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As noted in Chapter 3, criminal justice researchers and practitioners categorize
homicides in different ways. The next seven chapters are dedicated to different types
of homicides. Because some of the categories are based on circumstances and others
are based on victim/offender relationships, the categories are not necessarily mutu-
ally exclusive categories. In other words, a particular homicide could fall into more
than one category. An adolescent boy, for instance, who goes into a murderous rage
and kills his parents and then several of his schoolmates could appear in the chapter
about children who kill as well as in the chapter on mass and spree killing. And, if he
killed children in his school based on their race or religion, the incident could fit
into the chapter on murder as hate crime. The fact that one case can fit in several
chapters is something to keep in mind as you read the next several chapters.
Nevertheless, these categories of homicide are often conclusive, and even if overlap-
ping, they give us a place to start trying to understand why homicide happens and
what we may do to prevent it. These categorizations also may help give us clues for
solving homicide cases.
This chapter is about confrontational homicides, which may be the most
common type of homicide throughout the world (Adler & Polk, 2001; Daly &
Wilson, 1988). Although not always referred to as confrontational homicides,
the types of homicides discussed in this chapter are those in which an alterca-
tion is viewed as a contest of honor by at least one of the participants. The
altercation evolves into violence and ends in the death of a least one of the partic-
ipants. This chapter includes an expanded explanation of confrontational
homicide and recent real-life cases as well as important classical studies on homi-
cide circumstances. Victim-precipitated homicide is explained in this chapter.
Finally, the question of whether women take part in confrontational homicides is
contemplated.
Chapter 7
CONFRONTATIONAL
HOMICIDE
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DEFINITION
Although some reference to confrontational homicide is made in criminal law dis-
cussions about self-defense law, Ken Polk seems to have introduced the use of the
term confrontational homicide. In his 1994 book When Men Kill, Polk describes con-
frontational homicides as those that begin with a public altercation viewed as a con-
test of honor by at least one of the participants. The altercation then quickly evolves
into violence and ends in death (Polk, 1994: 60). Also referred to as honor contest vio-
lence, confrontational homicides tend to occur in public places such as bars, parties,
parking lots, or in nearby streets or alleys (Polk, 1994). The participants (victims and
offenders) are often, but not always, intoxicated or under the influence of alcohol or
illicit substances.
According to the literature, in confrontational homicides, both the offender
and victim are most often male, and the incident that leads to the lethal violence
is seen as a threat to the reputation of one of them. As noted by Polk (1999),
the threat may be an insult, a bump, or some sort of nonverbal challenge. At the
outset of these situations, there is no intention to murder. However, the original
threat is followed by a verbal exchange in which one of the participants challenges
the other, and the altercation quickly become physical. Sometimes one of the
participants leaves the scene to return with a weapon, but often the situation
escalates very quickly and the victim is killed with an available object (Polk, 1999).
Sometimes the available object is a fist or a beer bottle, and sometimes it is a gun.
On November 9, 2005, an 18-year-old man in North Braddock, Pennsylvania,
was playing a video game with friends when he allegedly shot two of his friends to
death. According to newspaper accounts, 18-year-old Erskine Smith shot and
killed Daniel Underwood, 17, and Jonathan Hutson, 19, after they argued during a
PlayStation 2 football game (Belser, 2005). This homicide incident appears to
encompass many of the components of a confrontational homicide. According
to police detectives who investigated the incident, a squabble over a video game
erupted quickly into a deadly situation. Both the victims and offender were male, and
it did not appear the killing was planned but that it evolved out of some seemingly
trivial incident.
GENDER AND CONFRONTATIONAL HOMICIDE
As you will see in this chapter, most studies of confrontational homicide have
included men as both victims and offenders; others include women but only as vic-
tims. This is not surprising in some respects because women generally make up less
than 15% of homicide offenders in any country where such statistics are kept.
Furthermore, the theories that explain confrontational homicide often postulate
either explicitly or implicitly some connection between masculinity and violence.
Thus most of this chapter focuses on men as offenders and victims of confronta-
tional homicide, and in most of the discussions both offenders and victims are
Gender and Confrontational Homicide 101
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102 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
referred to with male references. Nevertheless, in a study of homicide in Augusta,
Georgia, that I did with Lori Scott, we found cases of homicide by women that could
be classified as confrontational homicides. As a result, I include some examples of
homicide in this chapter with female victims and female offenders. Then, toward the
end of the chapter, once you are familiar with the theories, I return to the possibility
that women can be involved in confrontational homicide as both victim and
offender.
THE DATA ON CONFRONTATIONAL HOMICIDE
No official organization classifies homicides as confrontational homicides. Thus there
is no way to be certain of how many homicides fit in this category. However, studies
about this type of homicide give us some idea about the frequency of confrontational
homicide. The FBI circumstance categorizations may also give us an approximation
of the frequency of such homicides. Based on Wolfgang’s (1958) classic study of
homicide in Philadelphia, it may be surmised that around a third of homicides are
confrontational homicide because Wolfgang found that 35% of the homicides he
studied grew out of trivial altercations.
Polk (1994) found slightly fewer cases of confrontational homicide in his
Victoria, Australia, study of homicide. He found that 22% of all homicides in
Victoria could be classified as confrontational homicides. Importantly, confronta-
tional homicide makes up the largest category in his study. Similarly, a review of
2004 homicide data from the FBI indicates that homicides resulting from argu-
ments remain the most frequently cited circumstance for known circumstances
(Fox & Zawitz, 2006). Nearly a third (29.8%) of homicides during 2004 were
related to some type of brawl or argument. Although each of these 4,213 homi-
cides may not fit exactly the definition of confrontational homicide, it is quite
likely that many of them did. Furthermore, a portion of the remaining 9,908
homicides categorized as circumstances other than argument may have been con-
frontational homicides. For example, 97 homicides were classified as lover’s trian-
gle circumstances, and another 804 were categorized as juvenile gang killings. It is
reasonable to believe some of these cases may also be categorized as confronta-
tional homicides.
