An Attribute Approach to Relationships between Offenders and Victims in Homicide

The relationship between the victim and the offender is an important variable in studies of personal violence because it places the event within the context of social structures. Roles such as husband, wife, friend, lover, and stranger are complex social relationships which may delineate homicides that share a distinctive etiology.' Furthermore, the moral and legal responses to violence are, to a large extent, determined by the social roles of the victim and offender.2