Words that kill: Why “crime of passion” must disappear

“Crime of passion” sounds almost romantic. In reality, it means femicide. The phrase is not a legal term, but it regularly appears in tabloid headlines when reporting on men killing their wives or girlfriends. It usually suggests that the crime was unplanned, committed under “emotional distress,” which is a framing that shifts focus away from the killer’s responsibility.

This has a long history. The term “crime of passion” emerged from the French legal system in the 19th century, with the 1810 French Penal Code recognising it as a partial defence that could mitigate sentences for crimes committed under sudden, overwhelming emotion like adultery, according to Manchester Hive.

This means that in 19th-century France, a husband could receive a lighter punishment if he killed his wife after catching her cheating. Similar excuses existed across Europe, where femicides were often defended as “impulsive acts” or “heat of the moment reactions.” The same excuse, however, rarely applied when the roles were reversed. Women who killed men – whether after betrayal, prolonged abuse, or even in self-defence – were described as hysterical and monstrous. That double standard has persisted to this day and the media has carried that legacy into the present. Headlines often portray men as lovers consumed by jealousy or passion, while women are depicted as unstable and cruel.

In the Western Balkans, the phrase is still widely used by the media. A quick Google search in Serbian for “crime of passion” shows more than 20,000 results in the past year alone. Many reports are about murders, TV interviews debating whether something can or cannot be considered a “crime of passion”. Headlines like “An unprecedented crime of passion: He strangled a girl in his apartment and jumped from the second floor of the Palace of Justice” or “Terrible murder due to jealousy: The policeman shot the ex-girlfriend in front of the new guy” demonstrate how responsibility is framed. The murderer becomes the victim of passion, and the woman becomes a tragic footnote.

By using this phrase, the media is helping justify the murder. If their love was “full of passion,” then he couldn’t have done it on purpose – it must have been a “one-time emotional outburst,” or he killed her because he “loved her too much, but she didn’t love him back.” By adopting such language, the media not only trivialises femicide but also sustains a long-standing pattern of romanticising perpetrators, excusing violence as passion, and silencing the very reality of gender-based hatred.

But romanticising femicide has never saved women’s lives. In fact, the numbers are not declining. In Serbia alone, more than 310 women have been killed in the past ten years. Since the beginning of 2025, the number has already reached 11 – and that is only what is known from the media. Serbia still doesn’t have mechanisms like femicide watch, which would ensure proper, reliable institutional statistics. And the problem is regional: across the Western Balkans, femicide is often treated as a private tragedy or a crime of love, not as systemic gender-based violence.

What is needed is not stories with neighbours describing the killer as a “good family man,” nor headlines that cast murder as “driven by passion.” Ethical, in-depth, and professional reporting that places gender-based violence and femicide at the centre of attention all year round is what’s missing from the picture, not only when a particularly shocking case occurs.

Some may ask: “But would changing the terminology really save lives?” While language alone cannot prevent femicide, it shapes how we understand responsibility. Calling femicide a “crime of passion” creates the illusion that it was unavoidable – a spontaneous reaction to provocation, rather than an act that could have been foreseen and prevented. In reality, many women who were later killed had already reported threats or violence to institutions. Lack of action often made the difference between life and death.

If we don’t call femicide by its real name, if we keep sugar-coating it, we risk ignoring the broader pattern of gender-based violence. Words matter. And in this case, they can mean the difference between excusing murder, confronting it, and preventing it. When we call it “passion,” we portray the killer as a man overwhelmed by emotions. When we call it femicide, we acknowledge it as gender-based violence, the end of a woman’s life, and a crime that is both preventable and deeply rooted in patriarchy.

This is also where journalism has a role to play. Across the Western Balkans, media outlets need to abandon sensationalist headlines and stop framing femicides as personal dramas. The Serbian network “Journalists against violence against women” (“Novinarke protiv nasilja”) provides clear guidelines for responsible reporting: respect the dignity of victims by not publishing personal details without family consent; avoid rushing for sensation and verify facts before reporting; speak only with relevant sources, not neighbours or relatives whose statements can cause further harm; never romanticize the perpetrator or describe femicide as the end of a “tragic love story;” include context that explains risk factors such as divorce or possession of firearms; and always provide information about available support services.

Changing media narratives will not, on its own, stop femicides, but it can challenge double standards, prevent the normalisation of violence, and pressure institutions to act.

Author: Iva Gajić