Murder at Home Project

The Murder at Home Project is a groundbreaking effort to transform criminal justice, community and media responses to intimate murder and intimate violence to ensure that these crimes are taken seriously and addressed appropriately.

Women in California are more likely to be killed by their intimate partners than by strangers. The depiction of intimate partner murder as a shocking and unexpected family tragedy overlooks the preventable nature of many of these deaths and absolves the community of its responsibility for developing ways to better intervene in potentially violent and lethal relationships.

In October 2005, CWLC released the first volume of its policy report Murder at Home: An Examination of Legal and Community Responses to Intimate Femicide in California. The report chronicles important advancements that have been made to improve legal and community responses to domestic violence in California, assesses the current status of domestic violence response and prevention efforts, and makes recommendations for furthering existing efforts to respond to and prevent domestic violence and domestic violence homicide in California.

Download the full report of Murder at Home: An Examination of Legal and Community Responses to Intimate Femicide in California.

Or, download specific parts of the report:

Executive Summary

Table of Contents

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Preventing Domestic Violence Homicide

Part III: The Criminal Justice System

Part IV: Law Enforcement Response to Domestic Violence

Part V: Law Enforcement Response to Officer-Perpetrated Domestic Violence

Part VI: Legal Liability of Law Enforcement

Part VII: Probation Supervision of Domestic Violence Offenders

Part VIII: Post-Homicide Data Collection and Death Review