Figure 7.1 shows the percentage of homicide incidents that may have been con-
frontational homicides in 2000 to 2004. The figure shows the total number of homi-
cides in each of these years that were classified as one of the following circumstances:
romantic triangle, brawl due to influence of alcohol, brawl due to influence of nar-
cotics, argument over money or property, other argument, or juvenile gang killing.
Interestingly, these figures are practically the same as those found for homicides
growing out of a trivial altercation in Wolfgang’s classic Philadelphia study. Further,
the percentage of these types of homicide does not vary significantly by year. In 2001,
we see the highest percentage at 36.7%. The percentage dips in 2002 to 35.4% and
rises again to 36.2% in 2004.
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History of Confrontational Homicide 103
34.5 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
35.0
35.5
36.0
36.5
37.0
P er
ce n
ta g
e
Year
Percentage of all Homicides
FIGURE 7.1 Percentage of Homicides Possibly Due to Confrontational Circumstances
Note: 2001 data does not include homicides due to the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Source: Compiled from Federal Bureau of Investigation Statistics Data (FBI, 2006).
HISTORY OF CONFRONTATIONAL HOMICIDE
Polk (1994) first discussed particular types of homicide scenarios as con-
frontational homicides fairly recently. However, these types of killings are not new.
In fact, Mark Cooney (1997) argues that such killings have been quite common
throughout history and across the world and among individuals at all levels of the
social hierarchy. Although Cooney (1997, 1998) does not use the term
confrontational homicide, he provides an overview of homicides that could easily be
defined as confrontational. For instance, he discusses homicides that are the result
of feuding, brawling, dueling, and lynching. In each of these forms, a homicide is
the end result of a confrontation that begins when a man feels his honor is chal-
lenged. For example, Cooney (1997) notes that it is not uncommon for a chief
among the Tauade of Papua New Guinea to kill another when he feels he has been
insulted. Similarly, Cooney explains that it was common among elites in the six-
teenth and seventeenth century to use their swords in situations in which they felt
their honor was challenged.
Cooney (1997) also reports that beginning in the fifteenth century and lasting
as late as the nineteenth century, dueling led to many homicides. Moreover, these
duels were the result of some sort of an affront to a man’s honor. You may even
remember from your high school history class, as I do, that Andrew Jackson, the sev-
enth president of the United States, shot and killed a man in a duel. Or perhaps you
remember that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel (see Box 7.1). In
both cases, the duels and the resultant homicides could be considered confrontational
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104 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
BOX 7.1
Dueling Politicians
The duel that ended Alexander Hamilton’s life on July 11, 1804, was the culmination of a long-standing feud between Aaron Burr and Hamilton. The two had been lawyers at the same time in Albany, New York, and they were both on Washington’s staff during America’s war for indepen- dence. At the time of the infamous duel, Hamilton was the secretary of the U.S. Treasury and Burr was the vice president of the United States. Hamilton was a Federalist and Burr was a Democrat, which was just one difference between them. They knew each other well, and each looked down on the other. During a dinner party, Hamilton supposedly disre- spected Burr by talking about him negatively behind his back. Hearing of these remarks, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, and the two exchanged several letters. Hamilton refused to apologize, and eventually the two met at Weehawken to duel. They each drew their pistols and shot. Some speculate that Hamilton pulled his arm up to miss. Burr, how- ever, hit Hamilton, who died the next day. Although a fairly common practice, dueling was illegal in New York during this time, and Burr was indicted for murder. Burr, however, was never tried for the murder of Hamilton. After spending a few months in Georgia, he returned to the nation’s capital where he continued as vice president until his term ended in 1805 (Continetti, 2004).
homicides. The men in these cases dueled because one or the other said something
that was seen as an affront to the other’s honor. Although less formalized and more
common among those of lower status than the duels of the past, men still kill each
other in similar situations. Today, however, a man may kill because he feels he has
been disrespected or “dissed.” We rarely refer to such situations as affronts to one’s
honor nowadays.
A more recent homicide case than the duels of the eighteenth century that was
widely covered by the press in England appears to be the result of a modern duel of
sorts. Carl Morgan, a 24-year-old member of the rap group So Solid Crew, was given
a sentence of at least 30 years in prison for murdering Colin Scarlett. Press reports
indicate that Morgan killed Scarlett for disrespecting him. Apparently, Scarlett, who
is referred to as Morgan’s “love rival” by the press, was dating Morgan’s ex-girlfriend,
Elisha McFarlane (Bird, 2005). Morgan and McFarlane fought over McFarlane’s rela-
tionship with Scarlett. This enraged Scarlett, who then beat Morgan as McFarlane
watched. Morgan got a gun and set out to retaliate against Scarlett for the attack.
Scarlett, who reportedly heard that Morgan was coming for him, acquired a gun as
well. A modern-day duel ensued with both men drawing their guns. Scarlett fired
seven shots that all missed Morgan. Morgan, however, appears to have been a better
marksman. He managed to hit Scarlett in the neck, chest, and right hand with the
four shots he fired (Bird, 2005).
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Homicide as a Situated Transaction 105
VICTIM-PRECIPITATED HOMICIDE
In his 1958 study of homicide in Philadelphia, Marvin Wolfgang (1958) found it was
not uncommon for the victim of a homicide to have been involved in the events that
led to his death. In fact, sometimes the victim initiated the incident that resulted in
his death. Wolfgang (1958) introduced the term victim-precipitated homicide to
describe homicide incidents in which the victim was the first to employ “physical
force against the subsequent slayer” (Wolfgang, 1958: 252). The concept of victim-
precipitated homicide is very relevant for this chapter on confrontational homicides
because, as should be clear; many cases of victim-precipitated homicide can often
also be categorized as confrontational homicides. Moreover, victim-precipitated
homicides and confrontational homicides often share many characteristics as seen in
the following review of Wolfgang’s Philadelphia data.
