National Homicide Data Improvement Project, 1959-Present: The Difficulties of Counting Homicides Accurately

• In Event: Measuring Violence and Responses to Violence: Paths to Better Data

Abstract

We have joined with a number of colleagues to launch the National Homicide Data Improvement Project, an effort to integrate and reconcile the existing datasets on homicides in the United States since 1959. Our goal is to create a dataset that will allow researchers to study both the rise in homicides that began in the 1960s and the decline in homicides that occurred in the mid-1990s. Our pilot project on Ohio is integrate the homicide data case by case for a clustered random sample of 25 counties (plus Franklin County, the largest county not in our sample), and to provide detailed information for each case on motive, circumstance, weapon, relationship, etc., so we can improve the data available in Supplementary Homicide Reports and inhealth department mortality data, and come closer to the standard now set by the National Violent Death Reporting System.

We have discovered an astonishing number of errors, reporting failures, and cases of administrative indifference, which will (among other things) increase dramatically the homicide rate in white, rural counties, the homicide rate for children, and the proportion of homicides caused directly or indirectly by troubled relationships between intimate partners.

Authors

• Randolph Roth, Ohio State University

• Wendy Regoeczi, Cleveland State University

• Rania Issa, University of Akron