NCJ Number
190248
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 88 Issue: 4 Dated: Summer 1998 Pages: 1489-1496
Date Published
1998
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This commentary responded to previous papers and presentations that analyzed homicide data and its recent decline in New York City and offered suggestions and recommendations.
Abstract
Previous papers and presentations analyzed homicide data at three levels: national, multi-jurisdictional, and single-city in relation to the increase and decrease in the homicide rate over the last 50 years. This commentary presented recommendations and focused on two areas: disaggregation of homicide data and whether "regression to the mean" would explain the recent decline in New York City homicides. It was presented that homicide was a crime in and of itself, but also a fatal outcome of many different crimes. Studies that looked at trends in child abuse, domestic violence, and armed robbery and other offenses should be considered to see the extent to which they were related to the trends in homicide. In addition, homicide rates were seen as consistently high for a number of years, and the year-to-end variation did not exhibit the volatility that would make it a candidate for regression to the mean. So, an amendment was suggested; to replace the term "regression to the mean" with "compensatory feedback" to possibly explain the increase and decrease in the homicide rate. "Compensatory feedback" means that when extreme homicide rates began to accrue year after year, various steps were taken, perhaps by the police or others to mitigate this problem.