Wolfgang determined that 150, or 26%, of the 588 criminal homicides in
Philadelphia he examined were victim-precipitated homicides. He found that the
victims in victim-precipitated homicides were more likely to be male and African
American than in non-victim-precipitated homicides. In the victim-precipitated
homicides, 94% of the victims were male as compared to 70% in the non-victim-
precipitated homicides. Further, nearly 80% of the victims were African American in
the victim-precipitated cases in contrast to 70% in the non-victim-precipitated
homicides. Different from what we have so far defined as confrontational homicides,
however, women were found to make up a larger percentage (29%) of the victim-
precipitated homicide offenders as compared with the non-victim-precipitated
homicides (14%). It may seem that Wolfgang’s finding that almost a third of homi-
cide offenders who were provoked by their victims were women is in contrast to the
notion of confrontational homicide. However, it is likely that many of these women
were responding to men who initiated physical violence against them. Furthermore,
it is possible that the men were violent toward the women because the men saw the
women as challenging their masculinity or otherwise disrespecting them. As such,
some of these homicides may very well be confrontational homicide. Certainly, all
cases of women who murder men are not the result of a confrontation or domestic
violence. Still as discussed in Chapter 8, many women homicide offenders kill their
abusive husbands, former husbands, and boyfriends.
HOMICIDE AS A SITUATED TRANSACTION
Although Polk may have first used the term confrontational homicide, criminologists
before him recognized the regularity with which homicide grows out of seemingly
trivial altercations. In his 1977 study of homicide, Luckenbill (1977: 176) emphasized
that homicide is often the result of seemingly inconsequential incidents that turn
into “character contests.” He explained that most homicides are the result of a contest
in which adversaries interact in a way that at least one of them believed would keep
him from looking weak. He called these interactions “situated transactions.”
Luckenbill (1977) based his findings on an examination of police records for 71
homicides in a California county. The cases described by Luckenbill are very similar
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106 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
to the Australian cases that Polk described in his work on confrontational homicide.
In both Polk’s and Luckenbill’s samples, most of the homicides occurred when the
offender and victim were taking part in leisure activities such as dancing, partying,
watching television, and, importantly, drinking alcoholic beverages. Thus it is not
surprising that the majority of homicides occurred on the weekends and between the
hours of 6 P.M. and 2 A.M. In Luckenbill’s study, almost half the homicides occurred
in a home, but notably, as Polk also found, taverns and street corners were also com-
mon locations for homicides. Luckenbill (1977) found that over 60% of the cases he
studied involved victims and offenders who were either related or friends. However,
in many cases the offender and victim were mere acquaintances or complete
strangers before the tragic event of one of their deaths. Whether related or unrelated,
enemy or acquaintances, Luckenbill noted that very often both the offender and vic-
tim had an audience of onlookers who knew either one or both of the men as lovers,
friends, family, or coworkers.
Most importantly for this chapter on confrontational homicides, Luckenbill
(1977: 177) found that these homicides followed a similar pattern in which the even-
tual offender and victim each played a role. Luckenbill described the six stages
through which the homicide situation progressed beginning with the initial conflict
and ending with the final move made by the offender after the death of his (or her)
opponent. His stages appear to describe confrontational homicide.
Luckenbill refers to the first stage as the opening move. In the opening move the
victim does something that is viewed as an affront by the offender. It could be that
the victim makes a disparaging remark, such as calling the offender a wimp or other-
wise challenging his manhood. Luckenbill found that the opening move by the vic-
tim varied, but three basic types of actions start the homicide transaction.
The most common opening move is a comment that the offender believes is
offensive. Luckenbill found that 41% of the cases he studied fit this scenario. A homi-
cide incident reported by the Associated Press appears to have begun with this first
type of opening move. Travis Ault, a 17-year-old Spokane, Washington, youth,
allegedly killed 18-year-old Wesley Myers and his 52-year-old mother Doreen Britt
because Myers “bad-mouthed” one of his friends (Associated Press, 2005a).
According to a witness quoted by the Associated Press (2005a), Ault stabbed Myers 16
to 17 times because “Wesley was talking trash to him.”
The second most common opening move in a homicide transaction occurred in
34% of Luckenbill’s cases. In these cases, a victim refuses to do what an offender
wants. The offender interprets this refusal as a “denial of his ability or right to com-
mand obedience” (Luckenbill, 1977: 180). Although less typical because the offender
is female, the 2002 homicide of school principal Norman Wicks in Vancouver pro-
vides an example of this type of opening move. Ian Mulgrew reported in The
Vancouver Sun that Principal Wicks was stabbed by his lover, Teresa Senner, during a
confrontation over his multiple infidelities. It is not the confrontation over Wicks’s
infidelity that makes this case fit the second type of opening move. Rather, it was that
Senner killed Wicks because he said he would not leave his wife. Wicks would not
comply with Senner’s request, so she grabbed a large kitchen knife and killed him by
stabbing him in the groin (Mulgrew, 2005).
