Social Capital Among an Incarcerated Sample of Femicide Perpetrators Open Access

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the gender-based killing of women, known as femicide has gained attention. Yet, aside from demographics, relatively little data on femicide perpetrators, a key driver of the phenomena exists. Moreover, much of the existing work has focused on individual risk factors with less attention paid to the community and societal-level factors that contribute to violence.

In 2012, femicide was incorporated into Argentina’s penal code, recognizing the crime as separate from homicide and punishable by a life sentence of 50 years. Still, a woman is murdered every 30 hours in Argentina. In the last seven years, the national femicide rate has remained static while the homicide rate has steadily declined. Although the penalty for committing femicide and homicide is ostensibly equivalent—a life sentence—we hypothesize that the informal punishment femicide perpetrators experience is not as severe as that experienced by homicide perpetrators. This study examines the social capital of femicide, homicide, and other (non-lethal) crime perpetrators before and after imprisonment. We focus on the extent of informal social sanctions that femicide perpetrators experience relative to homicide and other crime perpetrators.

We administered a questionnaire across four prisons in Buenos Aires. Social capital scores were assigned based on responses to two scales adapted from the World Bank’s “Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ).” Data were analyzed using difference of means tests, both ANOVA and t-tests, using SAS® 9.4. Among a sample of 208 incarcerated men, other crime perpetrators did not experience any difference in their social capital score following imprisonment. Although femicide and homicide perpetrators’ social capital scores were statistically equal before imprisonment, after being charged, femicide perpetrators retained significantly greater scores than perpetrators of homicide (p <.0001) suggesting that non-gender related homicide is not as socially sanctioned as gender related killing.

The act of femicide should be unconscionable, yet this study provides evidence that femicide perpetrators do not experience the same scorn from their social networks as homicide perpetrators. These findings suggest a lack of informal social control within the communities of femicide perpetrators that if identified may be useful for violence prevention. 

Table of Contents

Table of Tables

Acronym List

Definition of Terms

Introduction & Rationale…………………………………………………………..……………1

             Problem Statement………………………………………………………………………...5

           Purpose Statement…………………………………………………………………………5

           Significance Statement………………………………………………………………….....7

Literature Review……………………………………………………………...…………….......7

           Individual Risk Factors……………………………………………………………………8

           Traditional Police Intervention…………………………………………………………..10

           Risk Factors of Perpetration……………………………………………………………...11

           Neighborhood Risk Factors……………………………………………………………...12

           Social Capital, Social Networks, Social Sanctions………………………………………14

Methods……………………………………….…………………………………………………18

           Research Design………………………………………………………………………….19

           Data Collection and Procedures………………………………………………………….19

           Data Analysis and Instruments…………………………………………………………..20

           Ethical Considerations…………………………………………………………………...23

Results……………………………...……………………………………………………………24

             How social capital of femicide perpetrators changes after the crime……………………25

           Prior Crime and Violence Exposure……………………………………………………..27

           Perpetrators on Prevention……………………………………………………………….28

           Limitations and Delimitations…………………………………………………………....29

Discussion……………...………………………………………………………………………..31

           Prior Crime and Violence Exposure……………………………………………………..34

           Perpetrators on Prevention……………………………………………………………….35

Implications & Recommendations………...………...………………………………………...36

References……………………………………………………………………………………….39

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Hubert Department of Global Health
Degree	M.P.H.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, Criminology and Penology Health Sciences, Public Health
Keyword	Social Network Intimate Partner Violence Femicide Feminicide Social Capital Social Control Violence Prevention Violence Against Women Gender-based violence
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Evans, Dabney, Emory University
Committee Members	Di Marco, Martín H., Universidad de Buenos Aires

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