Arizona’s rate of women killed by men is among highest in US
Sep 20, 2019, 4:08 PM | Updated: 4:09 pm
(Pixabay Photo)
(Pixabay Photo)
PHOENIX – A newly released study based on the most recently available data found that women are killed by men in Arizona at one of the highest rates in the country.
Since 1996, the Violence Policy Center has been producing annual “When Men Murder Women” reports that track the number of murder cases involving one female victim and one male offender in the U.S.
The most recent FBI data available for each report comes from two years before its release. The 2019 report was issued Wednesday.
It found that 68 women in Arizona, 1.92 out of every 100,000, were killed by a man in 2017. That was the seventh-highest rate in the nation.
NEW: For women in America, guns are not used to save lives, but to take them. Read the latest edition of our study “When Men Murder Women” to learn more: #DisarmDVhttps://t.co/WaASjHUQgG pic.twitter.com/Jub7HtNuA8
— Violence Policy Center (@VPCinfo) September 20, 2019
The national rate was 1.29 per 100,000, with nearly 2,000 women killed by men.
Arizona’s ranking was its highest since the 2011 report, which covered 2009 statistics. Arizona’s rate was also 1.92 per 100,000 that year, but it was the fourth-highest in the country.
Arizona ranked 27th in last year’s report, which covered 2016 data, with a rate of 1.24 per 100,000 (43 cases).
The latest report found that in Arizona cases where the woman’s relationship to the offender could be determined, 86% of the victims knew the men who killed them. Of those, 70% were the killer’s wife, ex-wife or girlfriend.
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In the cases where the victim knew the offender in Arizona, 69% of the homicides were committed with guns.
Nationally, the victims knew the offenders 92% of the time, with a gun being the means in 57% of the cases where the weapon could be identified.
“Women are most likely to be murdered with a gun wielded not by a stranger but by someone they know,” Kristen Rand, Violence Policy Center legislative director, said in a press release.
“In many instances the murderer is an intimate partner of the victim. It is important to know these facts in order to identify effective strategies to prevent homicides against women.”
