perpetrators and victims of IPH, almost all of them were unsatisfied with their marriage (p: 99.5%; v: 99.3%). To some extent, alcohol use plays the leading role in decreasing satisfaction with marital satisfaction. Alcohol use always results in poor spousal communication, anger and distress and reduces intimacy between spouses. Owing to alcohol use, perpetrators with lower economic status will make obstacles to their social interactions and lower satisfaction in marriage. Once they encounter various contradictions in life, their normal ways to relieve their anxiety and dissatisfaction are blocked. Therefore, it is easy for them to turn their anger and pressure from life and lower economic status into violence against their family members. Therefore, from the perspectives of economic status and marital satisfaction, it is reasonable to illustrate why perpetrators in spouse relationships have many more chances to use violence against their husband or wife.

4.2.2.5

Perpetrator-Victim Relationship and Directly Caused IPH Events

What events causes IPH to occur? In this regard, although some researchers dealt with it as a risk factor (Morrison et al., 2020; Spencer & Stith, 2020) or as a situational characteristic (Thomas et al., 2011; Overstreet et al., 2021) in previous studies, there is still a lack of targeted studies on this issue in previous research. Research has identified some of the events that directly caused the occurrence of IPH (Shuhong, 2020). Some studies showed that a woman’s attempt to leave an abuser was the precipitating factor in 45 percent of the murders of women by their intimate partners (Block, 2003). Others found that the severe drinking problem of perpetrators increases the risk for lethal and violent victimization of persons in intimate partner relationships (Cunha & Gonçalves, 2019). With regard to this, some studies show that more than two-thirds of the IPH perpetrators who commit homicide used alcohol, or both, during the incident (Sharps et al., 2003). Additionally, emotional distress, family conflicts and slight alterations are the most common events that directly cause the occurrence of IPH (Matiasa et al., 2020; Adinkrah, 2014). In some studies, serious alterations were the most important directly caused event, accounting for 27% (Wang & Ni, 2020). Many studies have found that most perpetrators have ideas such as “suddenly want to kill her” or “suddenly plan to commit suicide after killing her” after they have serious altercations with their intimate partners (Wang, 2018). Overall, the following items are usually regarded as events that directly caused the occurrence of IPH in most studies: “divorce dispute”, “doubt that other party has an affair with other”, “emotional dispute”, “divorce is unsuccessful”, “trivial matter”, and “quarrel about trivial matter”. Among such events, some studies identified that “emotional conflict” (34%), “doubt that other party has an affair with other” (24%) and “quarrel about trivial matter” (26%) are the three significant events that directly caused the occurrence of IPH (Sui, 2020). What events directly cause the occurrence of IPH? Additionally, among different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses, what are the differences in the kinds and

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Table 4.8 Directly-caused-homicide events and relationship status Relationship status Spouse Directly-caused- homicide events

Chi-square Tests

Ex-spouse

Lover

Break up

45 (9.5)

14 (35.9) 228 (49.1)

Trivial matter

220 (46.2)

10 (25.6) 59 (12.7)

Menaced by partner

4 (0.8)

0 (0.0)

12 (2.6)

Suspicion of being betrayed

79 (16.6)

3 (7.7)

52 (11.2)

To be betrayed

88 (18.5)

6 (15.4)

43 (9.3)

Economic dispute

33 (6.9)

5 (12.8)

63 (13.6)

Forced sex

7 (1.5)

1 (2.6)

7 (1.5)

