The problem of intimate partner homicide is featuring increasingly on national and international policy agendas. Over the last 40 years, responses to this issue have been characterised by preventive strategies (including ‘positive’ policing; the proliferation of risk assessment tools, and multi-agency working) and post-event analyses (including police inquiries and domestic homicide reviews). In different ways, each of these responses has become ‘locked in’ to policies. Drawing on an analysis of police inquiries into domestic homicides in England and Wales over a 10-year period, this paper will explore the nature of these ‘locked in’ responses and will suggest that complexity theory offers a useful lens through which to make sense of them and the ongoing consistent patterning of intimate partner homicide more generally. The paper will suggest this lens in embracing what is known and unknown affords a different way of thinking about and responding to this problem.

中文翻译：

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真实的生活和失去的生活：理解对亲密伴侣凶杀案的“锁定”反应

亲密伴侣杀人问题越来越多地出现在国家和国际政策议程上。在过去的 40 年里，对这个问题的反应的特点是预防策略（包括“积极”警务；风险评估工具的扩散和多机构工作）和事后分析（包括警方调查和家庭凶杀案审查） . 以不同的方式，这些响应中的每一个都被“锁定”在政策中。通过对英格兰和威尔士 10 年间警方对家庭凶杀案的调查分析，本文将探讨这些“锁定”反应的性质，并表明复杂性理论提供了一个有用的视角，通过它可以理解他们以及更普遍的亲密伴侣凶杀案的持续一致模式。