Metadata record for Los Angeles Homicides, 1830-2003

Los Angeles Homicides, 1830-2003 Monkkonen, Eric H. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research ICPSR 2012-08-22 3680 doi://10.3886/ICPSR03680.v2

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 that spans two centuries on homicides per capita for the city of Los Angeles. 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 basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. Data were derived from multiple sources, including Los Angeles court records, as well as annual reports of the coroner and daily newspapers. Part 1 (Annual Homicides and Related Data) variables include Los Angeles County annual counts of homicides, counts of female victims, method of killing such as drowning, suffocating, or strangling, and the homicide rate. Part 2 (Individual Homicide Data) variables include the date and place of the murder, the age, sex, race, and place of birth of the offender and victim, type of weapon used, and source of data.

UniverseScheme03680 Organization03680_1 SES0111725 Organization03680_2 Organization03680_3 NACJD.XIV ICPSR.XVII.E NACJD.VIII crime rates crime statistics historical data homicide murder offenders victims weapons California, Los Angeles, United States 1830 2003 administrative records data All homicides in Los Angeles between 1830 and 2003. Los Angeles County court records, annual coroners' reports, daily newspapers 1995 2003 ICPSR

The data are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement form and specify the reasons for the request. A copy of the Restricted Data Use Agreement form can be requested by calling 800-999-0960. Researchers can also download this form as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from the download page associated with this dataset. Completed forms should be returned to: Director, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, P.O. Box 1248, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, or by fax: 734-647-8200.

AVAILABLE. This study is freely available to the general public.

The original collector of the data, ICPSR, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Rearch ICPSR

Ann Arbor MI

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ netmail@icpsr.umich.edu National Science Foundation National Consortium on Violence Research University of California-Los Angeles. Academic Senate 2012-08-22 ICPSR 2012-08-22 A Restricted Data Use Agreement form was added to the documentation files that can be downloaded from the study home page. 2005-08-04 ICPSR 2005-08-04 ICPSR created new data files, setup files, and codebook because the principal investigator added more data to the collection. StudyUnit03680

(1) A detailed list of the sources used to create the data files can be found in the appendix to the codebook. (2) Data were collected from a number of archival sources including, but not limited to, the sources listed.