The Spanish criminal justice system imposes significantly longer prison sentences when the victim of a homicide is a woman. That is a conclusion of a study undertaken by a research team at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) which performed a systematic analysis of the sentences handed down by the Spanish Provincial Courts in cases involving homicide and attempted murder between 2018 and 2024.

The research was coordinated by Josep Maria Tamarit, a full professor in the Faculty of Law and Political Science and the coordinator of the Empirical and Applied Victimology research group (VICRIM). The study is based on an exceptionally large database of more than 3,000 sentences, which, rather than focusing on specific cases or ones drawing media attention, enables the detection of general patterns in the workings of the judicial system.

One of the main objectives of the UOC team, which also included the VICRIM researchers Laura Arantegui and Alba Marsol, was to provide empirical evidence on how the Spanish justice system responds to homicides of women at a time when the introduction of a specific criminal offence of femicide is being debated in some European countries. This offence does not exist in most criminal codes in Europe, but is more widespread in Latin America.

The results of the study, which has been published in open access format in the Revista Española de Investigación Criminológica, are conclusive. After controlling for all the legal variables that influence the length of the sentence, such as the type and severity of the crime and any possible aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the sentences imposed in cases in which when the victim is a woman are of four additional years when the victim is a woman.

In relative terms, when a man commits a homicide, the sentence imposed by the courts is more than 50% longer when the victim is a woman than in cases when the victim is a man. According to the research team, this difference refutes the idea that the legal system does not take the victim's gender into account, and at the same time it confirms that the judicial system takes a firm stand against violence against women.

One of the aspects examined in the greatest detail is the effect of aggravating circumstances related to gender, which were added to Spain's Criminal Code in 2015. According to the study, the courts have taken these circumstances into account to an increasing extent in recent years, and when the aggravating circumstances are taken into consideration, the length of the prison sentence increases significantly. However, one of the most important findings is that the tendency to impose higher sentences persists even when this gender-based aggravating factor is not formally applied. This shows that the most severe criminal sentencing does not depend solely on the existence of a specific legal mechanism, but is in fact common practice in Spain's courts.

A similar pattern is apparent in cases of homicide in which the perpetrator is the victim's partner or ex-partner, which are known as intimate partner femicides. The average sentence increases significantly when the victim is or has been their assailant's partner. More severe sentences are handed down when the relationship is taken into account, but once again, this difference persists when this factor is not considered. This result reinforces the idea that Spanish courts consider homicides that take place in the context of an intimate partner relationship to be particularly serious, especially in cases in which a man kills a woman.

The Spanish criminal justice system has a relatively inflexible sentencing regime, but the results show that, nonetheless, the sex of the victim and their relationship with their assailant have a correlation with significant differences in punishments. Indeed, in some cases the differences are even greater than those reported in similar studies carried out in other countries. According to the researchers, who are affiliated to the UOC-DIGIT research centre, this shows that judges view these cases in terms that go beyond a strict application of legal considerations, and which reflect prevailing social and moral opinions about the serious nature of these crimes.

These results provide important material that may have direct implications in the debate on the need for legislative reform to create specific punishments for crimes against women. "The data show that there is no empirical basis to state that we need to create a specific criminal offence of femicide in order to punish homicides of women more severely, as this is already obviously happening with the legal tools currently in place," said the UOC professor.

These results raise the question of whether this increase in the length of sentences act as a deterrent against this type of crime, but Tamarit believes that it is practically impossible to study this link. "Anything we might say is basically speculation because there is a long list of determining factors," he said. However, the research carried out by VICRIM will continue and the group will now use the database of sentences compiled over seven years to continue investigating other cases, such as filicides and homicides in which mental disorders play a role.

This study is part of the UOC's Digital transition and sustainability research mission and supports the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular SDG 5, on Gender Equality; SDG 10, on Reduced Inequalities; and SDG 16, on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

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