In the third type of opening move, which described 25% of the cases that
Luckenbill reviewed, the eventual offender finds a nonverbal gesture made by the
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Homicide as a Situated Transaction 107
victim to be personally offensive. Luckenbill indicated that often the offender
believes this gesture is an insult to his sexual prowess. Scott Lemerond of Green Bay,
Wisconsin, died as the result of an argument that appears to have started with the
third type of initial move discussed by Luckenbill. Lemerond and Todd Charles, who
were both 38 years old, fought at a party in Charles’s living room. According to the
Associated Press (2005b), Charles became angry with Lemerond when the latter took
a bandana off Charles’s head and began hitting him with it. In what clearly fits
Luckenbill’s third type of opening move, Charles reportedly said that Lemerond was
trying to insult him in front of his girlfriend by hitting him with a do-rag. A fight
between the two men began, and when it moved to the kitchen, Charles grabbed a
grilling fork. It is not clear whether Charles stabbed Lemerond or whether he rolled
on the fork in a struggle during their fight. Either way, Charles was charged with first-
degree reckless homicide in the Brown County Wisconsin Circuit Court after
Lemerond died as a result of the stabbing (Associated Press, 2005b).
The second stage of a homicide transaction, according to Luckenbill, is the inter-
pretation of the event in the opening move as an affront. The offender views what-
ever the victim has done as offensive. It is not necessary that the victim meant it to be
offensive; the key point of the second stage is the interpretation. Luckenbill acknowl-
edges that in 60% of the cases in his sample, the victim or witnesses to the interaction
helped the offender define the opening move as offensive. For example, in the case
just noted above in which Charles allegedly stabbed Lemerond, Charles reportedly
said that Lemerond was “trying to insult me in front of his girlfriend” (Associated
Press, 2005b). Clearly, Charles saw Lemerond’s actions as deliberately insulting and
he found it offensive.
In the third stage, having determined that the victim has affronted him, the
offender could excuse or ignore the insult. However, Luckenbill reports that in each
of the homicide scenarios in his study, the offenders made a retaliatory move to save
face and not sully their own reputation. The retaliatory moves, according to
Luckenbill, are the opening moves for the offender in which he challenges the victim
and in essence defines the situation as one in which violence may ensue. In the fork-
stabbing case, the news report does not make it clear exactly what happened after
Charles recognized Lemerond’s actions as insulting. The reader is simply told that the
men started fighting. It is likely that Charles responded to Lemerond’s insult by mov-
ing into stage 3. In all likelihood Charles shoved, hit, or verbally challenged Lemerond,
if not some combination of the latter.
Next, Charles and Lemerond most likely moved to Luckenbill’s stage 4, at
which point Lemerond’s reputation would be on the line. Lemerond would have
had to stand up to Charles and fought back, thus saving his own reputation at that
point. Or he could have fled or apologized at the risk of being seen as weak by the
other party guests, including his girlfriend. It seems that Lemerond made a move to
save his own face during stage 4. Because, according to the witnesses, the men
moved into stage 5.
Stage 5 is the “forging of a working agreement” at which time both victim and
offender seem to be committed to battle (Luckenbill, 1977: 184). It is during this fifth
stage that a weapon of some sort is brought in and the actual homicide occurs.
Luckenbill notes that the offender may leave to get a weapon or may simply use
something readily available as Charles did when he grabbed a fork. According to the
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108 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
Associated Press report, as the men wrestled on the floor, Lemerond bit Charles on
the leg. Charles reached into a kitchen drawer to grab a knife to use for intimidation
or self-defense. He grabbed a fork instead of a knife, but it worked. After being
stabbed with the fork, Lemerond clutched his chest and fell to the floor (Associated
Press, 2005b) completing Luckenbill’s stage 5.
Stage 6 is the final move by the offender. Luckenbill reports three general moves
the offender may make in stage 6 following the homicide. Most often in Luckenbill’s
study, the offender fled the scene. However, in nearly a third of the cases, the offender
remained until the police arrived, and in approximately one in five cases, the offender
was held involuntarily by observers until the police arrived (Luckenbill, 1977).
As should be clear in the homicide involving Charles and Lemerond, confronta-
tional homicides involve both the victim and offender. Luckenbill’s work is impor-
tant because he argues that the homicide is not a one-sided event with an unwitting
victim assuming a passive role. Instead, Luckenbill views homicide as a “situated
transaction” where each participant has an opportunity to stop the progression of the
events but both, in an attempt to save face, keep moving forward. Luckenbill’s work
has been well received and is very important in emphasizing the role that the audi-
ence and victim may play in homicides.
Nonetheless, you can probably imagine or perhaps even know of a homicide—
even a confrontational homicide that does not easily fit into Luckenbill’s six stages.
Polk (1994), for one, found that not all cases of confrontational homicide in his
Victoria, Australia, sample fit easily into Luckenbill’s six stages. Polk readily
acknowledges that many cases do fit all of the stages, but in others it was difficult to
trace all six stages. In some cases, according to Polk, the stages seem to be present
but the victim who dies is not the individual who initiated in the escalation of
the events.
It may also be that stage 1 is actually stage 3, and Luckenbill’s scenario has started
later than the actual transaction. For example, the homicidal transaction involving
Charles and Lemerond may have actually started previously to what was described
earlier as stage 1. As you can see in Figure 7.2, there could have been two or more
stages before Lemerond removed the bandana from Charles’s head and began hitting
him with it. Charles may have looked at Lemerond’s girlfriend in a leering way that
Lemerond took to be an insult and an affront to his masculinity, and thus he began to
hit Charles.
