Murder Cases in 33 Large Urban Counties in the United States, 1988 (ICPSR 9907)

Published: Jan 12, 2006

Cite this Study |

Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09907.v1

Version V1

Summary

This study was conducted in an effort to better understand the circumstances surrounding murder cases in large urban areas. To evaluate the 75 largest counties in the nation, 33 counties were chosen. The ranking of these counties was based on a combination of crime data and population data. The criteria for including a case on a roster from which cases would be sampled was that (1) one or more defendants must have been arrested for murder and (2) the case must have been adjudicated during 1988. These cases were a sample of about half of all those in the 33 counties studied that had a murder charge brought to the prosecutors in 1988, or earlier, and that were disposed during 1988. When statistically weighted, the sample cases represent a total of 9,576 murder defendants in the nation's 75 largest counties. Demographic information on victims and defendants includes sex, date of birth, area of residence, and occupation. Variables are also provided on the circumstances of the crime, including the relationship between the victim and the defendant, the type of weapon used, the time of death, and the number of victims.

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Murder Cases in 33 Large Urban Counties in the United States, 1988. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09907.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Time Period(s)

1988

Date of Collection

1990

Sample

The 33 counties included in this collection were chosen by stratified sampling to represent the 75 largest counties in the nation. In counties with less than 200 murder cases adjudicated in 1988, all cases were chosen. In counties with more than 200 murder cases, random sampling was used to select 200 cases.

Universe

Murder cases adjudicated in 1988 in the 75 largest counties of the United States.

Data Source

murder data from prosecutors' offices

Data Type(s)

event/transaction data

Original Release Date

1993-10-11

Version Date

2006-01-12

Version History

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.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 5 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

1996-11-21 A variable description list was added to the introduction in the codebook.

Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.
NACJD logo

This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.