The doctoral thesis deals with a less explored criminological/victimological aspect of intimate partner violence, specifically of intimate partner homicides, committed by female perpetrators against their intimate (male) partners. In the introduction the conceptual framework as well as the methodological aspect of the thesis are described. The theoretical basis of the issue being examined is presented in the first part, and these are gender role concepts, female criminality, intimate partner violence and its prevalence. The aspect of treating violent female and male perpetrators in different environments is specifically presented – from a psychotherapeutic point of view, in health systems and penal institutions, all of which are not given enough attention in research communities. The thesis also deals with the occurrence of the battered woman syndrome that is a less known concept in our legal system and its use in courtrooms is not as common as in, for example, the USA or Australia. That should require further reflection on criminological aspects of its use, notably in terms of criminal law institutes of self-defence, insanity and mitigating circumstances.
The second part of the thesis presents an analysis of the Slovene case-law practice, based on research questions. There are case studies of criminal cases of intimate partner homicides, committed by women against their (former) partners and which were ruled as a judgement of conviction or where a security measure of compulsory psychiatric treatment were imposed between 1991 and 2020. The analysis shows that intimate partner homicides of men are gender-specific acts that in some aspects differ significantly from other types of homicides and from intimate partner homicides committed by men. Female perpetrators were mostly shown to have been themselves victims of violence by their partners they later murdered but the courts did not necessarily take it into account as a mitigating circumstance. As many as three quarters of female perpetrators committed a homicide in a state of legal insanity or significantly diminished responsibility which, besides acting beyond the limits of justifiable self-defence and attempt of the criminal act, mostly affected sanctioning of female offenders. These were slightly elderly women belonging to lower, marginalised social strata that are characterizes by lower educational structure, income below the poverty threshold and by traditional division of gender roles.
The last part of the thesis focuses on debate in which the critical justification of research results is given compared to initially presented theoretical assumptions and results of other research. The conclusion delivers essential findings with suggestions for improved and more in-depth examination of intimate partner violence of women, provided by the criminal justice system and other actors working on the topic in question.
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