IMPORTANCE OF AUDIENCE
Luckenbill (1977) noted the importance of the audience, especially in stage 6, for deter-
mining the moves made by the actors in a homicide drama. Richard Felson (1982) and
Mark Cooney (1998) have both made a point of studying and discussing the role of an
audience or third party in either escalating or deescalating violence. Although they may
not have focused only on confrontational homicide, their work is valuable for under-
standing confrontational violence. Felson (1982) interviewed over 500 individuals
about disputes in which they had taken part in the past. Not surprising, in line with
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Importance of Audience 109
1. Lemerond hits Charles with bandana
2. Charles sees action as an insult
3. Charles retaliates by hitting or verbally challenging Lemerond
4. Lemerond stands up to Charles and does not back down or apologize
5. Charles and Lemerond commit to battle, and Lemerond is killed
6. Charles waits for police to arrive
Charles comes on to Lemerond’s girlfriend
Lemerond sees action as an insult
FIGURE 7.2 Luckenbill’s Six Stages of Homicide as a Situated Transaction
Note: The steps in gray have been added to suggest the possibility that the transaction may
have a longer history.
studies of confrontational homicide, Felson found that most interpersonal aggression
was a response to a perceived rule violation and is thus justified by the aggressor.
Further, males were more likely than females to express their anger when insulted,
which may explain why confrontational homicide is more closely linked to males.
In relation to audiences, Felson determined that third parties (an audience)
affected aggressive interactions. If third parties prompted the conflicts, the interac-
tions tended to be more severe, which was particularly true when the participants
were both male. However, if a third party mediated a conflict, the interaction did
not escalate as much. It appears to be the case then that confrontations are more
likely to end in violence when others are present who support the violent interac-
tion in contrast to having someone present who tries to nullify the violence. This
may seem obvious to any of you who have witnessed or been involved in a school-
yard brawl. If kids gather around and egg each other on, the violence often contin-
ues. When a playground monitor approaches, the fighting often slows or stops.
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CONFRONTATIONAL HOMICIDE AND CULTURES OF HONOR
Crime statistics consistently show greater levels of violence and homicide in certain
geographic regions or among particular people. Some criminologists who have
attempted to determine why violence or homicide is concentrated in certain areas or
among particular groups of people have postulated subcultural explanations. This
section discusses two main subcultural explanations for violence that may have value
for explaining confrontational homicide.
Subculture of Violence
In his 1958 study of homicide discussed earlier, in addition to the high number of
victim-precipitated homicides, Wolfgang also found that African Americans were
overrepresented as both victims and offenders of homicide in Philadelphia. African
Americans made up only 18% of Philadelphia’s population at the time, but Wolfgang
found that 73% of homicide victims and 75% of homicide offenders were African
American, and most of these were young men. To explain the high rates of violence
among these young lower-class African Americans who lived in urban areas of
Philadelphia, Wolfgang (1958) introduced the idea of a subculture of violence. Like
Luckenbill’s stages of homicide, Wolfgang found that much of the violence among
the youth he studied was a reaction to some trivial matter and that a young man who
did not respond to an affront with violence or aggression would be seen as weak.
Writing with Ferracuti, Wolfgang argued there is a subculture of violence among
lower-class males (Wolfgang & Ferracuti, 1967). They maintained that the norms
among lower-class African American males were not completely different from the
dominant culture. However, within the subculture where the young men grew up,
they learned that the proper response to an insult was violence. In fact, a man’s mas-
culinity would be questioned as would his honor if he did not stand up for himself.
And quite often, standing up for oneself demanded that one be physically violent.
In talking about the possibility that there may be a subculture of violence,
Wolfgang (1958) wrote,
There may be a sub-culture of violence which does not define personal assaults as wrong or antisocial; in which quick resort to physical aggression is a socially approved and expected concomitant of certain stimuli; and in which violence has become a familiar but often deadly partner in life’s struggles. . . . Thus, alter- cations that lead to homicide become symptoms of unconscious destructive impulses laid bare in a subculture where toleration—if not encouragement—of violence is part of the normative structure. (p. 329)
According to Wolfgang, violence is seen as normal and expected in certain situations
among African Americans, and sometimes this violence ends in death.
Although Wolfgang’s theory is often cited, some critics argue that high rates of
homicide among African Americans are not explained by a subculture of violence.
Instead, structural factors are to blame for high rates of violence and homicide
among minority group members. Using data from 158 cities, Shihadeh and
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Confrontational Homicide and Cultures of Honor 111
TABLE 7.1 Population and Homicide Distribution by Region, 2004
Region % of Population
% of Murder and Nonnegligent
Manslaughter
Northeast 18.6 14.1
Midwest 22.4 19.3
South 36.1 43.0
West 23.0 19.7
United States 100 100
Source: Compiled from Federal Bureau of Investigation Statistics Data (FBI, 2006).
Steffensmeier (1994) found that inequality in those cities was much greater among
African Americans than others in the cities studied. Thus African Americans had
more economic hardships, and as such, Shihadeh and Steffensmeier argued that
higher rates of violence among African Americans in urban settings are not necessar-
ily the result of culture but because of structure.
The results of a study by Velez, Krivo, and Peterson (2003) also suggest that the
higher rates of homicide among African Americans is more complicated than
Wolfgang’s subculture of violence suggested. These researchers studied what they call
the black-white gap in killing. They used data from 135 cities with an overall popula-
tion of at least 100,000 and an African American population of at least 5,000 to
explore how social and economic circumstances influenced the level of homicide
among whites and African Americans. Unlike other studies that suggest there may be
different causes for homicides among African Americans and whites, Velez et al.
(2003) found that the same structural explanations for homicide work for both
African Americans and whites. As such, higher rates of homicide among African
Americans are explained not only by greater levels of structural disadvantage among
African Americans but are also a reflection of advantages that whites have over blacks
in U.S. society. Among these advantages are higher home ownership rates, higher
educational levels, and higher average household incomes.
Southern Subculture of Honor
The southern subculture of honor is similar to the subculture of violence in that both the-
ories propose that high levels of violence among particular groups of people can be
explained by a subculture that requires men to react violently to insults that could poten-
tially damage their reputation. However, the southern subculture of violence explains vio-
lence by southern white men rather than violence by urban African American youth.
