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Objectives: This paper focuses on the issue of intimate partner violence and, specifically, on the distribution of femicides over time and the existence of copycat effects. This is the subject of an ongoing debate often triggered by the social alarm following multiple intimate partner homicides (IPHs) occurring in a short span of time. The aim of this research is to study the evolution of IPHs and provide a far-reaching answer by rigorously analyzing and searching for patterns in data on femicides., Methods: The study analyzes an official dataset, provided by the system VioGén of the Secretaría de Estado de Seguridad (Spanish State Secretariat for Security), including all the femicides occurred in Spain in 2007-2017. A statistical methodology to identify temporal interdependencies in count time series is proposed and applied to the dataset. The same methodology can be applied to other contexts., Results: There has been a decreasing trend in the number of femicides per year. No interdependencies among the temporal distribution of femicides are observed. Therefore, according to data, the existence of copycat effect in femicides cannot be claimed., Conclusions: Around 2011 there was a clear change in the average number of femicides which has not picked up. Results allow for an informed answer to the debate on copycat effect in Spanish femicides. The planning of femicides prevention activities should not be a reaction to a perceived increase in their occurrence. As a copycat effect is not detected in the studied time period, there is no evidence supporting the need to censor media reports on femicides., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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In this study, the displacement of 687 murderers in Spain (2010–2012) is analysed. The Euclidean distance between the offender's residence and the furthest scene related to the event has been calculated. The analyses showed that the murderers registered a displacement of 0.5 km, with 255 cases of non‐traveller homicide (37.1%). The bivariate analysis found that men, young and foreign, with a criminal record and unrelated to the victim, registered a large distance, as well as multi‐offender homicides and were related to criminal activities. Traveller homicide registered a displacement of 4.3 km, with adults unrelated to the victim travelling the farthest. Multi‐offender and crime‐related homicides continued to show the largest distance. Multivariate analyses showed that if the offender is foreign, has no previous relationship with the victim and there are several offenders involved, the distance will be larger. When only traveller homicides were analysed, only the type of relationship showed significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish police makes an extensive use of intimate partner violence (IPV) risk assessment on a daily basis. Improved prediction procedures have encouraged the search for greater refinement of IPV predictors by adjusting to specific targets, such as lethal outcomes or potential victimization of children. This paper describes the evolution of the VPR5.0 tool (VioGén System Police Risk Assessment) as an algorithm aimed at improving predictability of intimate partner homicides (IPH). A sample of 2,159 records was used, 159 of whom were IPH victims. The sample was divided into two comparable groups of cases (IPH) and controls (N-IPH) to validate the results. The results showed that 13 out of 35 risk factors were significantly related to IPH with an effect size different to that of general N-IPH (with OR values ranging between 1.507 and 8.087). Binary logistic regression showed six significant factors that correctly classified 86.3% of the IPH. The new H-Scale performance parameters were comparable to those obtained in studies with the same objective (sensitivity 84%, specificity 60%, OR = 8.130, AUC =.80, PPV =.19 and NPV =.97). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]