By Eunsik Chang, Sandra Orozco-Aleman, María Padilla-Romo:

This paper studies the effects of mothers' long-term pre-conception exposure to local violence on birth outcomes. Using administrative data from Mexico and two different empirical strategies, our results indicate that mothers' long-term exposure to local violence prior to conception has detrimental effects on infant health at birth. The results suggest that loss of women's human capital and deterioration of mental health are potential underlying mechanisms behind the adverse effects, highlighting intergenerational consequences of exposure to local violence. Our findings shed light on the welfare implications of local violence that are not captured in in-utero exposure to violence.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 

By Krstić, Igor

From Jacob Riis’ How The Other Half Lives (1890) to Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Igor Krstić outlines a transnational history of films that either document or fictionalise the favelas, shantytowns, barrios poulares or chawls of our ‘planet of slums’.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

By Gisli Vogler

How should those profiting from injustice and violence respond to their complicity? And how can they remain responsive when faced with the many ways in which they are entangled in an unjust world? We are at a deciding moment in affluent (Western) societies when it comes to addressing these kinds of questions. On the one hand, there is cause for optimism: the last decade has seen a significant shift towards open discussion of patriarchal society, institutional racism, capitalist exploitation, and the destruction of the environment, amongst many other contemporary political problems. Social movements such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Fridays for Future, and Occupy Wall Street have helped turn assuming responsibility for violence and injustice into a dominant political issue. As a consequence, unjust practices, as diverse as Amazon’s working conditions and the Oxfam sexual exploitation scandal, are met with global condemnation. Debates about how those benefiting from exploitation and expropriation can act more responsibly now pervade many aspects of everyday life, from what to eat and wear, to who has what kind of opportunities. On the other hand, societies continue to be characterized by a failure to act upon the omnipresent demands for facing up to one’s involvement in injustice. Racism, sexism and ableism, and the exploitation of minorities, poorer countries and people, and nature all remain integral parts of human existence. The re-emergence of reactionary populist forces and parties in the US and large parts of Europe, together with the consolidation of power by authoritarian leaders across the world, has exacerbated the problem. The enduring failures by complicit actors to address injustice are cause for much despair and frustration. However, they have also served as catalysts for a sustained scholarly reflection on the complexities of complicity and how to address them (Beausoleil, 2019;  Hayward, 2017; Mihai, 2022; Schaap, 2020). It is my intention in this book to contribute to this interrogation and to think further how people can appropriately respond to their complicity in injustice and violence. To this end, I begin with a constructive evaluation of recent scholarship on complicity.  

Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press, 2024. 194p.

By: Newson, Linda A and Minchin, Susie

Based on exceptionally rich private papers of Portuguese slave traders, this study provides unique insight into the diet, health, and medical care of slaves during their journey from Africa to Peru in the early seventeenth century.; Readership: All those interested in the history of the slave trade and slavery in both Africa and Spanish America, as well as the history of food and medicine in the early modern period.

Brill, 2007. 388p.

By  C.M. Hoeboer*, W.M. Kitselaar, J.F. Henrich, E.J. Miedzobrodzka, B. Wohlstetter, E. Giebels, G. Meynen, E.W. Kruisbergen, M. Kempes, M. Olff, C.H. de Kogel

COVID-19 caused a great burden on the healthcare system and led to lockdown measures across the globe. These measures are likely to influence crime rates, but a comprehensive overview on the impact of COVID-19 on crime rates is lacking. The aim of the current study was to systematically review evidence on the impact of COVID-19 measures on crime rates across the globe. We conducted a systematic search in several databases to identify eligible studies up until 6–12-2021. A total of 46 studies were identifed, reporting on 99 crime rates about robberies (n=12), property crime (n=15), drug crime (n=5), fraud (n=5), physical violence (n=15), sexual violence (n=11), homicides (n=12), cybercrime (n=3), domestic violence (n=3), intimate partner violence (n=14), and other crimes (n=4). Overall, studies showed that most types of crime temporarily declined during COVID-19 measures. Homicides and cybercrime were an exception to this rule and did not show significant changes following COVID-19 restrictions. Studies on domestic violence often found increased crime rates, and this was particularly true for studies based on call data rather than crime records. Studies on intimate partner violence reported mixed results. We found an immediate impact of COVID-19 restrictions on almost all crime rates except for homicides, cybercrimes and intimate partner violence.  

