Call It Femicide: Legal Recognition, Victim Protection, and Domestic Violence

Rui Costa, Olivia Masi, Beatriz Ribeiro and Matteo Sandi

No 12956, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Can criminal law prevent domestic violence and change how victims use the state? We study Brazil’s 2015 recognition of femicide as qualified homicide using ten years of linked population, police, hospital, and prison records for 2.6 million women. Exploiting predetermined municipal exposure to men with histories of violence against women, we find that police-recorded non-fatal domestic violence fell disproportionately in more exposed areas. Conditional on an incident reaching police, requests for protective measures rose, while pursuit of charges did not. Legal recognition at the lethal endpoint can therefore affect both violence below that margin and survivors’ choice of state remedy.

Keywords: violence against women; femicide; protection; prosecution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12956

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