It is well known among criminologists that rates of homicide and assault have
consistently been higher in the southern United States as compared to other parts of
the country (see Table 7.1). As early as 1880, scholars such as H. C. Redfield began
noting and exploring the variations in violent behavior between the North and the
South (Redfield, 1880, as noted in Smith & Parker, 1980). The reason for the higher
rates in the South, however, is contested (Dixon & Lizotte, 1987; Gastil, 1971;
McNerlin & Davies, 1998; Huff-Corzine, Corzine, & Moore, 1986, 1991; Nisbet &
Cohen, 1996; Smith & Parker, 1980). Similar to the contention over the explanations
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112 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
for higher rates of violence among young African American males, some scholars
argue that structural factors such as inequality and poverty explain the higher rates of
violence in the south (Chu, Rivera, & Loftin, 2000). Still others use the culture of
honor to explain the higher rates of violence in the South.
Nisbet and Cohen (1996) explain there is a “culture of honor” among white
southern males. This culture of honor requires men to stand up to any affront to
their honor. Thus a southern man is obligated to respond with violence to an insult
aimed at him or his family. Nisbet and Cohen (1996) explain that this culture of
honor has been passed down through generations of southerners. They argue that
the culture of honor has developed in the South and not other parts of the country to
the same degree because the southern United States was settled by Scott Irish herds-
men. This explanation may seem a bit odd at first. However, they make a convincing
argument. They explain that herders make their living from their livestock and there
is always the possibility that someone will steal their livestock. Because the South was
a frontier region where herders had no police force or law officers to call in cases of
theft, they needed to protect their property themselves. Thus they were required to
always be ready to react violently to protect their livelihood. According to Nisbet and
Cohen (1996), the herders who settled the southern United States passed this idea of
self-protection down through the generations. Men learned that they needed to show
no weakness. They needed to defend their honor and their family’s honor or there
would be great social costs to their reputations and ultimately their livelihood.
CONFRONTATIONAL HOMICIDE: IS IT A MAN’S WORLD?
Adler and Polk (2001) write that, “For the male players in the homicide drama, the
challenge to manhood is far from a trivial matter” (p. 97). It does seem that, as Polk
and others suggest, homicide is often the result of a character contest between men.
Too frequently a man kills a stranger or someone known to him because he is afraid
to be seen as unmasculine. It may be that another man is putting him down and he is
afraid to be viewed as a “punk,” so he strikes out with physical violence. Ultimately,
especially perhaps among men in lower socioeconomic classes who have little power
other than their physical prowess, violence is a way to prove one is a man. Indeed,
many of the theories and discussions about homicide generally, and confrontational
homicide specifically, focus on men as offenders and men as victims. Moreover, as
noted in Chapter 4, men are far more likely than women to be both homicide offend-
ers and homicide victims. Does this mean that women are not violent or that they do
not participate in confrontational homicide?
In the late 1970s, the potential for violence among women became a focus of the
media and criminologists. It was at this time that women began appearing on the
FBI’s most wanted list for the first time (FBI, 2006; see Box 7.2). There were also
increases in the number of women being arrested. With the birth of the modern-day
feminist movement and the increase in women’s arrest, an interest in women as
offenders began to surge. Before this time, little was written about women as crimi-
nals that did not rely on biological explanations for their behaviors.
During the 1970s as official statistics began to show increases in offending
among women and the women’s movement flourished, Fred Adler (1975) and Rita
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113
BOX 7.2
First Women on FBI Most Wanted List
Only seven women have been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List since the list began in 1950. A review of their crimes, however, reveals that confronta- tional homicide may not be common among women—at the very least; they do not end up on the most wanted list for confrontational homicide. Ruth Eisemann-Schier, who was placed on the list in 1968 for several crimes she committed with Gary Steven Krist including kidnapping and extortion, was the first woman to be placed on the list. Eisemann-Schier served a seven-year sentence for kidnapping student Barbara Mackle and burying her in a box. Eisemann-Schier, a native of Honduras, was deported back to her home country after her release from prison (Buchanan, 2002).
In 1969, Marie Dean Arrington was placed on the list after she escaped from a Florida correctional institute while awaiting execution for murder. The crime that led to Arrington’s incarceration is more similar to confrontational homicide than other crimes committed by women on the most wanted list. Arrington killed June Ritter, the secretary of a public defender because she was angry with the public defender. In Arrington’s mind, it seems, the public defender had not defended her sons well enough, and Arrington wanted revenge against him. She was rearrested in 1971 and is currently incarcerated in Broward County (per Florida Corrections Website, 2006).
In 1970, four women were placed on the FBI’s most wanted list. During this turbulent time, many ended up on the list because of their pol- itics or the acts they committed because of their politics. Angela Y. Davis, who is now a professor at University of California, Santa Cruz, was placed on the list because she was suspected of conspiring to free activist George Jackson from a courtroom in Marin County, California. She was acquitted eventually of all charges and remains an important political activist in the United States (Davies, 2004).
Bernardine Rae Dohrn, now an associate professor of law at Northwestern University and founder of the Children and Family Justice Center, also appeared on the most wanted list in 1970. She was taken off the list shortly after being placed on it, although she was still considered a fugitive. Wanted for alleged violent and subversive activities as a member of the Weathermen, a radical leftist group, she lived underground with her husband for 11 years. Once the couple surfaced, the charges against them were dropped because the government had used illegal methods in pursuing them. Dohrn, however, received three years’ probation for a mis- demeanor at a 1969 antiwar demonstration. Then, in 1982, she spent eight months in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury about a Brink’s robbery involving other members of the Weathermen (Guthmann, 2003).
