The Daily Times

There are times when it is good for Tennessee to rank high in national comparisons of states. This is not one of those times.

Tennessee ranked fifth in the nation in the rate of women killed by men according to the new Violence Policy Center report “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2009 Homicide Data.”

Nationally, the rate of women killed by men in single victim/single offender instances was 1.25 per 100,000. Tennessee’s rate was 1.83 per 100,000. The center’s annual report uses the most recent data available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report.

Starting with the worst, the 10 states with the highest rates of women murdered by men: Nevada, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota and Hawaii (tie at No. 8), and Missouri.

Nationwide, 1,818 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2009. Where weapon use could be determined, firearms were the most common weapon used by males to murder females (861 of 1,654 homicides or 52 percent). Of these, 69 percent (593 of 861) were committed with handguns.

In cases where the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 93 percent of female victims (1,579 out of 1,693) were murdered by someone they knew. Of these, 63 percent (989 out of 1,579) were wives or intimate acquaintances of their killers. Nearly 14 times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers.

Violence Policy Center Legislative Director Kristen Rand notes that violence against women too often escalates to homicide. That is especially true in Tennessee and most of the South, where the rates of women killed by men is high by any standard. It should go without saying that one death is one too many.

Rand asserts that prevention of such violence deserves serious and sustained attention from law enforcement officials and policymakers alike. That is indisputable.

Information provided by the Violence Policy Center gives legislators, law officers and the courts — along with families and neighbors — even more reason to treat domestic violence as serious crime.

Drunken slaps, hot-tempered shoves and vicious beatings are not lovers’ quarrels. Those acts are signals of tragedy in the making.

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