Pearson Chi-square

P

252.385

0.000

significance of these events? To answer these questions and to obtain an in-depth understanding of this lethal interpersonal violence, we chose the following events as variables to directly address IPH events with reference to other previous studies: “breakup”, “trivial matter”, “being threatened by the partner”, “suspicion of being betrayal”, “actual betrayal”, “economic dispute”, and “forced sex”. As seen in Table 4.8, these seven direct factors can cause IPH. Of these, among spouses, “trivial matters” were most significant (46%), followed by “actual betrayal” (19%). Other events, such as “being threatened by the partner” (1%) and “forced sex” (2%), have very limited significance. Among ex-spouses, “breakup” (36%) and “trivial matters” (26%) were major factors. Other events, such as “being threatened by the partner” (0%) and “forced sex” (3%), had a limited impact. Between lovers, “breakup” was a major factor (49%), but other events such as “forced sex” (2%) and “being threatened by the partner” (3%) had very limited significance. Table 4.8 shows that there was a decisive event in different perpetrator-victim relationship statuses, which directly caused the occurrence of IPH. For example, the event of “trivial matter” is the most significant event in the relationship status of spouses (46%). Similarly, the most decisive event in the relationship status of ex-spouses is “breakup” (36%). In the relationship status of lover, the most decisive event is “breakup” (49%). What needs to be explained is why such an event has the most significant effect on the occurrence of IPH in the different relationship statuses. In the relationship status of spouses, why is “trivial matter” the most significant in causing the occurrence of IPH among other matters? The matter of “trivial matter” refers to very small and unimportant things that happen in daily family life, such as washing clothes and washing dishes in the family. These things seem to be the daily chores of ordinary families, but they are usually the fuse that causes the occurrence of IPH. From IPH reported in recent years, we found that most IPH occurred because of the trivial matters between spouses (Ding, 2021). For this, we can provide much more explanation from the following aspects:

4.2 Significance of the Perpetrator-Victim Relationship …

125

First, there is a lack of effective communication between Chinese couples, so it is easy for their daily conflicts to accumulate together. Although Chinese couples live together every day and company each other in daily life, they are unwilling to communicate with each other when facing various problems. This is mainly the result of the influence of traditional Chinese culture. This culture expects that a man should be enduring and strong regardless of whether he or she is outside or in the family. When a man encounters difficulties or pressure outside the family, he needs to face it steadily, and when he returns to his home, he should not tell his lover about his pressure and difficulties outside because a man should face these difficulties and pressures alone (Li et al., 2019; Yi & Chien, 2006). This is the traditional culture that men must be responsible. In addition, when the husband is working hard to support the family outside, his wife will also endure not telling her husband about her troubles in life; otherwise, she will be regarded as a woman who does not know how to love her husband. This is because the wife not only cannot share the worries together with her husband but also increases her husband’s distress. Therefore, it is difficult for Chinese couples to communicate with each other when they encounter problems (Chi et al., 2020; Liu & Jackson, 2019). With the lack of effective communication between couples, the conflicts between them are increasing, thus correspondingly causing many negative effects on their marital relationship. Once such conflicts accumulate to a certain extent, even trivial matter in daily life can cause great conflicts between couples (Ripley et al., 2020). Second, the competition in Chinese society is growing, and every family is going forward with carrying heavy burdens, which objectively increases the pressure of the couples. Compared with the early stage of reform and opening to the outside world in China, society has undergone great changes in the economic development model and economic structure. Every member of society has personally felt the great pressure brought about by the rapid development of society and economic transformation (Gu & Ming, 2021). For those people at the bottom of society, due to their lower education and limited social network, most of them are engaged in manual labor (Im, 2014). Therefore, they face greater competitive pressures in such soaring developing society. When discussing the characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims, this study finds that 97% of perpetrators and 98% of victims come from peasant families, and almost half of them work as peasants (perpetrators: 48%; victims: 46%) and migrant workers (perpetrators: 47%; victims: 49%). Such professions and family backgrounds are often regarded as groups of people with lower socioeconomic status in China (Zhao, 2021). For husbands who are in this socioeconomic status and are struggling to support their families, limited income, heavy manual labor, and high pressure often cause physical and mental exhaustion and depression (Jia & Zhang, 2017). Moreover, the frustrations and difficulties they encountered outside and the lower income made them more willing to close themselves. Even for their wife, they were reluctant to reveal her the pressure they were undertaking (Johnson et al., 2015). Therefore, there stands a communication barrier between them and their wives, which objectively prevents them from reducing stress. Once their wives talk nineteen to the dozen on some trivial matters, the irritability they hide deep in their hearts will burst out instantly, thereby angering their wives. In this case, the accumulated pressure of