Katherine Ann Power was placed on the list in 1970 for the murder of Boston police officer Walter Schroeder. As part of a plan to get funds for the Black Panthers, Power and four other members of a radical group planned a bank robbery in Massachusetts. During the robbery, Officer Schroeder was shot in the back by another police officer. Although Power
continued
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114 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
Simon (1975) postulated links between the women’s movement and women’s offend-
ing behavior. Although Adler’s theory, known as the masculinity theory, has received
much attention, today most criminologists include it in their lectures about the his-
tory of criminology rather than as a viable theory. In essence, Adler postulated that
the women’s movement encouraged and allowed women to be more like men. Thus
increases in women’s criminal offending were not surprising. According to the mas-
culinity theory, as women became more masculine because of the influence of the
women’s movement, their offending increased. In particular, as they more masculine,
women more violent. With respect to confrontational violence, then, we would expect
more cases of confrontational homicide by women. Although novel and popular, this
theory has not proven to be the case. In places in the United States where women’s sta-
tus has improved, the number of women involved in homicide has not increased, nor
has the quality or type of homicide committed by women changed.
Rita Simon introduced her theory at about the same time that Adler’s theory was
becoming popular. Similar to Adler’s theory, Simon proposed a connection between
increases in women’s offending behavior and the women’s movement as well. In con-
trast to Adler, however, Simon proposed that where women’s offending increased it
was not because they were becoming more “masculine” but simply that the women’s
movement had helped women gain more opportunity. The opportunity was both
legitimate as in employment opportunities and it was illegitimate in that women
did not shoot Officer Schroeder, she was charged with his murder because he died as the result of the felony she helped plan and for which she served as the getaway driver. Power was taken off the most wanted list in 1984 because there were no longer leads being generated from her appearance on the list (New York Times, 1984). In 1993, however, after 23 years of hiding, Power made international news when she surrendered to authorities. Power had been living as Alice Metzinger for years. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison. Power was released after six years in prison.
Power’s roommate Susan Edith Saxe was also a most wanted fugitive in 1970 for her role in the same bank robbery that cost Officer Schroeder his life. Saxe remained on the most wanted list for 4.5 years before being captured in Philadelphia. She served eight years for her crime and was released in 1982 (New York Times, 1982). She is now CEO of a Jewish Renewal organization.
Another woman did not appear until 1987 when Donna Jean Willmott was listed for crimes linked to her politics. Willmott is considered by some to have been a political prisoner for her support of the Puerto Rican inde- pendence movement. Others believe she is a terrorist. With Claude Daniel Marks she pleaded guilty in May 1995 to charges of conspiracy involving a plot to help Oscar Lopez escape from prison. In 1985, Marks and Willmott purchased more than 36 pounds of explosive from an undercover FBI agent, which they planned to use in the prison breakout. Now out of prison, Willmott works as an advocate for prisoners with children in San Francisco (Terrorist Research and Analytical Center, 1995).
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Confrontational Homicide: Is It a Man’s World? 115
0
5
10
15
20
25
19 76
19 78
19 80
19 82
19 84
19 86
19 88
19 90
19 92
19 94
19 96
19 98
20 00
20 02
Year
Homicide Rates per 100,000 Population
R at
e Male
Female
FIGURE 7.3 Homicide Offending Rate by Sex per 100,000 Population
Source: Compiled from Bureau of Justice Statistics Data and FBI Supplementary Homicide
Reports, 1976–2002.
who had gained in employment also gained greater opportunity for crimes such as
embezzlement and fraud. Criminologists have focused less on Simon’s predictions
for women’s violent offending. Simon hypothesized that the women’s movement
would, in fact, lead to fewer violent offenses such as homicide among women. She
believed that as women gained greater economic opportunities they would have
more opportunities to escape from situations in which they had been violent in the
past: battering relationships. In other words, whereas before the women’s movement,
a woman may have had to result to homicide to escape from a relationship with a
violent spouse or partner, with their employment and independence; women could
escape battering situations without having to resort to violence.
More than thirty years after the masculinity and opportunity theses were first
introduced; an examination of the data suggests that women’s homicide offending
has changed little. As can be seen in Figure 7.3, the rate at which women have com-
mitted murder has remained low. However, perhaps in support of Simon’s opportu-
nity thesis, homicide among women has decreased steadily, from 3.0 per 100,000 in
1976 to 1.2 per 100,000, where it has remained.
Still, this does not tell us about the character or circumstances of homicide by
women. We do not know whether women have increased their participation in con-
frontational homicide. Certainly, women’s participation is less than men’s. Data from
the California Department of Justice indicated that the most common circumstance
listed for homicides committed by females in California in 2004 was argument
(63.3%). For males, the most common circumstance was gang related (39.6%).
However, for males the circumstances of argument was close behind, with 38.4%
falling in this category. When thinking about whether these cases fit confrontational
homicide, it is worth knowing that when the argument-type homicides were further
disaggregated into domestic violence and all other arguments, it appears that a much
larger percentage of women’s offending as compared to men’s offending involves
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116 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
domestic violence. Nearly 2 out of 5 (38.7%) homicides committed by women
involved domestic violence, whereas only 1.5% of men’s homicide offending was cat-
egorized as domestic violence (Prasad, 2004). Although these data do not prove
whether women commit confrontational homicides, it does suggest that confronta-
tional homicide is not likely to be the most common type of homicide committed by
women.
Nevertheless, my own research provides evidence that some women participate
in confrontational homicide. Much like studies of male homicide offending by other
criminologists, Lori Scott and I have found incidents of homicide among women
that appear to arise out of seemingly trivial events that escalate into violence and end
in homicide. When I recently reviewed the 41 homicide cases with female offenders
in Augusta, Georgia, in the 1990s, I found that at least three incidents could poten-
tially fit the definition of confrontational homicides as noted here from our case
scenarios:
1. In 1995, three African American women ages 18, 19, and 22 were found guilty
of murder malice in a drive-by shooting of a 14-year-old African American
middle school student. The police believed the shooting was the culmination
of an altercation that began the night before at a local pool hall.
