Assessing Risk of Patriarchal Violence with Honour as a Motive: Six Years Experience Using the PATRIARCH Checklist:

Few crimes are as complicated to investigate and understand as honour-based crimes. The planning and execution often involves multiple family members, usually without personality disorders or major mental disorders, and can include mothers, sisters, brothers, male cousins, uncles and grandfathers whose actions are by many, themselves included, considered as good or necessary. Investigations often have to be carried out transnational, involving many authorities and sometimes several countries. This paper describes the process of developing an evidence-based checklist which has been used for six years in Sweden as an aid for law enforcement and social authorities in cases with suspected risk for honour-based violence. Data from 56 recent cases are presented and discussed.