Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-92sl5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T15:28:44.327Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking the Boundaries of Intimacy at the End of the Century: The Role of Victim-Defendant Relationship in Criminal Justice Decisionmaking Over Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Myrna Dawson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I investigate whether the degree of intimacy between victims and defendants affects legal responses to violence and how this association has changed over time. Using data on homicides between 1974 and 1996, I examine court outcomes in more than 1,000 cases. I demonstrate that intimacy matters at three criminal justice stages: charging, mode of conviction, and sentencing. However, moving beyond the traditional conceptualization of intimacy, I show that defendants who kill intimates do not always receive the same treatment, nor are all defendants who kill nonintimates treated similarly. Finally, I show that criminal justice leniency toward intimate violence is less evident in recent years.

Type
Articles Of General Interest
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2004 , pp. 105 - 138
Copyright
© 2004 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2002 Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association meetings in Toronto, Ontario. Special thanks to Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy for making some of the data used in this analysis available to the author. Thanks also to Jennifer Butters and Rosemary Gartner for providing feedback on earlier versions. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers and the editor of Law & Society Review.

References

Adams, Kenneth (1983) “The Effect of Evidentiary Factors on Charge Reduction,” 11 J. of Criminal Justice 525–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albonetti, Celesta A. (1991) “An Integration of Theories to Explain Judicial Discretion,” 38 Social Problems 247–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Mary P. (1999) The Social Organization of Law, 2d ed. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Howard S. (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Berk, Richard A. (1983) “An Introduction to Sample Selection Bias in Sociological Data,” 48 American Sociological Rev. 386–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berk, Richard A., & Ray, Subhash C. (1982) “Selection Bias in Sociological Data,” 11 Social Science Research 352–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Ilene Nagel, Kelly, William R., & Doyle, Patricia A. (1977) “Societal Reaction to Deviants: The Case of Criminal Defendants,” 42 American Sociological Rev. 743–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernstein, Ilene Nagel, Kick, Edward, Leung, Jan T., & Schultz, Barbara (1977) “Charge Reduction: An Intermediary Stage in the Process of Labeling Criminal Defendants,” 56 Social Forces 362–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Ilene Nagel, Cardascia, John, & Ross, Catherine E. (1979) “Defendant's Sex and Criminal Court Decisions,” in Alvarez, R. & Lutterman, K. G., eds., Discrimination in Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Bickle, G. S., & Peterson, Ruth D. (1991) “The Impact of Gender-Based Family Roles in Criminal Sentencing,” 38 Social Problems 372–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Donald (1976) The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Black, Donald (1993) The Social Structure of Right and Wrong. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Block, Richard (1981) “Victim-Offender Dynamics in Violent Crime,” 72 J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 743–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumstein, Albert, Cohen, Jacqueline, Martin, Susan E., & Tonry, Michael H., eds. (1983) Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Boris, Steven B. (1979) “Stereotypes and Dispositions for Criminal Homicide,” 17 Criminology 139–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brereton, David, & Casper, Jonathan D. (198182) “Does It Pay to Plead Guilty? Differential Sentencing and the Functioning of Criminal Courts,” 16 Law & Society Rev. 45–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Trevor (2000) Charging and Prosecution Policies in Cases of Spousal Assault: A Synthesis of Research, Academic and Judicial Responses. Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada.Google Scholar
Daly, Kathleen (1994) Gender, Crime and Punishment. London: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Daly, Kathleen, & Bordt, Rebecca L. (1995) “Sex Effects and Sentencing: An Analysis of the Statistical Literature,” 12 Justice Q. 143–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Robert C., & Smith, Barbara E. (1981) “Crimes Between Acquaintances: The Response of Criminal Courts,” 6 Victimology: An International Journal 175–87.Google Scholar
