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Description & Citation--Study No. 3226 | |
Bibliographic Description | |
| ICPSR Study No.: | 3226 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Homicides in New York City, 1797-1999 [And Various Historical Comparison Sites] |
| Principal Investigator(s): | Eric Monkkonen, University of California, Los Angeles |
| Funding Agency: | United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice, the National Science Foundation, and the University of California, Los Angeles Academic Senate. |
| Grant Number: | 96-IJ-CX-0016 and SES-9422881 |
| Bibliographic Citation: | Monkkonen, Eric. HOMICIDES IN NEW YORK CITY, 1797-1999 [AND VARIOUS HISTORICAL COMPARISON SITES] [Computer file]. ICPSR version. Los Angeles, CA: University of California, Los Angeles [producer], 2000. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2001. |
Scope of Study | |
| Summary: | There has been little research on United States homicide rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in laws. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the post-World War II wave of violence. The basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the early 19th century. The data include a combined count of murder and manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal distinction. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives, and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture" was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. Part 1 variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2 includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial, conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool, London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. |
| Subject Term(s): | crime statistics, death records, historical data, homicide, manslaughter, murder, nineteenth century, social change, twentieth century |
| Geographic Coverage: | New York (state), New York City, United States |
| Time Period: | 1797 - 1999 |
| Date(s) of Collection: | 1985 - 1999 |
| Unit of Observation: | Parts 1 and 3: Year. Part 3: Homicide incident. |
| Universe: | All homicides in New York City and various comparison sites between 1797 and 1999. |
| Data Type: | administrative records |
| Data Collection Notes: | (1) A detailed list of the sources used to create these data files can be found in the Appendix to the codebook. (2) The user guide and codebook are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site. |
Methodology | |
| Purpose of the Study: | There has been little research on United States homicide rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in laws. The researcher chose to focus on a specific geographic area because the composite national data did not provide the details needed for careful analysis. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the post-World War II wave of violence. |
| Study Design: | The basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the early 19th century. When there were discrepancies among sources, the principal investigator used the source giving the higher count, based on the assumption that missing information tends to bias toward an undercount. The data include a combined count of murder and manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal distinction. The following incidents were excluded from the counts: accidental homicides, infanticides, cases involving children under 5 except when evidence in individual cases made it clear that these were murders, women who died during the course of an abortion, riot victims, the killing of an offender during the course of an arrest, and legal executions. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives, and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture" was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. |
| Sample: | Not applicable. |
| Data Source: | (1) Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, (2) New York City Police Department, (3) New York City Inspector, (4) coroners' indictments, and (5) daily newspapers |
| Mode of Data Collection: | Data were collected from a number of archival sources including, but not limited to, (1) the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, (2) the New York City Police Department, (3) the New York City Inspector, (4) coroners' indictments, and (5) daily newspapers. |
| Description of Variables: | Part 1 variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2 includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial, conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool, London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. |
| Response Rates: | Not applicable. |
| Presence of Common Scales: | None. |
| Extent of Processing: | ICPSR produced a codebook, generated SAS and SPSS data definition statements, and reformatted the data and documentation. |
Access and Availability | |
| Note: | A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as LRECL, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest. |
| Original ICPSR Release: | 2001-11-29 |
| Version History: | The last update of this study occurred on 2005-11-04. |
| 2006-03-30 - File CB3226.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads. | |
| 2005-11-04 - On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions. | |
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