Published in American Journal of Criminal, Sociology, Political Science, Medicine November 2023

By Lin Liu, Jiayu Chang, Dongping Long, and Heng Liu

Existing research suggests that COVID-19 lockdowns tend to contribute to a decrease in overall urban crime rates. Most studies have compared pre-lockdown and post-lockdown periods to lockdown periods in Western cities. Few have touched on the fine variations during lockdowns. Equally rare are intracity studies conducted in China. This study tested the relationship between violent crime and COVID-19 lockdown policies in ZG City in southern China. The distance from the isolation location to the nearest violent crime site, called “the nearest crime distance”, is a key variable in this study. Kernel density mapping and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test are used to compare the pre-lockdown and post-lockdown periods to the lockdown period. Panel logistic regression is used to test the fine variations among different stages during the lockdown. The result found an overall decline in violent crime during the lockdown and a bounce-back post-lockdown. Violent crime moved away from the isolated location during the lockdown. This outward spread continued for the first two months after the lifting of the lockdown, suggesting a lasting effect of the lockdown policy. During the lockdown, weekly changes in COVID-19 risk ratings at the district level in ZG City also affected changes in the nearest crime distance. In particular, an increase in the risk rating increased that distance, and a drop in the risk rating decreased that distance. These findings add new results to the literature and could have policy implications for joint crime and pandemic prevention and control.

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec; 19(23): 15525.

By Amy E. Nivette, Renee Zahnow, Raul Aguilar, Andri Ahven, et al.

The stay-at-home restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 led to unparalleled sudden change in daily life, but it is unclear how they affected urban crime globally. We collected data on daily counts of crime in 27 cities across 23 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We conducted interrupted time series analyses to assess the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on different types of crime in each city. Our findings show that the stay-at-home policies were associated with a considerable drop in urban crime but with substantial variation across cities and types of crime. Meta-regression results showed that more stringent restrictions over movement in public spaces were predictive of larger declines in crime.

Nature Human Behaviour.2021.

By Amarnath Amarasingam,* Michèle St-Amant, David A. Jones 

  The threat posed by current or former members of the military joining right-wing extremist groups is an issue of growing concern – evidenced by arrests and disrupted terrorist plots across Western Europe and North America. Using interviews with individuals who are both former extremists and have military experience, this article provides a basis for understanding the ways in which military service intersects and interacts with far-right extremism. By focusing on what we term the operational dimensions of the overlap between right-wing extremism and the military service, this article advances a novel framework for understanding how right-wing extremists navigate military institutions, such as recruitment during and after service, and using both covert and overt measures to reveal or conceal their beliefs, as well as recruit others. This study also illustrates how the timing of military service can impact susceptibility or resilience to radicalisation based on specific unit dynamics and planned or unplanned exits from service. Finally, this article discusses how these findings can produce practical recommendations for military institutions, while highlighting the need for more research on the topic.  

Perspectives on Terrorism,  Volume XVIII, Issue 2 June 2024  

By Vanya Gastrow

A fall in business robberies over the past decade could indicate rising levels of extortion and organised crime.

South Africa is a country plagued by violent crime. Media headlines of murders, kidnappings and sexual violence are backed up by the country’s crime data. The Institute for Security Studies’ (ISS) recent call for policing reforms describes how the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) track record has measurably declined since 2012, with crimes such as murder increasing and public perceptions of safety falling.

But in Cape Town, one form of violent crime is bucking this trend and showing a consistent and significant decline. Business robberies, which initially rose in the early 2000s, have been falling markedly over the past decade, as reflected by ISS Crime Hub data.

Business robberies differ from crimes such as burglary because they entail violence or the threat thereof. In Cape Town, business robberies started increasing in 2006 when reported cases surged from 99 to 1 656 cases in 2014/15. This crime wave comprised an increase of well over 1 000% in a decade.

In this article, Vanya Gastrow explores the decline in business robberies in Cape Town over the past decade, suggesting that this trend may indicate a rise in extortion and organised crime rather than an actual decrease in violent crime.

Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2024. 5p.

By Emily West, Victoria Lawson, Pavithra Nagarajan  Daphne Moraga

Probation is by far the largest form of correctional control in the United States, and a leading cause of incarceration. Despite the widespread use of probation as a method of correctional control, historically little has been known about the drivers of probation violations and how to meaningfully improve outcomes for those under supervision while maintaining community safety. It was against this backdrop that CUNY ISLG launched the Reducing Revocations Challenge (RRC) in 2019, with support from Arnold Ventures.

The RRC aimed to fill the void of information on drivers of revocation through in-depth, mixed-method research, which was conducted in 10 counties during Phase I; in Phase II the findings were put into action with innovative strategies to improve probation outcomes and equity in a subset of those sites: Monroe County, IN; Pima County, AZ; Ramsey County, MN; and Santa Cruz County, CA.

