PROSTITUTE HOMICIDES: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

 

C. Gabrielle Salfati, Alison R. James, and Lynn Ferguson

 

ABSTRACT

It has been estimated that women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be killed than are non-prostitute females (Lowman & Fraser, 1994). In addition, the prostitute homicide is notoriously difficult to investigate and, as such, many cases remain unsolved. The curent study explored 46 cases of prostitute homicides which took place in the UK since 1990. It was hypothesised that homicides of prostitutes could be differentiated from other types of homicide. Twenty-two crime scene behaviours were compared across 46 prostitute cases, 59 male offender/female victim non-sexual homicide cases and 17 male offender/female victim sexual homicide cases.

The results suggest that the homicides of prostitutes can be differentiated from other types of homicide and are indeed a sub-set of homicide in general. The implications of these findings were discussed, together with limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.