No More Women Killed in Spain! A Collaborative Femicide Prevention Effort of a Police-Led Team of Ministry of Interior and Academia

Abstract

With the turn of the new century, the Spanish government developed a series of initiatives to eradicate gender violence and intimate partner femicides. Among these initiatives, the Secretary of State for Security (SSS) of the Ministry of Interior organized a National Project (Team) for the Detailed Review of Intimate Partner Homicides—a police-led team that partnered with 21 Spanish universities and several correctional facilities across 50 provinces—to conduct a concurrent embedded, correlational mixed-methods study of a nationally representative sample of 171 femicide cases and a control group of 210 non-lethal partner abuse cases (2006–2021). The results of this study served to improve current law enforcement femicide risk prediction tools (Valoracion Policial del Riesgo, VPR) and to develop different offender typologies aiming at guiding treatment interventions. New recommendations were also provided to enhance collaboration between law enforcement and other agencies so extant partner violence cases can be appropriately managed.