Characteristics of incarcerated women in South Korea who Killed their Spouses: a feminist and age-graded theory of informal Social Control analysis

This study examines the roles of domestic abuse and prior criminal involvement in women’s spousal homicide in South Korea utilizing Sampson and Laub’s age-graded theory of informal social control and relevant feminist literature on women who kill their spouses/partners. Using a sample of female prison inmates, this study found that certain factors differentiated between females who killed their partners and other female offenders: notably, they had been subjected to psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, and they were more likely to be married, but less likely to have been involved in prior delinquent activities.