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the husband will be released through his anger toward his wife, which will result in lethal interpersonal violence. To some extent, these trivial matters are just a fuse for intimate partner homicide. Third, contradictions between couples are often hidden and rarely known by outsiders, so the possibility and ways to resolve such conflicts are greatly reduced in daily life (Chi et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2015). Once such contradictions accumulate to a certain extent, these contradictions often lead to serious conflicts between couples because of some trivial matter. If the contradictions between couples can be resolved in time, it will avoid the escalation of the contradictions and negatively affect the relationship between couples (Li et al., 2019). Although the resolution of contradictions depends more on the efforts of both parties, the timely help and effective mediation of others are equally very important (Li et al., 2019). Especially when there lies a lack of communication between the two parties in the conflict, the timely intervention of mediation from other people is very effective to avoid the expansion of the conflict (Robles et al., 2006). Unlike other contradictions, the contradictions between husbands and wives often involve personal privacy and are always influenced by the notion of “do not wash your dirty linen in public” in traditional Chinese culture, which makes most couples hesitate to talk about their contradictions with their own couples before others (Dillon et al., 2015). Therefore, outsiders have few opportunities to know the contradictions of couples. Moreover, even if the family members or friends around the couples feel that there lie contradictions between the couples, they will not actively ask each other about their contradictions or provide help to solve the conflict between the couples (Hardy et al., 2015). This is because if couples do not talk actively about the contradiction they encounter, what they inquire about will cause embarrassment to the parties. If the contradiction between couples remains unsolved for a long time and there are communication obstacles between the couples, then these daily contradictions will accumulate into serious contradictions between the husband and wife (Liu & Jackson, 2019). Once the couple has quarrels due to trivial matters, long-term accumulated contradictions will burst instantly and cause domestic violence and even fatal violence against the other side. Most researchers who include intimate relationship status in their publications on IPH tend to identify the relationship status of “separated” and “divorce” as risk factors for these adverse outcomes (Ellis et al., 2015; Ide et al., 2010; Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Spencer & Stith, 2020). Intimate partner separation is generally defined as a process characterized by the intentional withdrawal of physical and emotional accessibility by one or both intimate partners that one or both perceive as contingent and temporary or noncontingent and permanent (Ellis et al., 2015). Intimate partner relationship separation has different subsets in the different relationship statuses. For example, marital separation is a subset of intimate relationship separation when the perpetrator and victim are spouse. Overall, for intimate partners, their separation means the end of their intimate relationship. In this study, “break up” is used instead of “separation” to describe the end of the intimate relationship between the partners. “Separation” sometimes does not completely express the facts of relationship in the different intimate relationship statues. For example, the couple is divorced, and their relationship is over, but they may still live together. For the ex-spouse, their

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127

relationship “break up” means that one of them has resumed another love, while in the intimate relationship of lover, relationship “break up” refers that the intimate relationship has ended physically and emotionally. In the ex-spouse relationship status, why is the event that directly causes the occurrence of IPH mainly “break up”? Table 4.8 shows that relationship “break up” accounts for up to 36% of all the events that directly cause IPH. For the ex-spouse, although they have ended their legal marriage relationship and their relationship is legal separation, they cannot in fact completely cut off the contact because of their children, common property, and the families of both parties. In this special relationship, if one of them falls in love with another, the other side will be emotionally unacceptable. For example, ex-wife starts a date with another man, then the ex-husband will not be emotionally acceptable and feel very angry with it. The two sides are likely to intensify their conflict with some trifle matters, causing deadly violence against the other side. In this relationship status, “trivial matter” is second only to “break up” in its proportion, accounting for 26%. Therefore, “trivial matter” is also important in this relationship status. Compared with these two kinds of events, other events have relatively low significance, such as “suspicion of being betrayed” (8%) and “forced sex” (3%). This fact can also be funded in the relationship status of the spouse. In such relationship statuses, except “trivial matter” and “to be betrayed”, other events, such as “menaced by partner” (1%), “economic dispute” (7%) and “forced sex” (2%), have very limited significance. Leaving or threatening by female partners to end the intimate relationship has been cited in many studies as the event that triggers a violent response against female intimates (Campbell, 2012; Johnson & Hotton, 2003; Spencer & Stith, 2020). Furthermore, some studies have determined how long after the separation between the two parties, lethal domestic violence against the intimate partner is more likely to occur (Vatnar et al., 2019). For example, Hotton (2001) found that nearly half of all instances of IPH occurred within two months of separation. Findings in a cross-national study identified that physical and legal separation were significant risk factors within the first three months of estrangement (Vatnar et al., 2019). Although the current study does not determine how long the separation brings to the victim a greater risk of being victimized, the relationship “break up” is indeed the most significant risk factor for the victims when they are among the relationship status of lover. As shown in Table 4.8, compared with other directly- caused events, “break up” occupies an absolute dominant position, accounting for nearly half (49%) when the perpetrator and victim are lover. Compared with persons with other relationship statuses, lovers are relatively pure in love, and love is the most important bond between them. Therefore, the intimate relationship of the lover is very important for each party in this relationship status. Once one of the partners terminates this intimate relationship, the other will have a deep sense of frustration and will use lethal domestic violence against their lovers in some situations.