Dawson, Myrna (2001) Intimacy and Law: The Role of Victim-Defendant Relationship in Criminal Justice Decision-Making. Doctoral dissertation. Toronto: University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Decker, Scott (1993) “Exploring Victim-Offender Relationships in Homicide: The Role of Individual and Event Characteristics,” 10 Justice Q. 585–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobash, R. Emerson, & Dobash, Russell (1979) Violence Against Wives: A Case Against Patriarchy. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dobash, R. Emerson, & Dobash, Russell (1984) “The Nature and Antecedents of Violent Events,” 24 The British Journal of Criminology 269–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobash, R. Emerson, & Dobash, Russell (1992) Women, Violence and Social Change. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
EKOS Research Associates Inc. (2002) Public Attitudes Towards Family Violence: A Syndicated Study. Toronto: EKOS Research Associates Inc.Google Scholar
Emerson, Robert (1983) “Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making,” 17 Law & Society Rev. 425–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erez, Edna, & Tontodonato, Pamela (1990) “The Effect of Victim Participation in Sentencing on Sentence Outcomes,” 28 Criminology 451–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Kai (1964) “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance,” in Becker, H. S., ed., The Other Side: Perspectives on Deviance. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Farrell, Ronald, & Swigert, Victoria Lynn (1986) “Adjudication in Homicide: An Interpretative Analysis of the Effects of Defendant and Victim Social Characteristics,” 23 J. of Research in Crime and Delinquency 349–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferraro, Kathleen J., & Boychuk, Tascha (1992) “The Court's Response to Interpersonal Violence: A Comparison of Intimate and Nonintimate Assault,” in Buzawa, E. S. & Buzawa, C. G., eds., Domestic Violence: The Changing Criminal Justice Response. Westport, CT: Auburn House.Google Scholar
Fineman, Martha (1994) Preface to The Public Nature of Private Violence, by Fineman, Martha & Mykitiuk, Roxanne. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fox, John (1997) Applied Regression Analysis, Linear Models and Related Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Gill, Richard, & Brockman, Joan (1996) A Review of Section 264 (Criminal Harassment) of the Criminal Code of Canada. Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada.Google Scholar
Gottfredson, Michael, & Gottfredson, Denise (1988) Decision Making in Criminal Justice: Towards a Rational Exercise of Discretion, 2d ed. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Isabel, Chunn, Dorothy, & Boyle, Christine (1998) The Law of Homicide. Scarborough, Ontario: Carswell.Google Scholar
Hagan, John (1974) “Extra-Legal Attributes and Criminal Sentencing: An Assessment of a Sociological Viewpoint,” 8 Law & Society Rev. 357–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, John, & Bumiller, Kristin (1983) “Making Sense of Sentencing: A Review and Critique of Sentence Research,” in Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., Martin, S. E., & Tonry, M. H., eds., Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Hagan, John, Nagel, Irene, & Albonetti, Celesta (1980) “The Differential Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders in Ten Federal District Courts,” 45 American Sociological Rev. 802–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Health, Canada (1999) Two Steps Forward…One Step Back: An Overview of Canadian Initiatives and Resources to End Woman Abuse 1989–1997. Ottawa: Health Canada, Family Violence Prevention Unit.Google Scholar
Heckman, James J. (1976) “The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimation for Such Models,” 5 Annals of Economic and Social Measurement 475–92.Google Scholar
Heckman, James J. (1979) “Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error,” 47 Econometrics 153–61.Google Scholar
Hickman, Laura (1995) “The Impact of Intimate Victim-Offender Relationships on Sentencing in Felony Assault Cases,” Paper prepared for the Oregon Department of Corrections and presented at the American Society of Criminology meetings, San Diego, November 1997.Google Scholar
Horney, Julia, & Spohn, Cassia (1996) “The Influence of Blame and Believability Factors on the Processing of Simple Versus Aggravated Rape Cases,” 34 Criminology 135–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horwitz, Alan (1990) The Logic of Social Control. