Title: Debunking Myths About Gender, Race and Murder | Psychology Today
Headings: Debunking Myths About Gender, Race and Murder
Scott A. Bonn Ph.D.
Debunking Myths About Gender, Race and Murder
Reality is not what you might think.

Content: A popular homicide myth says that most female homicide victims are killed by strangers. The reality is that the majority of homicide victims, particularly women, are killed by someone they know. The UCR data over the years completely debunk the myth about "stranger danger" and homicide. At the same time, however, there are gender differences in the nature of the relationship between victims and offenders and the location of homicide crime scenes. Men are most likely to be killed by a friend or an acquaintance in a public place such as the street or a sporting event. This is due in part to the fact that men are more likely than women to be in public places that increase their victimization risk such as a bar or pool room. article continues after advertisement
In contrast, women are most likely to be killed at home by a current or former male intimate—that is, a husband, boyfriend, ex-husband or former boyfriend. Making this point, the UCR data from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s found that a female is more than 2.5 times as likely to be shot by her male intimate partner as to be shot, stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned, or killed in any other way by a stranger. The UCR data for the years 1980 to 2008 reveal that less than 12 percent of all female victims were murdered by strangers, compared to nearly 26 percent of all male victims. In addition, nearly 42 percent of all female murder victims were killed by an intimate partner versus only 7 percent of male victims.