Homicide Data

Question

I have a feeling that this is not possible to get, but I have a student who wants to research women as murder victims and get data on who they were killed by ? the attacker?s gender and relationship to the victim.

On DLI and IDLS there are some beyond 20/20 tables from the homicide survey which will show either the relationship of victim to killer, but not genders, and then total number of men and women killed and men and women accused of the crime, but not the relationship. I guess what we would like is these two tables put together.

Is this possible or is this where confidentiality comes into play and the info becomes restricted?

Answer

One place to look:

Homicide in Canada 2005:
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi?catno=85-002-XIE2006006
has some discussion of the topic - there's a table giving relationship that has husband as a separate category from wife, further broken down into current, former etc. Boyfriend/girlfriend are grouped, however.

Earlier reports in the series are available from here:
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=85-002-X&CHROPG=1

Another good source is the annual Family Violence in Canada: a Statistical Profile. It includes a chapter on family homicides, with a table showing "family homicides by accused-victim relationship and sex of the victim."

The latest edition is here:
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=85-224-X

Although this covers homicides within families only, it shows more detail about relationships than Homicide in Canada does.