This report documents Phase II and the lessons learned from the RRC for cities and counties seeking to implement similar reforms, and the accompanying policy brief describes the action research model employed in the initiative.

New York: CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, 20242024. 39p.

By Anita S. Hargrave, Kelly R. Knight, Zena K. Dhatt, Grace Taylor, Dez Martinez and Margot Kushel

Homelessness is a public health concern in California and throughout the United States. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a risk factor for experiencing homelessness. Few studies have examined the interplay between IPV, homelessness, and housing. Qualitative methods can provide a greater understanding of the lived experience of IPV and homelessness to identify potential solutions. We purposefully sampled 104 adults who reported experiencing IPV in the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH), a representative, mixed-methods study. We administered semi-structured interviews focusing on IPV and six other topic areas pertaining to homelessness from October 2021 to May 2022. We created and applied a codebook with a multidisciplinary team using a hybrid of deductive and inductive logic. Our analysis included all participants who discussed IPV and homelessness across the seven studies. We conducted a thematic analysis using an interpretivist approach and informed by grounded theory. We found that violence within a partnership was multidimensional (physical, sexual, emotional, and financial) and bidirectional. We identified six themes: (1) IPV precipitated and prolonged homelessness; (2) Need for housing, financial stability, and material resources influenced staying in abusive relationships; (3) Alcohol and illicit substance use exacerbated violence between partners; (4) Participants struggled to find resources in domestic violence (DV) shelters; (5) The healthcare system did not provide substantial support; and (6) discrimination and stigma influenced equitable access to housing and DV resources. Experiencing IPV contributed to homelessness and impeded returns to housing. Limitations in current IPV resources impede care. We propose equitable expansion of survivor-centered services that improve access to long-term subsidized housing, prevent IPV and homelessness with flexible funding options, and facilitate rapid exits from homelessness through trauma-informed, non-congregate shelter that transitions to permanent housing.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence 0 0:0 2024. Online before print.

By Human Rights WatchNew

In Ecuador, sexual violence is endemic in schools, and survivors face an uphill battle to finding support and accessing justice. In 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Ecuador in Paola Guzmán Albarracín v Ecuador, the court’s first ever case on school-related sexual violence. The Court ordered Ecuador to improve prevention of and response to sexual violence in schools, and to ensure access to justice and comprehensive reparations. “Like Patchwork”: Ecuador’s Slow Progress Tackling and Preventing School-Related Sexual Violence examines the progress the Ecuadorian government has made toward tackling sexual violence in schools, including the measures the government has adopted to comply with the Inter-American court’s ruling. Based on 68 interviews between 2022 and 2024, the report finds that despite commitments by government institutions, sexual violence remains endemic in Ecuador’s schools. Ecuador reports thousands of cases of school-related sexual violence perpetrated by teachers, directors, other school staff, janitors, bus drivers, and often students. Many schools still fail to report abuses, contravening their obligations. Survivors also face obstacles in the judicial system. Barriers to carrying out robust investigations and effective prosecutions of cases of school-based sexual violence obstruct survivors’ ability to find justice, contribute to their re-traumatization, and lead to impunity for perpetrators. Human Rights Watch calls on the Ecuadorian government to effectively tackle and prevHunt sexual violence against students. It should also ensure effective investigations and prosecutions of all cases of school-related sexual violence, so survivors can find justice and reparations for the abuses they have suffered. 

New York:  Human Rights WAtch, 2024. 65p.

