We assessed the impact of planned aggression across homicide mobility types in Newark, New Jersey, from 1997 through 2007. Homicides where offenders traveled to victims’ resident/incident locales were more likely to involve aggressive intent, whereas homicides where victims traversed to offender/incident locales were less likely to involve planned aggression. Planned aggression was unrelated to geographically proximate (internal) homicides as well as geographically distinct (total mobility) homicides. Study findings show that routine activities and situational characteristics are not only important in explaining homicide patterns but also demonstrate that planned aggression meaningfully contributes to the routine activities and environmental criminology frameworks under specific geographic conditions.
The connection between the victim–offender relationship and injury patterns has been established in the lethal violence literature; however, this association has not been explored in the study of homicide followed by the perpetrator’s suicide. Using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), we address this research gap by examining violence inflicted on 1,718 homicide–suicide victims that occurred between 2003 and 2013. Results show some support for variation in injury across intimacy and relationship status while considering victim and offender characteristics; however, results were not as predicted. Avenues for future research are discussed.
Integrating crime pattern theory with tenets of social network theory, we argue that linking people who frequent the same places reveals intersecting behavioral patterns illustrative of case connectivity. Using the Green River serial murder investigation as a case study, we demonstrate that structural statistics may be useful in focusing investigative efforts. Significant shifts in the centrality of suspects emerge when we track the evolution of this case at 6-month increments, suggesting that the initial working case hypothesis misled investigators. Continued exploration into the utility of social network analysis (SNA) for tactical purposes will help advance applied criminology.
Examining homicide across Brazil’s 5,562 municipalities, we find that violence nearby has a positive effect on local violence (diffusion effect), violence exerts an unusual negative spatial effect in small clusters of communities in northeastern Brazil, and a prominent poverty-reduction program (Bolsa Família [BF]) has mixed effects. The spatial dimensions of violence complement existing non-spatial research on violence in Brazil, and the results regarding BF offer a spatial complement to research on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, clarifying the sources of violence in Latin America’s largest country and shedding light on the content and geographic targeting of violence reduction policies.
Although research has established economic disadvantage as one of the strongest, most robust predictors of urban violence, the conditions under which this relation holds need further elaboration. This study examines the disadvantage–violence link across age-specific transitional periods from adolescence to adulthood and provides theoretical arguments for why the strength of this relation should decline with age. Using 90 of the largest cities in the United States, the present study analyzes the impact of economic disadvantage and other urban conditions (residential instability, family disruption, and population heterogeneity) on age-specific homicide counts from 1984 to 2006. The analytical strategy incorporates temporal trends by using negative binomial fixed-effects regression models. The results reveal a consistent decline from adolescence to adulthood in the strength of the estimated effects of economic disadvantage, residential instability, and family disruption on homicide trends. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications for future research and public policy.
The current study assessed the relationship between national religious affiliation and lethal violence by simultaneously examining homicide and suicide rates. The information on homicide and suicide rates for 124 countries came from the World Health Organization (WHO). Regression results suggested no significant difference in lethal violence between predominantly Catholic and Protestant countries, although Islamic countries revealed significantly lower homicide, suicide, and overall lethal violence rates than non-Islamic countries. Countries with a high level of religious heterogeneity are subject to an increased suicide rate. The implications of these findings were discussed.
Recent studies suggest that the United States was not the only country that experienced a drop in crime in the 1990s. However, this line of research is largely limited to a small number of developed countries and only recently has explored the extent to which homicide rates dropped in developing countries during this time. This study addresses these limitations by using group-based trajectory modeling to explore homicide trends from 1990 to 2005 in 53 developed and developing countries. The results indicate that while most countries experienced downward trends in homicide during this time, this trend was neither universal nor randomly distributed.
Studies in crime concentrations have focused primarily on North America with a rather restrictive set of crime types. In this article, we analyze the crime concentrations and spatial patterns of homicide in Recife, Brazil. Brazil’s homicide rates have remained stable but at high levels, approximately 30 homicides per 100,000. Some places have experienced notable decreases in homicide: In Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, there has been a drop in the homicide rate of 46.67%, 2000 to 2012. We analyzed the decline of homicides finding that it continues to be highly concentrated, but the decrease has not been uniform.
This research examines how victim and offender characteristics, as well as contextual factors are related to the lethality of assaults for children less than 5 years old. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data for 2006 to 2011 were analyzed using logistic regression techniques to estimate two models designed to explore factors associated with the death of preschoolers. Results indicate that the probability of fatality is significantly influenced by victim and offender characteristics, victim–offender relationship, weapon used, time of incident, and region of the United States in which the incident occurred.
This study examines the validity of a statistical offender profiling technique that predicts the multi-dimensional classification of homicide offenders. Analyzing 539 Japanese homicide cases, we constructed multivariate prediction models that infer classifications defined by three dichotomous variables (stranger offender, solo offender, money-oriented motive) on the basis of crime scene information. We evaluated the validity of the models with a 10-fold cross-validation procedure and a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, and found the models to have moderate accuracy (area under the curve [AUC] = .73 to .82). We discussed the results from the perspective of the offender’s rational choices in the crime scene and crime specialization.
Recent systematic research indicated percent of the population that is young is not significantly associated with cross-national homicide victimization rates. However, there are theoretical reasons to expect percent young may be associated with 15 to 24 age-specific and with gender-specific cross-national homicide victimization rates. We test three hypotheses: Percent young is associated with 15 to 24 age-specific, male-specific, and female-specific homicide victimization rates. We employed data for 1999-2004 from a sample of 55 nations and utilized multiple statistical analyses. Results indicated no significant association between percent young and 15 to 24 age-specific and gender-specific homicide victimization rates. We situate our findings within the larger literature.
This study examines the extent to which variations in homicide rates across Europe, particularly differences between Western and Eastern Europe, can be explained by democratic cultural values. Prior studies have shown that individualism and egalitarianism promoted by democratic regimes are usually associated with lower levels of interpersonal violence. This study tests this relationship on a sample of 33 countries circa 2010. Not only does this relationship hold, but further analysis also shows that democratic values have both a direct and indirect effect on homicide rates as they are mediated by the strength of democratic institutions and practices.
The socioeconomic conditions of communities in which young South Africans live may be an important contributor to the high levels of violence in the country. Informed by social disorganization theory, this study examined the relationship between neighborhood sociostructural context and adolescent (15-19 years) homicide victimization in Johannesburg (2001-2009). The results revealed that neighborhood-concentrated disadvantage and measures of family structure were significantly related to levels of male and female adolescent homicide. The study underscores the importance of neighborhood structure in understanding adolescent homicide, particularly in Johannesburg, and can inform interventions that target high-risk communities.
This article examines the impact of acquittal of homicide defendants on the families of the homicide victim(s), illustrating how the families’ trauma was framed and complicated by the criminal justice process. Homicide trials had particularly compounded their trauma because to manage and partially repair the shattered reality wrought by the homicide, the families were compelled to construct moral and causal narratives about the event. Yet, defense counter-narratives conflicted with those of the families, and the acquittal validated those as truth. This fractured the families’ repair work, denied their claims to victimhood, and prolonged their bereavement indefinitely.
This study examined associations of symptoms of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anger, and revenge thoughts and feelings with different categories of negative cognitions and indices of anxious and depressive avoidance behaviors, among 331 homicidally bereaved individuals. Outcomes showed that symptom levels of PGD and PTSD were higher among individuals who had more negative cognitions about the self, were more inclined to catastrophically misinterpret their grief reactions, and tended to engage in depressive avoidance. Anger was strongly associated with negative cognitions about the self. Revenge thoughts and feelings were associated with pessimistic cognitions and anxious avoidance of loss-related stimuli.
The present study tested the impact of religiosity and region on lethal violence in 83 countries by applying an integrated model. The regression results provided support for Durkheim’s proposition that religious passion might lead to a high homicide rate in a society. However, religiosity was significantly and negatively connected to the suicide rate, suggesting that religious secularization is related to an increased national suicide rate. Finally, the Latin American region exhibited an elevated homicide rate, while North Africa and the Middle East displayed low homicide and suicide rates.
At present, the average homicide clearance rate in the United States is approximately 65%, down roughly 15% from the mid-1970s. This research seeks to inform how police can best improve homicide clearance rates by identifying best practices in homicide investigations. To accomplish this goal, as part of a federally funded project, seven geographically representative law enforcement agencies were identified that had at least 24 homicides in 2011 and had a clearance rate of 80% or higher from which effective investigative practices could be gleaned. Qualitative findings indicate that a strong community policing presence, collaboration with external agencies, and an innovative culture facilitate high rates of homicide clearance. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.
This research is a race-specific analysis of homicide victimization risk in the United States. It contributes to the literature by examining risk factors at multiple levels using data from the National Health Interview Survey, National Death Index, and Census. The direct association between community resource deprivation and victimization is racially invariant. For Blacks, however, low income increases victimization risk and this association is exacerbated in disadvantaged communities, whereas income tends to have a protective effect across levels of aggregate resource deprivation among Whites. This suggests racial variance in how community characteristics moderate the association between family income and homicide victimization risk.
The aim of this article was to compare the characteristics and outcome of homicide and non-homicide mentally disordered patients all of whom had been hospitalised. Seventy-four patients with a homicide conviction were compared with 521 convicted of a non-homicide offense. The former group were older, were more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia but less likely to have suffered from childhood adversity, and had less criminality. They also had fewer convictions during the follow-up. Little distinguished these two groups with both suffering from multiple disadvantages suggesting the need for ongoing care and support.
As a final part of a trilogy based on the same data set, this article adds to the growing body of knowledge on homicides against women by examining and identifying patterns, dynamics, and perpetrators’ experiences in honor killings. In-depth interviews conducted with a sample of the perpetrators provide further insight into the factors behind the perpetrators’ behavior, and the chain of events that may have been part of the context of the murder. Unlike two previous articles by this author, by exploring in as much detail as possible what was felt, lived, and experienced by the perpetrators in such cases, the author here attempts to identify concepts, patterns, and social dynamics that emerge from the accounts of the prisoners serving their sentences in Turkish prisons. The perpetrators’ perspectives are used to address whether special explanations are needed to explain the whole dynamics of honor killings.
Choices of inequality measure and homicide type may account for mixed findings on the income inequality–homicide link. We aim to acquaint criminologists with several income inequality measures beyond the familiar Gini index and apply the different measures to general and specific homicide rates, noting the practical effect of these choices on results. The income inequality measures differ in their fidelity to relative deprivation ideas, but still correlated highly with each other in data from 208 large U.S. cities. Multivariate analysis also found that all measures of income inequality had significant and positive associations with both overall and specific homicide rates.
No generally accepted method exists for quantifying the degree of injury in homicide victims. This study explores six different injury severity scores with the goal to recommend a valid method that is reliable and easy to use. To investigate this issue, 103 homicides are examined regarding the correlations between these scores. This study concludes that the Homicide Injury Scale is valid, easy to use, and has a satisfactory inter-rater reliability.
Previous research has found reduced mortality from aggravated assaults, attributed to medical care improvements. However, aggravated assault has limitations as a longitudinal measure of injuries from violence. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) can address this by providing estimates of serious injuries from criminal victimization. Their lethality trend is not compatible with the previous finding across 1973 through 1999, remaining stable rather than falling. After 1999, both Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)-and NCVS-based measures indicate increases in lethality. The trend differences raise serious problems of data choice for the researcher.
Utilizing data from multiple local newspapers, this study examines disparities in the presence/absence and amount of newspaper coverage given to homicide victims in Los Angeles County, California. Multilevel logistic and negative binomial regressions indicate that the level of economic disadvantage and percentage of minority residents in/around the crime scene neighborhood negatively affects the presence/absence and rate of newspaper coverage. These findings contribute to the literature by highlighting the role of neighborhoods in the production of newspaper stories. This study has implications for the social construction of and criminal justice response to crime.
Staged crime scenes involve an offender deliberately altering evidence to simulate events to mislead investigators. Despite likely occurring more often than reported in the literature due to success in offender deception, the exact frequency of staged crime scenes is unknown. In an attempt to bridge this gap, a legal database was searched for detected staged scenes. A total of 115 cases were examined, and this study reports on 16 staged suicides that were examined through descriptive analysis. Findings indicate the frequent involvement of firearms, hanging, or asphyxia, and that offenders are usually known to victims, although not necessarily intimately.
This study advances anomie theory by examining the effect of anomic societal conditions and indicators of globalization on national homicide rates. Globalization may generate anomie in two ways: (a) via rapid change and (b) by contributing to economic dominance that may lead to a chronic state of anomie. To assess the role of globalization, measures of international trade are examined in a model of national homicide rates. Results show that net investment has a positive effect on rates of homicide across several models, suggesting that globalization and economic dominance aggravate homicide.
We investigated the precision of Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) homicide rate estimates for large U.S. cities during the 5 years, 1998-2002. The homicide rates based on the National Vital Statistics System provided a parallel measure and the basis for estimating the reliability and average error. When cities with incomplete SHR data were removed from the sample, the estimated reliability was high (.99), and the standard error of measurement was low (1.2 homicides per 100,000 residents). Reliability remained high for subsets of cities and for most subsets of victims. For some groups, however, such as African Americans and persons age 0 to 14, the reliability was much lower.
This research note aims to answer the following questions: (a) How do Latin American authorities systematize and report data regarding deaths due to legal intervention? (b) To what extent is this information public and available? (c) Can this information help to better understand and compare regional patterns of lethal violence perpetrated by the State? Research findings suggest that data regarding deaths due to legal intervention are still an unreliable source of information, thereby hampering any cross-national comparison of how lethal violence is exercised by the State in Latin America.
This article focuses on intimate partner killings to address the question of why some killers subsequently commit suicide whereas others do not. Utilizing Blackian theories of conflict management and Manning’s theory of suicide, it advances hypotheses about when intimate partner conflict will result in homicide-suicide rather than homicide alone. These hypotheses propose that differing amounts of status superiority and relational distance predict and explain different patterns of lethal violence. The hypotheses are illustrated and supported with data taken from a study of intimate partner homicides in the state of West Virginia. The article concludes by arguing for a micro-structural model that addresses suicide, homicide, and homicide-suicide.
Despite Turkey’s increasing awareness of honor killings, many unfounded beliefs and assumptions still pervade concerning the general profiles of victims, perpetrators, and the crimes committed. These erroneous views are predicated upon a plethora of weak generalizations rather than robust research evidence. Yet, such claims have a significant impact on both the regulations aiming to combat these killings and the working practices of the officers struggling to prevent their occurrence. By deploying a qualitative interview method, corroborated by court rulings and prison files, and reflecting views of prisoners who have committed murder in the name of honor (namus) in Turkey, the author, herein, attempts to construct a data-based description of honor killing.
Limited research has focused on the aftermath of the homicide, namely, the families and friends of homicide victims left in the wake of the tragedy. The present study is a multisite study involving focus groups of families and friends of homicide victims and assessing participants’ resulting biopsychosocial consequences, their experiences with service providers, and whether or how their needs were met. This study is important to better understand their needs and to create a holistic systematic response to those most affected by homicide. The findings present recommendations regarding what approaches, resources, and services would be helpful for people who have had a loved one die by homicide, which may prove beneficial for academics, policymakers, practitioners, and medical responders.
Scholars have criticized the use of homicide clearance rates to measure police performance, as many incident- and jurisdiction-level characteristics beyond police control influence these rates. The current study estimated adjusted measures and rates of homicide arrest clearance, accounting for jurisdictional and incident characteristics related to investigation difficulty, for 85 agencies. Comparing agencies’ raw and adjusted measures indicates that 16% would be miscategorized as being above or below average in performance if the assessment of performance used raw rates. Adjusted homicide clearance rates, while not a singular indicator of overall success, offer a better police agency performance measure than raw rates.
Although most crimes follow seasonal cycles, homicide is an apparent exception. The absence of homicide seasonality is surprising given that assault, a closely related offense, has an obvious annual pattern. Focusing on large U.S. cities, this article reevaluates seasonality in homicide rates using data with more extensive spatial and areal dimensions than in previous research. Panel decompositions reveal seasonal cycles in both homicide and assault rates. Seasonality stands out more clearly in assault, however, and the patterns differ somewhat in their details. The findings support the idea that assault and homicide have similar seasonal fluctuations, but they also suggest that the crimes are more distinct than criminologists often believe.
Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mortality and census data with Supplementary Homicide Reports, we compare 25- and 30-year homicide trends for four age-race-sex categories in 172 U.S. cities. The comparisons indicate that one of the most salient aspects of homicide in the United States from 1980 to 2010 was the disproportionate involvement of young Black men as homicide victims and offenders. The persistence of these rates before, during, and after a sharp rise followed by a dramatic drop in the overall rates suggests the need for a focus on specific explanations for this aspect of urban homicide.
Research into stranger sexual homicide remains limited as is our understanding of this crime, and this can hinder criminal investigations and the assessment and management of offenders. This study aims to address this. Using data gathered by various British police forces, this study presents a descriptive profile of adult male-on-female stranger sexual homicide in Great Britain in recent years. Along with demographic and occupational data on offenders and victims, the criminal histories of offenders are illustrated as are their offense behaviors. The results are discussed in light of similar research, and future directions and implications are considered.
This study examines homicide victimization during acts of far-right ideologically motivated violence. Focusing on victims of extremist violence in the United States, we compare ideological homicide victims to prior homicide research to determine whether ideological victims are similar to "routine" homicide victims. In addition, ideological victims were broken into four categories to determine whether differences between these victimization groups exist. The results of the study found that ideological victimization is a unique phenomenon, as differences were found between the victims of far-right ideologically motivated homicides and prior homicide victimization research, as well as differences between distinct types of ideological victims.
Studies of the effect of immigration on homicide in U.S. cities have reported mostly null or negative results. These studies suffer from a failure to weight by population size and the lack of a credible identification strategy. Using data from the Census and the Uniform Crime Reports, 146 U.S. cities in the year 2000 are analyzed using weighted instrumental variables (IV) regressions to overcome these limitations. Estimates are insignificant, and none suggest a substantial negative effect of immigration on homicide, a finding that is replicated with 1990 data. Model comparisons indicate that conventional specifications exaggerate the beneficial effect of immigration somewhat.
The current study examines and extends the instrumental–expressive categories of homicide. Correspondence analysis of 30 years of homicide data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports focuses on gender differences, the victim–offender relationship and weapon choice among the types of homicide. Findings reveal that the weapon type used in homicides depends on the sex and relationship of the offender and victim. Results also support a revised instrumental–expressive homicide continuum that includes offensive-defensive categories. The enhanced homicide dimensions include instrumental-offensive, expressive-offensive, and expressive-defensive homicides.
Cooling-off periods have been described as the state of returning to the offender’s usual way of life between homicides (Burgess, 2006) and are a crucial factor in defining serial homicide (Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, & Hartman, 1986). If the clinical aspect referring to the offender’s emotional and motivational state is removed, these episodes can be aptly termed time intervals between homicides. Factors such as geography, victim selection, and the offender’s level of social involvement may instead serve as more appropriate starting points for studying this concept. In the present study, these factors were examined using 16 series containing 90 time intervals with a reported median interval length between events of 34.5 days.
Though there is substantial literature on different cultural understandings of honor and shame that inspire violence, little has been written from the point of view of the defendants who have committed and have been found guilty of murder committed in the name of honor. To gain a better understanding of the different cultural perspectives of honor and shame that inspire honor killing, it is necessary to interrogate the accounts of these defendants and their understanding of actions as honorable and dishonorable. This article attempts to make a start in supplying this missing focus and argues that the concept of honor, here, is different from other honor-related homicides that other commentators and the relevant literature reflect.
The core assumption underlying the disaggregation of homicide by type is that a singular focus on the monolithic category "homicide" obscures the multidimensional nature of lethal violence. The goal of this article is to contribute to the emerging literature on neighborhoods and different homicide types by examining the spatial distribution and ecological correlates of young male homicide and intimate femicide in Toronto, Canada, for the period 1988-2003. Findings suggest that there is a significant difference across homicide types in the effect of only one of the independent variables under examination: an index of socioeconomic disadvantage. The discussion of this finding highlights the problems that small numbers associated with disaggregated homicide types may pose for detecting neighborhood effects in social ecological research.
This study explores how hostages are murdered during a kidnapping for ransom. A multi-dimensional scaling procedure was used to explore the homicidal behavior of kidnappers. Three styles of homicide, labeled as execution, manual, and slaughter, were identified. Each varied in the degree of expressive/instrumental aggression and planned or spontaneous violence. Classification of the sample data found that 46.4% of kidnapping homicides were characterized by instrumental violence labeled as execution style, whereas 42.9% were characterized by hostile violence that was spontaneous and less reliant on using a weapon (manual style). These observations related to the type of group conducting the kidnapping for ransom.
The objective of the study was to examine the change in child homicides in Sweden between the 1990s and the 2000s based on a study of all cases registered during the periods 1990-1996 and 2002-2008. The results show a significant annual 4% decrease in the number of child homicides, with the main decline being due to a decrease in cases of filicide–suicide among both fathers and mothers. One possible explanation for the decrease may be the increases in the general prescription of antidepressant medication. However, other factors may also have played a significant role in the decline as well.
The current inquiry adds to the literature by using Hindelang’s lifestyle theory to examine the relevance of victim involvement in a deviant lifestyle to the likelihood of and time to homicide clearance. Bivariate analyses suggest that victim lifestyle is an important factor in the distribution of clearance enhancing characteristics across homicide incidents. Cox proportional hazard models indicated that higher levels of victim participation in deviant lifestyle significantly increased the time until a homicide was cleared by arrest. Theoretical and practical issues are discussed in light of these findings.
We examined the psychological characteristics of homicide offenders (n = 95) compared with incarcerated samples of rapists (n = 232) and generally violent men (n = 97) using the original Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), its Overcontrolled Hostility (O-H) scale, and the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI). Prominent MMPI elevations were found on scales 4 and 8 for each group. While general violent offenders had the highest BDHI scores, there were no differences among groups in O-H. Cluster analyses revealed a disordered and nondisordered homicide offender type. Results are discussed in light of extant findings with directions for applied homicide offender research.
This study explores patterns among female family annihilators using a non-random sample (n = 7), where offenders killed four or more family members during a single homicidal event. Acts of maternal familicide are measured against the family annihilator profile. Overall, many variables remain consistent across gender, but there appear to be substantive differences in motivation, spousal murder attempt, and the role of alcohol. Findings suggest that research on the family annihilator needs to be more inclusive of women, including use of more gender-neutral language. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed, and a new definition of the family annihilator is offered.
Mass shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, a Colorado movie theater, and other venues have prompted a fair number of proposals for change. Advocates for tighter gun restrictions, for expanding mental health services, for upgrading security in public places, and, even, for controlling violent entertainment have made certain assumptions about the nature of mass murder that are not necessarily valid. This article examines a variety of myths and misconceptions about multiple homicide and mass shooters, pointing out some of the difficult realities in trying to avert these murderous rampages. While many of the policy proposals are worthwhile in general, their prospects for reducing the risk of mass murder are limited.
Using data obtained from 165 mass murders in China, this research examines the crime of mass murder through a routine activities perspective as it relates to the location of where they occur (rural areas), while taking into consideration the motivation (revenge and profit), and most common weapon (knife) used. This adds to the literature on mass murders and routine activities theory from an area (China) where little academic research has been published regarding this crime.
Although animal cruelty is often described as a warning sign of future human violence, particularly in the prediction of multiple homicides, prior studies reveal mixed support for this notion and lack conceptual clarity in the measurement of such cruelty. This study investigates the quantity and quality of cruelty present in a sample of 23 perpetrators of school massacres from 1988 to 2012. Findings indicate that 43% of the perpetrators commit animal cruelty before schoolyard massacres and that the cruelty is usually directed against anthropomorphized species (dogs and cats) in an up-close manner. The implications of these findings for reducing false positive cases of cruelty are discussed.
Although researchers have questioned their coverage and accuracy, the media routinely are used as sources of data on mass murder in the United States. Databases compiled from media sources such as newspaper and network news programs include the New York Police Department’s Active Shooters file, the Brady Campaign Mass Casualty Shootings data set, and the Mother Jones database. Conversely, official crime data have been underutilized by researchers who study mass murder (for exceptions, see Duwe, 2007; Fox & Levin, 1998). In this study, we compare similarities and differences for mass murder cases in the United States as portrayed by selected mass media sources. Then, we turn our focus to a comparison of the Uniform Crime Reports’ (UCR) Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Our primary focus is on mass murders involving four or more fatalities—not including the perpetrator—that have occurred between 2001 and 2010. Implications for enhancing the comprehensiveness and quality of mass murder data with the goal of increasing their usefulness for guiding prevention and risk mitigation efforts also are discussed.
Several high-profile school shootings have emerged as significant discursive markers in a longer "disaster narrative." This study applies the two-dimensional analytic framework introduced by Chyi and McCombs to examine the frame-changing differences between two highly salient school shootings. A content analysis was conducted using the New York Times coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The findings of this study indicate that while Columbine set the precedent for how the media covers school shootings, the coverage of Sandy Hook illustrates a departure from this model and potentially reshapes the way that these events are covered.
Previous research has treated multiple family homicide, or familicide, as a uniform event. We sought to explore whether subtypes of familicide could be discerned, making use of a decade of Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) coupled with newspaper articles. The resulting 238 cases were analyzed through a two-step cluster analysis, showing that the familicides can be subgrouped into four categories based on the perpetrator’s age, relationship between perpetrator and victims, and perpetrator’s suicide. The empirically grouped categories were labeled Despondent Husbands, Spousal Revenge, Extended Parricide, and Diffuse Conflict. Familicide is thus a heterogeneous phenomenon and must be viewed in unique terms to appropriately determine prevention strategies.
Cultural competence is important to the domestic violence fatality review process. This article reviews current knowledge about cultural competence for Black women abused by men in the United States, with suggested implications for domestic violence fatality review teams (DVFRTs). Help-seeking behaviors, coping strategies, historical context, and cultural values within the African American community are explored. These areas are further examined using a framework inclusive of the structure, goals, processes, outcomes, and barriers of DVFRTs. The implications for how DVFRTs can utilize this information are discussed.
The multidisciplinary, interprofessional practice of fatality review is quickly becoming more methodologically sophisticated. However, the discussion of ethical issues related to fatality review has been limited to the topics of confidentiality and the ethical guidelines of participant professions. We propose that the work of fatality review teams is similar to the research practice of evaluation. Using the Guiding Principles of Evaluation recommended by the American Evaluation Association (AEA), this paper begins an exploration of potential ethical conundrums faced by domestic violence fatality review teams and identifies suggestions for ensuring that the teams have the necessary tools for ethical practice.
In Australia, a significant proportion of homicides occur in a domestic context, many following an identifiable history of domestic violence. For this reason, many domestic violence homicides are considered to be preventable. Sector advocacy and policy reform has reframed domestic violence as a serious social issue. In keeping with international trends, domestic violence death review teams have been introduced in Australia. These review teams examine domestic violence homicides to identify systemic gaps in service responses to prevent future deaths. This article describes the operational Australian domestic violence death review teams and the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network.
Fatality reviews are part of the public health arsenal to mortality prevention. As such they rely on medico-legal practitioners’ participation. Yet medico-legal practice in the United States is still divided between the scientific approach of medical examiners systems and the political approach of coroners systems. I argue that this is related to the public’s reluctance to let go of its jurisdiction over death as a social fact. I posit that attempts at systematizing coroners’ inquests, as in Washington State, illustrate such resistance, yet could be conceived as a compromise between the political and the scientific, benefiting public health and the goal of fatality reviews.
Domestic Violence Fatality Review (DVFR) teams are a means of identifying systems’ gaps in the coordinated response to domestic violence. While the number of homicide reviews has grown, little is known about whether DVFRs facilitate change in the community-level response to domestic violence. This research evaluated whether the recommendations made by one state-level DVFR had an effect on community and organizational priorities and practices. The results indicate that the recommendations influence countywide priorities, but less was done to implement the recommendations. DVFRs have the capacity to influence community-level change agendas; however, organizations need support moving from issue prioritization to implementation.
This analysis examines the extent to which homicides initially reported as unknown offender in end-of-year reports, once cleared, are more likely to have been perpetrated by strangers than other cleared homicides. Using solved and unsolved homicides in Indianapolis (N = 829), we determined victim–offender relationships in homicides reported as unsolved in year-end reports, when solved, were not significantly different from homicides reported as having a suspect in year-end reports. Indianapolis homicides were classified disproportionately as acquaintances. Findings help negate the ongoing myth that unsolved homicides are disproportionately stranger homicides. Results suggest decreased homicide clearance rates are not due to increased stranger homicides.
This study meta-analyzes 23 independent studies that included information from 28,265 homicide offenders across nine countries. On average, 48% of homicide offenders were reportedly under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offense and 37% were intoxicated. We found no demographic variations across age, gender, or race, although the proportion testing positive within the United States appears to be decreasing over time. Further, the proportion of offenders who were under the influence of alcohol was lower among those who committed the homicide with a firearm. Communities that have high homicide rates should work to reduce alcohol consumption rates.
Disparities in the administration of capital punishment are a prominent social and political issue. Recent studies indicate that victim characteristics of sex and race produce interactive effects on capital-sentencing outcomes. Extending this line of research, the current analysis explores the intersection of victim sex with victim conduct and victim–defendant relationship, utilizing a population of North Carolina capital cases spanning the years 1977 to 2009 (N = 1,285). Findings indicate that cases with a female victim who was not involved in illegal activity at the time of the murder and acquaintance female victim cases are most likely to result in a death recommendation. Potential reasons for these findings are discussed.
Our research revisits prior work by Neapolitan (2005) on the quality and use of race-specific homicide data. Neapolitan reported that correlations between Black homicide offending rates based on arrest data and rates based on data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) for samples of large U.S. cities are only moderately strong. He proposed that, given these findings, the respective rates cannot be regarded as valid indicators of the same concept. We extend Neapolitan’s research by estimating regression models to determine the extent to which conclusions about the structural covariates of Black homicide offending rates differ depending on the specific measure of the dependent variable. In addition, we have computed three different Black homicide offending rates with the SHR data: (1) A rate based on single victim/single offender incidents; (2) a rate based on all offenders of known race; and (3) a rate based on the number of Black offenders when the race of offender has been imputed. Our analyses reveal that, consistent with Neapolitan’s findings, the correlations between the Black offending rate based on the arrest data and the various SHR-based rates are only moderately strong. In the regression analyses, explained variance is comparatively low in the model with the Black offending rate based on arrest data. However, the regression coefficients do not diverge much across models. Overall, our results suggest that empirical findings and substantive conclusions about city-level covariates of Black offending rates might be less sensitive to the selection of data source than is often assumed.
Comparing male and female victims across lethal and non-lethal intimate partner violence (IPV) can provide a better understanding of these incidents and assist policy makers in developing more tailored victim services and prevention programs. To date, little research has examined this issue. This study compares the characteristics that predict female and male IPV victimization. Given the role that law enforcement can play in promoting victim assistance programs, police data are used to explore this issue. This study finds that victim sex differences do exist within and across lethal and non-lethal IPV. These findings are discussed as well as their implications for future policy and research.
This study focuses on the criminal history of serious violent offenders. Our aim is to determine: (a) to what extent the criminal history of lethally violent offenders differs from nonlethally violent offenders and (b) to what extent one’s criminal history influences the likelihood that violence ends lethally. We use criminal record data of offenders convicted of lethal violence (i.e., homicide offenders, N = 2,049) and offenders convicted of nonlethal violence (i.e., attempted homicide offenders, N = 3,387). The results suggest that nonlethally violent offenders have a more severe criminal history and that offender’s criminal history can be influential in predicting lethal versus nonlethal outcomes.