Intimacy, homicide, and punishment: Examining court outcomes over three decades

Abstract

Little is known about changing patterns in official responses to crime over time despite changes in recent decades in how the law treats various types of violent crime. Drawing from data documenting court outcomes in homicides in one Canadian urban jurisdiction from 1974 to 2002, this study examines the role played by intimacy in law during several distinct social and public policy periods in one country. The central hypothesis is that the accused in intimate partner homicides will be subject to ‘less law’ than those in non-intimate partner homicides. However, given social and policy transformations, it is further hypothesized that evidence of differential treatment should be less in recent years and, specifically, post-Bill C-41 which was meant to change the way intimacy was considered at sentencing. In examining multiple decision points, results show that while differential treatment of intimate partner and non-intimate homicide was evident at some stages, it was not always in the direction hypothesized. Further, while patterns in treatment did change over time with ‘more law’ evident in cases involving intimate partners in more recent years, plea resolutions remained more common for intimate partner killers than for those who killed victims with whom they shared more distant relationships.