2. In 1997, a 19-year-old African American woman and a 17-year-old white
woman were arrested for killing a 24-year-old African American woman. A
jury found the 19-year-old defendant who committed the stabbing not guilty
because witnesses supported her story that she stabbed the victim to get her
to stop beating the 17-year-old woman.
3. In 1997, a 31-year-old white woman killed her 47-year-old white male neigh-
bor with her van. They had been feuding about the property line between
their houses. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
These three cases did not involve masculinity as was significant in Polk’s discus-
sions of confrontational homicide. However, it is possible that the incidents fit
Luckenbill’s situated transactions. They may have grown out of seemingly trivial
matters, and clearly they escalated.
More often in our data set, when the cases did not involve a woman killing her
husband or partner (often, but not always, in self-defense), the women who killed
appeared to kill as the result of a confrontation with another woman over a male in
their lives, as can be seen in the following scenarios:
1. In 1990, an 18-year-old African American woman killed a 19-year-old
African American woman. Apparently they had been fighting over a
boyfriend. The offender was sentenced to 8 years in prison after pleading
guilty to manslaughter after her first trial, in which she was charged with malice
murder ended in a mistrial.
2. In 1991, a 24-year-old African American woman stabbed a 24-year-old
African American woman in the neck, chest, and hip. They were arguing
about a man whom they were both dating.
3. In 1992, a 17-year-old African American woman shot a 20-year-old African
American woman in the chest with a .22-caliber revolver. The 17-year-old
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Summary 117
offender went to her boyfriend’s house where she found him with the victim.
A confrontation ensued, and as the victim moved toward a knife, the defen-
dant drew the gun she purchased the day before and shot the woman because
“she was running her mouth off.”
4. A 32-year-old African American woman pleaded guilty to voluntary
manslaughter in the 1997 shooting of a 37-year-old African American
woman who was dating the same man as she. The two women argued, and
the defendant shot the victim with a .38-caliber handgun.
I need to emphasize that these confrontations over men make up only about
10% of the cases in our data set. We cannot draw any conclusions from them because
our data set is limited, although we had all 41 cases in which a woman was believed to
have killed another human being in three counties in Georgia in the 1990s. This is
still a small number of cases in one particular geographic area. Furthermore, it may
be worth noting that African Americans make up a larger percentage of the popula-
tion of the counties in which we studied than is typical throughout the United States.
Finally, although it may be somewhat typical of those who kill, most of those in our
data set were poor—living on the margins and certainly not anyone who had obvi-
ously benefited much from the women’s movement or any other movement (Scott &
Davies, 2002).
It might be an interesting question to find out how typical it is for women to kill in
confrontations over men in their lives. We know it will not be anywhere near the num-
ber of cases in which men kill in confrontational homicides because men kill so much
more often than women. However, if men kill each other in an attempt to defend their
masculinity, could it be that women might kill because of their femininity or because of
what is valued about women in our society? Men are valued for being masculine, and
part of being masculine is being violent. Women are valued as sex objects, and thus
might they kill when their sexual appeal to a man is challenged by another woman and
they strike out against this woman? This is not something that has been empirically
tested at this point. Perhaps you will explore the possibility in class.
SUMMARY
In this chapter, confrontational homicide was defined as first discussed by Polk,
who explained that it is essentially a character contest between men that ends in
murder. Although no official statistics are kept on confrontational homicide per se,
the data kept by the FBI on the circumstances leading to homicide may give some
indication of the frequency of such homicides. Homicide involving arguments,
brawls, and gang killings make up approximately a third of homicide cases in the
United States in our recent history. However, as also noted in this chapter, con-
frontational homicide is not new or limited to the United States. As discussed by
Cooney, homicide that results from feuding, brawling, dueling, and lynching may
be considered confrontational homicide. Different concepts that are relevant to the
study of confrontational homicide were also included in this chapter. First, although
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118 The Murder Book: Examining Homicide
they did not call what they studied confrontational homicide, both Luckenbill and
Wolfgang discussed homicide as the outcome of certain behaviors that fit to some
degree with Polk’s ideas about confrontational homicide. Wolfgang introduced the
concept of victim-precipitated homicide in which the victim often initiated the sit-
uation that led to his death. Luckenbill discussed homicide as a situated transac-
tion. His research indicated that homicide moves through six stages in which both
the offender and victim played a role that included the acceptance of violence for
resolving a conflict or dispute. Following a discussion of Luckenbill’s work, both
the subculture of violence and the southern subculture of honor were described.
These theories are similar in that they were both developed to explain why a certain
population has higher rates of homicide. Further, both contend that violence is
seen in some cultures as a legitimate means for maintaining one’s respect. Studies
that support and go against these two theories were also included to encourage
critical thinking about them. Finally, the chapter ended with a discussion of the
possibility that women take part in confrontational homicide. Theories and data
about women’s homicide offending are included to help you consider this possibil-
ity and draw your own conclusions.
CHAPTER QUESTIONS
1. What is meant by the term confrontational homicide?
2. Who is most likely to take part in confrontational homicide, and why do you
think this is the case?
3. Discuss Cooney’s research as related to confrontational homicide.
4. Explain a victim-precipitated homicide.
5. What is meant by “homicide as a situated transaction”?
6. Outline Luckenbill’s six stages of homicide as a situation transaction.
7. List and explain the three different opening moves according to Luckenbill.
8. How might an audience affect the outcome of a homicide?
9. Compare and contrast the subculture of violence with the southern subculture of
honor.
10. Is confrontational homicide a man’s world? Be sure to support your answer.
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Wolfgang, Marvin, and Franco Ferracuti. 1967. The Subculture of Violence. London: Social
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