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Parker, K. F., Mancik, S., & Richard Stansfield, R. (2017). American crime drops: Investigating the breaks, dips and drops in temporal homicide. Social Science Research, 64, 154–170. Perelli-Harris, B., Sigle-Rushton, W., Kreyenfeld, M., Lappegård, T., Keizer, R., & Berghammer, C. (2010). The educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation in Europe. Population and Development Review, 36(4), 775–801. Petersson, J., Strand, S., & Selenius, H. (2019). Risk factors for intimate partner violence: A comparison of antisocial and family-only perpetrators. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 34(2), 219–239. Peterson, C., Liu, Y., Merrick, M., Basile, K. C., & Simon, T. R. (2019). Lifetime number of perpetrators and victim–offender relationship status per U.S. victim of intimate partner, sexual violence, or stalking. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Pimentel, E.E. (1994). Determinants of marriage quality in urban China. Pimentel University of Michigan. Pietrzak, R. H., Laird, J. D., Stevens, D. A., & Thompson, N. S. (2002). Sex differences in human jealousy: A coordinated study of forced-choice, continuous rating-scale, and physiological responses on the same subjects. Evolution and Human Behavior., 23, 83–94. Puzone, C., Saltzman, L., Kresnow, M., Thompson, M. & Mercy, J. (2000). Natioinal trends in intimate partner homicide, United States, 1976–1995. Violence Against Women, 6, 409–425. Reckdenwald, A., Szalewski, A., & Yohros, A. (2019). Place, Injury Patterns, and Female-Victim Intimate Partner Homicide. Violence against Women, 25(6), 654–676. Reckdenwald, A., & Parker, K. F. (2012). Understanding the Change in Male and Female Intimate Partner Homicide Over Time: A Policy-and Theory-Relevant Investigation. Feminist Criminology, 7(3), 167–195. Regoeczi, W. C., & Riedel, M. (2003). The application of missing data estimation models to the problem of unknown victim/offender relationships in homicide cases. Journal of Quantitative Criminology., 19, 155–183. Repetti, R. 2001. “Searching for the Roots of Marital ConÀict in Uxoricides and Uxorious Husbands.” Pp. 47–55 in Couples in ConÀict, edited by A. Booth, A.C. Crouter, and M. Clements. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ren, S., Zhang, J., & Hennessy, D. A. (2018). Psychological strains and psychological distress among Chinese rural migrant workers. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 27(2), 231–241. Rennison, C. M., DeKeseredy, W. S., & Dragiewicz, M. (2013). Intimate relationship status variations in violence against women: Urban, suburban, and rural differences. Violence Against Women. 19 (11):1312–1330. Reckdenwald, A., & Simone, S. (2017). Injury Patterns for Homicide Followed by Suicide by the Relationship Between Victims and Offenders. Homicide Studies., 21, 111–132. Ripley, J. S., Sells, J. N., Miller, V., Wang, Q., Wen, L., Lau, C. P. T., & Worthington, E. L. (2020). Promoting Healthy Marriages in Chinese Church Communities: Survey of Chinese Couples’ Marriages, Virtue-Based Training for Leaders, and Outcomes. The Family Journal, 28(3), 319– 328. Roberts, D. W. (2009). Intimate Partner Homicide: Relationships to Alcohol and Firearms. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 25(1), 67–88. Robles, T. F., Shaffer, V. A., Malarkey, W. B., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2006). Positive behaviors during marital conflict: Influences on stress hormones. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23(2), 305–325. Rodriquez, E., Lasch, K., & Lee, J. (2001). Family violence, employment status, welfare benefits, and alcohol drinking in the United States: What is the relation?”. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 55(3), 172–178. Rosenfeld, R. (2000). Patterns in adult homicide: 1980–1995. In A. Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drops in America (pp. 130–163). Cambridge University Press. Sabri, B., Campbell, J. C., & Dabby, F. C. (2016). Gender differences in intimate partner homicides among ethnic sub-groups of Asians. Violence Against Women, 22 (4), 432–453.

