Non-fatal strangulation laws may have saved more than 1,500 lives

US legislation making strangulation a serious criminal offence has been linked to reduced intimate partner homicide rates, with 14% fewer women killed and 27% fewer male-victims in the 18-49 age group.

Strangulation statutes are a relatively recent development in criminal justice, with Missouri the first US state to pass legislation in 2000, and Ohio being the most recent, in 2023.

Researchers from the University of Exeter Business School collected information on state legislation criminalising non-fatal strangulation, a common, gendered form of intimate-partner abuse that often occurs at the most dangerous stage of the escalation of violence, associated with later homicide.

They linked it to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports from 1990-2019 to estimate how the laws have impacted intimate partner homicide rates.

The researchers calculate that state laws on strangulation from 2000-2019 may have prevented 1,029 female and 547 male intimate partner homicides in the 18-49 age group.

They also used National Incident-Based Reporting System data to estimate that strangulation laws have increased the number of intimate partner violence incidents being classified as aggravated assaults – especially when the victim is a woman – with more arrests as a result.

“The evidence indicates that non-fatal strangulation laws reduce intimate-partner homicides by disrupting the escalation of violence andenabling earlier intervention, which protects women from experiencing repeated abuse and reduces situations in which women later resort to lethal self-defence,” said Professor Climent Quintana-Domeque, an Economist from the University of Exeter Business School.   

Professor Sonia Oreffice, also from the University of Exeter Business School, added: “Laws that explicitly define and criminalise non-fatal strangulation are a scalable and actionable policy tool for preventing lethal acts of domestic violence. Our findings show how laws can be designed to shift enforcement earlier in the violence cycle and meaningfully enhance victim safety.”

The study, Disrupting Violence, Protecting Lives: Strangulation Laws and Intimate Partner Homicides, is not peer-reviewed and is available as a discussion paper ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November: https://exetereconomics.github.io/RePEc/dpapers/DP2501.pdf