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, , Wilson, W. S., Finn, Mary A., Barry, Ruback, R., & Friedman, Robert R. (1996) “Individual and Contextual Influences on Sentence Lengths: Examining Political Conservatism,” 76 The Prison J. 398–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitsuse, John I., & Cicourel, Aaron V. (1963) “A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics,” 11 Social Problems 131–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleck, Gary (1985) “Life Support for Ailing Hypotheses: Modes of Summarizing the Evidence on the Death Penalty,” 46 American Sociological Rev. 783–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klepper, Steven, Nagin, Daniel, & Tierney, Luke-Jon (1983) “Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System: A Critical Appraisal of the Literature,” in Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., Martin, S. E., & Tonry, M. H., eds., Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, John H., & Steffensmeier, Darrell (1993) “Race and Imprisonment Decisions,” 34 The Sociological Q. 357–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaFree, Gary (1980) “The Effect of Sexual Stratification by Race on Official Reactions to Rape,” 45 American Sociological Rev. 842–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lizotte, Alan (1978) “Extra-Legal Factors in Chicago's Criminal Courts: Testing the Conflict Model of Criminal Justice,” 25 Social Problems 564–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loftin, Colin (1986) “Assaultive Violence as a Contagious Social Process,” 62 Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 550–5. pmid/3488791Google ScholarPubMed
London Family Court Clinic Inc. (1991) Wife Assault as a Crime: The Perspectives of Victims and Police Officers on a Charging Policy in London, Ontario From 1980–1990. Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada.Google Scholar
Lundsgaarde, Henry (1977) Murder in Space City: A Cultural Analysis of Houston Homicide Patterns. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn (1979) Plea Bargaining or Trial? Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Matoesian, Gregory M. (1995) “Language, Law, and Society: Policy Implications of the Kennedy Smith Rape Trial,” 29 Law & Society Rev. 669–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxfield, Michael G. (1989) “Circumstances in Supplementary Homicide Reports: Variety and Validity,” 27 Criminology 671–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFarlane, Judith M., Campbell, Jacquelyn C., Wilt, Susan, Sachs, Carolyn J., Ulrich, Yvonne, & Xu, Xiao (1999) “Stalking and Intimate Partner Femicide,” 3 Homicide Studies 300–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messner, Steven F., & Tardiff, Kenneth (1985) “The Social Ecology of Urban Homicide: An Application of the Routine Activities Approach,” 23 Criminology 241–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miethe, Terance D. (1987) “Stereotypical Conceptions and Criminal Processing: The Case of the Victim-Offender Relationship,” 4 Justice Q. 571–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miethe, Terance D., & Moore, Charles A. (1986) “Racial Differences in Criminal Processing: The Consequences of Model Selection on Conclusions About Differential Treatment,” 27 The Sociological Q. 217–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Barry (1991) “Distinguishing Between Murder and Manslaughter,” 141 New Law Journal 935–7, 969–71.Google Scholar
Myers, Martha A. (1979a) “Offender Parties and Official Reactions: Victims and Sentencing of Criminal Defendants,” 20 Sociological Q. 529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Martha A. (1979b) “Rule Departures and Making Law: Juries and Their Verdicts,” 13 Law & Society Rev. 781–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Martha A. (1980) “Predicting the Behavior of Law: A Test of Two Models,” 14 Law & Society Rev. 836–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Martha A. (1981) “Judges, Juries, and the Decision to Convict,” 9 J. of Criminal Justice 289–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Martha A., & Hagan, John (1979) “Private and Public Trouble: Prosecutors and the Allocation of Court Resources,” 26 Social Problems 439–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odubekun, Lola (1992) “A Structural Approach to Differential Gender Sentencing,” 24 Criminal Justice Abstracts 343–60.Google Scholar
Palmer, Janice (1999) “Sentencing in the Context of Domestic Violence: A Comparative Analysis of Dispositions in Domestic and Non-Domestic Assault Cases,” Paper presented at the American Society of Criminology meetings, Toronto, Ontario, November 1999.Google Scholar
Parker, Robert Nash, & Smith, M. Dwayne (1979) “Deterrence, Poverty and Type of Homicide,” 85 American J. of Sociology 614–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersilia, Joan (1983) Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System. Santa Monica: RAND.Google Scholar