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Chapter 5

Main Findings and Implications for Practice, Research, and Policy

Intimate partner homicide (IPH), a lethal form of interpersonal violence, has a significant impact on both society and individuals in terms of health, social welfare, and criminal justice. Accordingly, it has been increasingly recognized as a serious and pervasive global public health problem. To address this lethal form of interpersonal violence, some countries have set up a comprehensive range of coordinated services that include support from the police and criminal justice systems as well as health and social services. However, the decline in IPH is modest in comparison to the decline in other types of homicide and has even remained relatively constant over time. In fact, the decline in IPH is predominantly found among female perpetrators targeting mal victim, whereas the drop in intimate partner femicide perpetrated by male partners is comparably modest. To date, IPH remains a widespread public health concern. In China, soaring rapid urbanization and modernization have brought about a high rate of such lethal interpersonal violence. Over the past 3 decades, numerous countries have conducted groundbreaking work and developed IPV lethality risk assessment tools to document the problem of IPH and brought this issue to public attention. With the rise in public awareness of and policy response to IPH, studies on IPH have also steadily grown. Theories describing why IPH occurs are foundational to IPH prevention efforts. In fact, studies on IPH perpetration and its prevention are guided by numerous different theories, and a considerable body of literature exists that describes these theories, as well as their potential strengths and imitations. For these theories, some provide generalist approaches, while some provide only partial explanatory perspectives. The theoretical explanatory landscape applied to IPH is compelling because of the different versions. Even though almost all researchers invariably use some theoretical perspectives to help them understand and ultimately work to prevent IPH perpetration, there are also two key gaps in current theorizing on why IPH occurs: the absence of integrated theories and a conceptual organizing framework that draws on multiple theoretical perspectives and empirical research. Therefore, there is an urgent need to logically build and develop integrated theories on IPH perpetration with a focus on understanding why IPH occurs. Such integrated theories can help unify and leverage © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Zhao, The Perpetrator-Victim Relationship: An Important Clue to Understanding Intimate Partner Homicide in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8942-0_5

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the strengths of disparate strains of thought to make it possible to obtain an in-depth understanding of IPH perpetration and make research on this topic more efficient and effective in finding ways to prevent IPH. To obtain illuminating insight into IPH and to make tangible progress in reducing and preventing such lethal interpersonal violence, studies have focused on demonstrating the characteristics and identifying the risk factors involved in IPH. To achieve this, previous studies generally used descriptive and comparative analysis methods to determine the characteristics of IPH. To illustrate the demographic characteristics of IPH perpetrators and victims, many more studies have performed descriptive analyses, such as the age disparity between perpetrators and victims and the gendered nature of IPH, together with risk factors, such as alcohol use, illicit drug use and criminal careers. With comparative analysis, some studies discuss the differences in the characteristics of perpetrators of victims between IPH and IPV and between IPH and non-IPH. These findings and discussion provide promise and comparation objects for identifying the characteristics of IPH in China. With the descriptive analysis, the current study has determined the characteristics of perpetrators and victims of IPH in China, such as gender, profession, family background, marital status, experience to use violence and marital satisfaction. At the same time, to seek a deeper understanding of these characteristics, this study compared these characteristics with previous findings in other studies. The findings confirm prior research in which IPH has been shown to be a gendered crime, whereby males are overrepresented as perpetrators of IPH, although when women kill, they are more likely to kill an intimate partner than someone else. In fact, the pattern, which women are at greater risk of being killed by an intimate partner or former partner than men, is consistent across time and countries. Consistent with the “gender perspective,” which has attempted to explain the gendered nature of IPH, the findings in this study identify that IPH is a gender-specific crime with most male perpetrators and female victims. The findings in many studies illustrate the relationship between lower socioeconomic status and the risk of IPH. In line with such previous research, this study also identified that individuals with lower socioeconomic status have a greater chance of being IPH perpetrators and victims. In China, almost all perpetrators and victims were farmers and migrant workers in IPH. These people are generally regarded as signs of lower socioeconomic status in China today. At the same time, such lower socioeconomic status can also be identified from the family background of the perpetrator and victim of IPH. The findings illustrated that more than 97% of the perpetrators and victims were from peasant families, but less than 1% of them were from a white-collar worker’s family. Peasant families have not received good education since childhood, so they rarely find good jobs and stable income as adults. Therefore, they constitute the main members of the group committing violent crimes of all kinds in China. Studies have highlighted the importance of identifying risk factors causing IPH and developing risk assessment tolls to predict risk factors. For the perpetrator, there stands a widespread statement borne out of prior research that they differ from the prototypical “dangerous killer,” instead of “ordinary men”: without a history of violence, alcohol, or drugs abuse, with a good income, and more often employed.

