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- Title
Understanding homicide trends: Issues in disaggregation for national and cross-national comparisons.
- Authors
Kennedy, Leslie W.; Forde, David R.; Silverman, Robert A.
- Abstract
Arguments to disaggregate homicide rates extend beyond a need for analysis based on better units of analysis alone. There is strong evidence emerging in the homicide literature that it is unwise to treat homicide as a uniform event. The nature of lethal violence varies dramatically in circumstance particularly depending on the nature of the relationship between the offender and victim. Incorporating relational distance in homicide studies, one finds very different explanations of the root causes of homicide according to relationship. For example, where intimate violence may be best explained using the literature developed in the area of family violence, stranger and crime-based homicide is better explained using routine activities theory, at least for elderly victims. A related issue derives from the study of criminal environments in relation to the incidence of lethal violence. There is general agreement that the high levels of stranger and crime-based murder have been enhanced because of drug wars in the major canters of the United States. Canadian crime-based homicide rates are lower than those in the United States because the battles over the crack cocaine market have not achieved all-out lethality.
- Subjects
UNITED States; HOMICIDE; CRIMINAL law; DOMESTIC violence; HOME environment; CRIME victims
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Sociology, 1989, Vol 14, Issue 4, p479
- ISSN
0318-6431
- Publication type
Editorial
- DOI
10.2307/3340654