Intimacy and law, the role of victim-defendant relationship in criminal justice decision-making

grantor: University of TorontoDo some types of violent offenders receive more lenient treatment in the criminal justice system because of the relationship they share or shared with their victims? Many people believe that the answer to this question is yes--defendants who victimize intimates are treated more leniently than other types of defendants in cases of violent crime. Despite this belief, however, the findings of research to date have not allowed for any conclusive statement regarding the role of intimacy in law. Drawing from various perspectives, my research assesses whether and to what extent the relationship between the defendant and the victim affects criminal court outcomes and begins to explore commonly-held assumptions about intimacy and violent crime that may be relevant to criminal justice decision-making. I use the wide sample/deep sample approach that requires two partially-overlapping, but distinct data sets to examine these issues. The wide sample of cases comprises the total population of homicides in Toronto, Ontario that were dealt with through the criminal justice system between 1974-1996. These data are examined to determine the extent to which various types of relationships, ranging along a continuum of intimacy, affect legal outcomes. A deep sample of cases is selected from the wide sample and is used to determine how and why the relationship between a defendant and his/her victim may affect criminal justice responses to violence. Results indicate that: (1) the association between intimacy and law varies by type of victim-defendant relationship and stage of the criminal process examined; (2) outcomes at earlier stages of the process have implications for outcomes at stages; (3) intimacy does not always lead to more lenient treatment; (4) the lenient treatment of intimate violence has abated somewhat over time; (5) when cases are matched according to legal criteria, defendants who killed sexual intimates appeared to be treated more leniently than all other types of defendants, and (6) judicial rationales for punishment appear to vary by type of victim-defendant relationship. I discuss the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.Ph.D