Homicide Data Resource Guide

This Homicide Data Resource Guide was designed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) staff to provide easy access to data collections related to homicide. For instance, it provides quick links to certain types of homicide studies and links to studies available for online data analysis. This resource guide also provides useful information for secondary analysis of NACJD data collections, such as customized help for complex data collections, information on how to obtain restricted access data, and links to funding opportunities and publications.

Overview of Homicide Data Available from NACJD

Homicide-related data collections at the NACJD can be grouped into three general categories:

  1. Studies focused specifically on homicide
  2. Studies in which homicide is one of many offense types or categories
  3. Data collections about capital punishment in which the offense is often homicide

These three groups can be further subdivided into data collections that are gathered annually or periodically (serial collections), and data collections that resulted from one-time studies.

Homicide Data Collection Highlights

Two major serial data collected that focus exclusively on homicide

 

U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

These homicide incident data are compiled by law enforcement agencies and submitted to the FBI. The SHR data contain information about characteristics of the victim, the offender, the offender’s relationship to the victim, weapon use, location, circumstances, and jurisdiction of the offense.

Supplementary Homicide Reports

United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics

These data are produced from death certificates recorded in the nation’s vital statistics system. Data are provided concerning underlying causes of death, multiple conditions that caused the death, place of death, residence of the deceased (e.g., region, division, state, county), whether an autopsy was performed, and the month and day of the week of the death. In addition, data are supplied on the sex, race, age, marital status, education, usual occupation, and origin or descent of the deceased.

Multiple Cause of Death

Important one-time studies that focused exclusively on homicide

 

Serial collections come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Progam data

 

In the second group of studies, in which homicide is one of a number of offense types, the most important serial collections come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program data and include agency-level reports of:

Homicide as an offense type also appears in two other serial collections:

One annual data series focuses on capital punishment and sentencing:

 

Important one-time studies in this collection include:

Two Death Penalty Studies Released as Restricted Data

The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) announces the release of information from two studies of the federal death penalty system sponsored by the National Institute of Justice.

Klein, Stephen P. and Richard A. Berk
Race and the Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in Federal Cases, 1995-2000 [United States] (ICPSR 4533)

The purpose of this project was to examine possible defendant and victim race effects in capital decisions in the federal system. RAND researchers selected cases received by the Department of Justice Capital Cases Unit (CCU) between January 1, 1995, and July 31, 2000. These cases were handled under the revised Death Penalty Protocol of 1995, and were processed during Attorney General (AG) Janet Reno’s term in office. The database contains 312 cases for which defendant- and victim-race data were available from 71 federal judicial districts in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The database was structured to allow researchers to examine two stages in the federal prosecution process, namely the U.S. Attorney’s Office recommendation to seek or not to seek the death penalty and the final AG charging decision.

 

NACJD Restricted data access procedures

Newton, Phyllis J., Candace M. Johnson, and Timothy M. Mulcahy
Investigation and Prosecution of Homicide Cases in the United States, 1995-2000: The Process for Federal Involvement (ICPSR 4540)

This study addressed questions related to potential geographic and racial disparity in the investigation and prosecution of federal capital cases and examined the process by which criminal cases, especially homicide cases, enter the federal criminal justice system. Between 2000 and 2004, face-to-face interviews were conducted with all criminal justice officials in the state and federal criminal justice systems in nine federal districts who potentially would play a role in determining whether a homicide case was investigated and prosecuted in the state or federal systems.

 

NACJD Restricted data access procedures

Quick Links to Homicide Data

Help with Individual Data Collections

NACJD has created specialized web pages to help data users analyze some data collections. These pages are currently available for the following studies:

Homicides in Chicago, 1965-1995 (ICPSR 6399)

Chicago Women’s Health Risk Study (ICPSR 3002)

Human Subjects Issues

NACJD employs a variety of measures to ensure that subject confidentiality is preserved in all of our data collections. Since data collected about homicide can be sensitive, some homicide-related data collections are restricted from general access. This means that these data are still freely available to the public, but they cannot simply be downloaded from the NACJD website.

Access to restricted data collections is possible through a written request to NACJD. Using a Restricted Data Use Agreement, prospective data users must certify in writing that the data will be used for research or statistical purposes only, and that the confidentiality of respondents or subjects will be protected. More information about the procedures for accessing these data is available on the Restricted Data Resources web page.

Publications

NACJD makes criminal justice data available to the public for secondary analysis. We do not generally archive, produce, or distribute published reports, statistics, charts, or other analyses based upon data holdings.

Users interested in such publications can search our online database of citations for publications related to NACJD data collections. Some publications listed in the online database are available in either paper hardcopy or electronic form from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Overview of Data Resources Program

A number of data collections highlighted in this online resource guide are available through the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Data Resources Program (DRP). In 1984 NIJ established the DRP to ensure the preservation and availability of research and evaluation data collected through NIJ-funded research. NACJD archives these data collections to support new research, replicate original findings, or test new hypotheses based on existing NIJ-funded data collections.

Departments within the U.S. Government

Associations & Organizations

 

Criminal Justice Information Sites