Restraining laws are tougher, and police arrest batterers on the spot more often. What's more, a support network for victims, including shelters, has spread. Such aid has expanded the options for escape for women who feel trapped in abusive relationships. So they don't feel compelled to turn to homicide as an out as frequently as they once did, the experts theorize. Ironically, however, the murders of women didn't slow so spectacularly.
Criminologists attribute the gender disparity in homicides to a difference in motives.
But when a woman kills her partner, it is more likely that she sees it as a last resort to an unacceptable situation. Give women other escape routes, and homicides of men go down. In fact, the escape can be the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship. Overall, though, women faced less domestic violence in '98 than they did in '93. And black women have seen a dramatic drop in homicides by their partners - a finding that confounds the experts.