NCJ Number
223803
Journal
Homicide Studies Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2008 Pages: 234-248
Date Published
August 2008
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This article provides assistance for problems encountered using homicide report records and U.S. Census data.
Abstract
This article illustrates the problem of using homicide report records and U.S. Census data within six cities, and describes how discrepancies can be identified and corrected. For example, errors are likely to occur when linking records from the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) with information from other sources, such as data from the U.S. Census Bureau because police service areas in some cities do not match the political definitions of the cities. Additionally, it further identifies that errors could occur because different geographical locations have the same or similar names. Another central issue in linking Uniform Crime Reporting Program data (UCR) with data from other sources is the logical consistency of the geographic unit definitions. This work created a city-level dataset for murders and non-negligent manslaughters in large U.S. cities using the SHR data linked with city-level data from the 1990 Census. The datasets examined were from Jacksonville, FL, Honolulu, HI, Indianapolis, IN, Baton Rouge, LA, Las Vegas, NV, and Nashville, TN. Figures, appendix, references, and notes