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Consistent with these findings, the results in this study support the fact that the perpetrators of IPH were “ordinary men” in many ways. As far as violence is considered to have strong associations with IPH, the finding in this study shows that 96% of IPH perpetrators and 95% of the victims had no experience of using violence. In addition, regarding criminal records, most of the perpetrators had no criminal records (97%), and more than 97% of them had no alcohol when they committed homicide. Nevertheless, for other risk factors, it is shown that a significant factor is “satisfaction with the marriage.” For those who were married, the finding identifies that almost all perpetrators and victims of IPH were not satisfied with their marriage (perpetrator: 99.5%; victim: 94.8%). Although a growing body of research has revealed the value of perpetrator-victim relationships in understanding the dynamics of IPH, perpetrator-victim relationships connected to the development and perpetuation of IPH have not been considered, as these studies have tended to treat IPH as a problem affecting an individual rather than both partners. After acknowledging the significant impact of intimate relationships on a comprehensive understanding of IPH, a theme that consistently emerges from the literature is the link between IPH and perpetrator-victim relationships. In the literature, Some scholars have argued that intimate relationships are significant in identifying risk factors and demonstrating the trend in decreasing rates of IPH. Others have analyzed the value of the state and status of intimate relationships to better understand IPH. By examining the correlation among the variables particular to intimate relationships and other variables such as characteristics of IPH and risk factors, a deeper understanding of IPH has emerged. At the same time, with the correlation analysis, this study has demonstrated that perpetrator-victim relationship status and state are an important clue in understanding and explaining IPH in the context of China today. Over the past couple of decades, there have been mixed findings on the influence of the status and state of the perpetrator-victim relationship on IPH. The risk of IPH is often greater in marriages than in cohabiting and dating relationships. In contrast, this study found that “lovers”—including cohabiters and dating individuals—regardless of the gender of the perpetrator, were just as likely to engage in IPH as married individuals. The previous findings identified that some IPH perpetrators always suffer from reactions to situational circumstances, especially distress over the termination of the intimate relationship. This finding is replicated in this study, wherein most instances of IPH were caused by the termination of the intimate relationship, especially when the perpetrator and victim were lovers and ex-spouses. Furthermore, among spouses, the major factor was “trivial matters.” In line with previous findings, this study presents the characteristics of the situational nature of IPH in China. In terms of intimate relationship status, the findings of this study illustrate that more than 60% of intimate partners have experienced marriage, more than 48% of relationships are with a lover and only 49% are with a spouse. Thus, in the intimate partner relationship, almost half of the Chinese in this study maintain their intimate partner relationship with people other than their own spouses. Why do