Pleck, Elizabeth (1989) “Criminal Approaches to Family Violence, 1640–1980,” in Ohlin, L., & Tonry, M., eds., Family Violence. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Polk, Kenneth (1994) When Men Kill: Scenarios of Masculine Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rapaport, Elizabeth (1991) “The Death Penalty and Gender Discrimination,” 25 Law & Society Rev. 367–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapaport, Elizabeth (1994) “The Death Penalty and the Domestic Discount,” in Fineman, M. A. & Mykitiuk, R., eds., The Public Nature of Private Violence. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reskin, B. F., & Visher, C. A. (1986) “The Impact of Evidence and Extra-Legal Factors in Jurors' Decisions,” 20 Law & Society Rev. 423–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riedel, Marc (1987) “Stranger Violence: Perspectives, Issues and Problems,” 78 The J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 223–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rojek, Dean G., & Williams, James L. (1993) “Interracial vs. Intraracial Offenses in Terms of the Victim/Offender Relationship,” in Wilson, A. V., ed., Homicide: The Victim/Offender Connection. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julian V., & Hough, Mike eds. (2002) Changing Attitudes to Punishment: Public Opinion, Crime and Justice. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing.Google Scholar
Rubington, Earl, & Weinberg, Martin S. (1978) Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ruby, Clayton (1999) Sentencing, 5th edn. Toronto: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Sampson, Robert (1987) “Personal Violence by Strangers: An Extension and Test of the Opportunity Model of Predatory Victimization,” 78 J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 327–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saunders, D. (1988) “Wife Abuse, Husband Abuse or Mutual Combat: A Feminist Perspective on the Empirical Findings,” in Yllo, K. & Bograd, M., eds. Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Schneider, Elizabeth M. (1994) “The Violence of Privacy,” in Fineman, M. A. & Mykitiuk, R., eds., The Public Nature of Private Violence. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schur, Edwin (1971) Labeling Deviant Behavior. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Silverman, Robert A., & Kennedy, Leslie W. (1987) “Relational Distance and Homicide: The Role of the Stranger,” 70 J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 272–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, Robert A., & Kennedy, Leslie W. (1993) Deadly Deeds: Murder in Canada. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson.Google Scholar
Simon, Leonore M. J. (1996a) “Legal Treatment of the Victim-Offender Relationship in Crimes of Violence,” 11 J. of Interpersonal Violence 94–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Leonore M. J. (1996b) “The Effect of the Victim-Offender Relationship on the Sentence Length of Violent Offenders,” 19 J. of Crime and Justice 129–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. Dwayne, & Parker, Robert Nash (1980) “Type of Homicide and Variation in Regional Rates,” 59 Social Forces 136–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spohn, Cassia, & Spears, Jeffery (1997) “Gender and Case Processing Decisions: A Comparison of Case Outcomes for Male and Female Defendants Charged with Violent Felonies,” 8 Women & Criminal Justice 29–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spohn, Cassia, Beichner, Dawn, & Davis-Frenzel, Erika (2001) “Prosecutorial Justifications for Sexual Assault Rejection: Guarding the ‘Gateway to Justice’,” 48 Social Problems 206–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensmeier, Darrell, Kramer, John H., & Streifel, Cathy (1993) “Gender and Imprisonment Decisions,” 31 Criminology 411–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensmeier, Darrell, Kramer, John H., & Ulmer, Jeffery T. (1995) “Age Differences in Sentencing,” 12 Justice Q. 701–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensmeier, Darrell, Ulmer, Jeffery T., & Kramer, John H. (1998) “The Interaction of Race, Gender, and Age in Criminal Sentencing: The Punishment Cost of Being Young, Black and Male,” 36 Criminology 763–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sudnow, David (1965) “Normal Crimes: Sociological Features of the Penal Code in a Public Defender Office,” 12 Social Problems 255–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swigert, Victoria Lynn, & Farrell, Ronald (1977) “Normal Homicides and the Law,” 42 American Sociological Rev. 16–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Randall, & Zingraff, Matthew T. (1981) “Detecting Sentencing Disparity: Some Problems and Evidence,” 86 American J. of Sociology 869–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vera Institute of Justice (1977) Felony Arrests. Their Prosecution and Disposition in New York City's Courts. New York: Vera Institute of Justice.Google Scholar
Waegel, William B. (1981) “Case Routinization in Investigative Police Work,” 28 Social Problems 263–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Kristen M. (1976) “The Effects of Victim Characteristics on Judicial Decision-Making,” in McDonald, W. F., ed., Criminal Justice and the Victim. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margo, Johnson, Holly, & Daly, Martin (1995) “Lethal and Nonlethal Violence Against Wives,” 3 Canadian J. of Criminology 331–61.Google Scholar
Wolfgang, Marvin (1957) “Victim-Precipitated Criminal Homicide,” 48 J. of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar