Homicide Health Article

HOMICIDE

Homicide is a long-standing threat to a community's health, although it began to be widely recognized as a public health issue only in the 1990s. Homicide has traditionally been viewed through the lens of crime, though both criminal justice and public health approaches can be useful in efforts to reduce homicide.

Public health descriptions of homicide are based largely upon information provided on death certificates. In the United States, death certificate

Figure 1

information is reported to each county by funeral directors, physicians, and coroners. Each county reports the information to the state, which, in turn, reports it to the National Center for Health Statistics. These data cover every death (regardless of cause of death) for which there is a body. In vital statistics data, and for public health purposes, a homicide is defined as the death of a person at the hands of another.

Law enforcement data about crime are gathered by police and sheriff's officers at the local level, reported to a central agency at each state, and then forwarded on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Participating in The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is a voluntary process, and about 85 percent of police departments—covering 96 percent of the U.S. population—participated in UCR as of 1991. The data about homicides are reported in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Supplementary Homicide Report. The FBI defines a homicide as murder—the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.

In addition to murders, the public health definition of homicide includes legally sanctioned killings (e.g., executions or homicides in self-defense). The law enforcement definition, however, is limited to criminal homicides. Because the

Figure 2

definitions differ, the numbers of homicides reported by each system also differ. The overall patterns of risk, however, are the same.

EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM

Homicide rates in the United States peaked in 1993, dropped substantially, and the homicide rate in 1998 was the same as that in 1968 (see Figure 1). Although people were alarmed at the high homicide rates in the early 1990s, these rates have vacillated throughout the twentieth century. Historians believe that homicide rates were probably even higher in the Middle Ages in Europe.

The United States has a much higher homicide rate than other industrialized countries (see Figure 2). Although not included in the chart, it many be useful to note that among those countries reporting rates to the World Health Organization, Colombia actually has the highest rate by far—146.5 homicides per 100,000 males. The discrepancy appears to be largely due to the much higher number of deaths due to firearms in the United States. Even when compared to other countries where firearms are relatively common, homicide

Figure 3

rates in the United States are higher, possibly because firearms in the United States are much more likely to be handguns, whereas in other countries the guns are most likely to be rifles and shotguns. Handguns are the leading method of homicide in the United States.

HOMICIDE RISK

Some people are at higher risk than others of becoming a homicide victim. Homicide victimization rates are highest for adolescents and young adults. Although the number of young people who are homicide victims has dropped since 1993, as it has for all age groups, adolescents and young adults continue to be the age group at highest risk of homicide. As shown in Figure 3, risk is higher for young men than young women, and risk is highest for young minority men, especially young African-American men.

Homicide is a major cause of mortality among infants and toddlers. In fact, homicide is the third leading cause of death of persons under five years or age. In most of these deaths, the assailant is the primary caretaker of the child—either a parent, stepparent, or partner of one of the parents. The most common method of death is by beating with personal weapons (i.e., hands, fists, or feet).

Although homicide rates are much higher among men than women, the rank of homicide as a cause of death is similar for men and women at all age groups. Firearms are the most common method of homicide for both male and female victims. The assailant and the location of the homicide differ by gender, however. Men are most likely to be killed by a friend or an acquaintance in a public place such as the street or a bar. Despite a general concern about "stranger danger," women are most likely to be killed by a current or former male intimate (i.e., a husband, boyfriend, exhusband, or former boyfriend) in the home. Research using data from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s found that a woman is more than two and one-half times as likely to be shot by her male intimate as to be shot, stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned, or killed in any other way by a stranger.

Research indicates that having a gun in the home increases the chances that a person will become a victim of a homicide in the home and that a person will become a perpetrator of homicide, though more scientific research is needed before such risks can be assessed with confidence.