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so many Chinese keep this extramarital intimate partnership? What is the significance of this intimate partnership status in explaining IPH in China? In fact, what has been noticeably absent thus far in policing and academic research on IPH is a detailed understanding and explanation of interpersonal violence with an idea of the perpetrator-victim relationship. With soaring modernization and urbanization, China has experienced the largest population migration in history, wherein migrants moved from rural and economically undeveloped areas to economically developed urban areas. On the one hand, this large-scale population migration has caused a major change in the traditional structure of the Chinese family and its functions. Conversely, with China’s economic development and cultural progress, sexual equality and individual freedom have gradually gained popular support. Traditional Chinese ideas around love and marriage have undergone great changes. The intimate partner relationship is not only limited to that of a wife and husband in the traditional family but also extends to various types of intimate partner relationships that have arisen over time. Most Chinese people have extramarital affairs and “lovers” outside their marriage. The emergence of many intimate relationships outside marriage conflicts with the traditional concept of marriage and family and finally makes a high rate of IPH continue to prevail in China. Therefore, such intimate partnerships are important in understanding and explaining IPH in the context of China today. The data in this study show that 97% of the perpetrators and victims came from peasant families and almost half were migrant workers. Therefore, intimate relationships among migrant workers and peasants are critical to explaining IPH in China. With large-scale urbanization in China, a great number of peasants left their villages to work and live in cities. When they move to the city to work, they enter a society of strangers, and their social interactions are with strangers. This has caused traditional marriage constraints to weaken over time. At the same time, migrant workers have fewer possibilities of settling down, and living normal families lives with their spouses in the city because their spouses, especially women, have to stay back in their hometowns to take care of the elderly and raise the children. The low incomes of migrant workers also make it difficult to pay high rent. These factors force migrant workers to separate from their spouses for long periods of time, which causes their marriages to exist only in name. With the popularity of the internet, smartphones, and dating websites and apps in China, it is very convenient for migrant workers to find intimate partners outside of marriage. Furthermore, the demonstrative effect of those with extramarital intimate partners allows more migrant workers to follow in their footsteps. Thus, more extramarital affairs have sprung up among migrant workers in China. The very existence of such extramarital relationships, which conflicts with the traditional Chinese concepts of marriage and family, has caused several instances of IPH in China. The findings of this study show that this lethal interpersonal violence that someone kills their intimate partner has increasingly become a serious public health and social problem with soaring urbanization and modernization in China today. In the context of China today, a thorough understanding of the basic characteristics of IPH is an

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important part of making reasonable preventive policies and taking effective preventive measures. The findings in this study identify that the perpetrator-victim relationship is an important clue in understanding IPH in the context of China today. Furthermore, this study tries to offer practitioners and researchers focused on IPH intervention and prevention different theories used to explain why someone might kill their current or former intimate partner. Analyzing these various theories and perspectives underscores the likely importance of addressing characteristics as well as risk and protective factors in efforts to understand IPH perpetration in the context of China today. However, there are no integrated theories that seek to understand IPH from different theoretical perspectives, although each of these theories has important roles in IPH prevention work. Therefore, by referring to the basic characteristics of IPH shown in different countries and different regions, we try to combine different perspectives to build a comprehensive theoretical framework in the field to obtain a deep understanding of IPH. This try may be the theoretical effort direction of future research in the field. At the same time, this effort has also prompted scholars and practitioners to strengthen the cooperation of theoretical research and prevention in the field of IPH as well as develop the theory on IPH and prevention research and practice. In addition, it can be determined from the findings in this study that the rapid increase in the number of instances of IPH is closely related to the soaring urbanization and modernization in China today, which resulted in the largest population migration in history and the great changes in family structure and marriage concept among people. With intensive competition and limited education, it is very difficult for these migrant workers to settle in the city and live a normal family life, and their legitimate rights cannot be reasonably protected. Therefore, they are always marginalized in the city, which makes it very difficult to deal with their emotional problems reasonably. For these migrants, how the government can take measures to increase their economic income while effectively guaranteeing their basic rights, including family cohabitation rights, is a very urgent problem that needs to be resolved in China today. Furthermore, such soaring modernization and urbanization have also caused changes in people’s traditional concepts of marriage and family. Therefore, it is important to take measures to guide people to deal with their motional disputes reasonably and encourage people to be loyal to their marriage and family. The findings in this study have implications for further research, which should examine the influence of the state of estrangement among intimate partners along with urbanization in China on IPH. Research should focus on the duration of estrangement and identify ways to solve practical problems such as migrant workers’ settlement in cities from a policy perspective. It should also focus on reasonable explanations for a large number of instances of IPH in China even as the tolerance for nonmarital intimate relationships continues to grow in contemporary China.