By Violence Policy Center

   Since the mid-1960s, self-defense has been the foundational argument used by the gun industry to sell firearms, primarily handguns, in the United States. In this effort, gunmakers have been aided by the gun lobby, most notably the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). This is despite the fact that evidence consistently shows that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes. Instead of protecting its owner, family, and friends, the presence of a gun in the home actually increases the risk of suicide, homicide, and unintentional death. Historically, the primary demographic targeted by the gun industry has been white males. This is now changing as the result of the fact that this traditional customer base is aging and dying off and gunmakers, to paraphrase a tobacco industry term, have failed to recruit a sufficient number of ‘replacement shooters’ to fill their thinning ranks. As a result, household and individual gun ownership over the past few decades in the United States have declined significantly and remain relatively stagnant. While children and women have been the default targets of the industry in the wake of stagnation of the white male market, there has also been a growing focus on marketing guns, primarily for self-defense, to Latinos, Blacks, and other minority groups in America. And there is no reason to believe that the real-world impact of gun ownership on newly minted Black and Brown gun owners will be any different than their white predecessors — increased risk of death and injury in suicides, homicides, and fatal unintentional injuries. What is different is that these communities are already disproportionately impacted by lethal firearms violence and that increased gun ownership can only increase death and injury among them. Historically, Blacks and Latinos in the United States have relatively low rates of gun ownership. Yet, the majority of both Blacks and Latinos, like most Americans, falsely believe “that a gun in the home is much more likely to be used to protect, rather than harm, members of the household.” One survey found that 75  percent of Blacks and 73 percent of Latinos felt that it was more likely that a gun would be “used to protect members of the home.” Only 18 percent of Blacks and 22 percent of Latinos felt that it would be more likely that the gun would be “used to harm someone in the home, either accidentally or on purpose.” This is despite the fact that guns, in any hands, are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes and that both the Black and Brown communities are disproportionately impacted by lethal gun violence. This combination — low gun ownership coupled with a mistaken belief in the efficacy of the self-defense handgun — is the sweet spot for the gun industry and its financial partners in the NRA. And just as important as future sales are the potential political benefits outreach to minority communities may represent. Compared to whites, Blacks and Latinos show stronger support for gun violence prevention measures.6 And recognizing the continuing growth of the U.S. Latino population, the potential political benefits of increased gun ownership among this group are clear. The brazenness of this marketing shift is striking, recognizing that for decades members of the gun lobby and firearms industry have played on fear of crime and community disorder in their marketing efforts. And while rarely stated outright, often implicit is that those to be feared come from communities of color.

Washington, DC: Violence Policiy Center, 2021. 43p.  

By Violence Policy Center

   Since the mid-1960s, self-defense has been the foundational argument used by the gun industry to sell firearms, primarily handguns, in the United States. In this effort, gunmakers have been aided by the gun lobby, most notably the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). Firearms are promoted as risk-free tools necessary for the defense of self and family from myriad threats, most frequently an attack by a stranger. Never acknowledged is the demonstrable fact that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes, and that most homicides occur between people who know one another. Also missing from this false and simplistic narrative is the reality of the trauma, legal and financial risk, and long-term emotional repercussions that can come with the act of taking another human life. Historically, the primary demographic targeted by the gun industry has been white males. This is now changing as the result of the fact that this traditional customer base is aging while gunmakers, to paraphrase a tobacco industry term, have failed to recruit a sufficient number of ‘replacement shooters’ to fill their thinning ranks. As a result, household and individual gun ownership over the past few decades in the United States have declined significantly and remain relatively stagnant.3 While children and women have been the default targets of the industry in the wake of stagnation of the white male market, there has also been a growing campaign to market guns to minority groups in America, primarily for self-defense. Latino and Black    Americans have been the primary focus of these efforts. This has begun to shift in the wake of high-profile racist attacks on members of the Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, including a mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an April 2021 Pew Research survey found, “Amid widespread reports of discrimination and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus outbreak, 32% percent of Asian adults say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them – a greater share than other racial or ethnic groups. The vast majority of Asian adults (81%) also say violence against them is increasing, far surpassing the share of all U.S. adults (56%) who say the same....”4Seeing an opportunity to exploit the fear spurred by these horrific attacks, the firearms industry has moved swiftly to expand its efforts targeting the AAPI community

Washington DC: Violence  Policy Center, 2021.26p.

By Brice Terpstra, Michael D. White,  Aili Malm

Over the last few years, thousands of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted body-worn cameras (BWCs), and they have subsequently had to deal with the tremendous amount of digital evidence generated by the technology. Digital evidence management (DEM) is the process by which an agency manages, stores, shares, and integrates the data generated by BWCs and other imaging devices (e.g., dashboard cameras, license plate readers (LPRs), cell phones). Addressing DEM is a critical feature of a successful BWC program.

To explore how agencies handle DEM, Arizona State University (ASU) conducted an online survey of agencies receiving federal funding for BWCs through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (BWCPIP). ASU asked the agencies approximately 30 questions related to DEM, including questions about basic program management, internal use of footage, external sharing of footage, challenges, and future developments. In the first edition of this report published in 2022 (accessible here), ASU presented results from 68 agencies that completed the survey. This second edition of the report includes results from an additional 22 agencies, for a total sample of 90. The primary findings are as follows:

• Most responding agencies routinely monitor the flow of footage into their organization. Most of the agencies regularly track storage use (69 percent), uploads (60 percent), and activations (43 percent). Most responding agencies also have a process to review untagged footage (83 percent).

• More than half of agencies (56 percent) indicated that they have a specific BWC management unit. These units perform all BWC-related tasks, from camera assignments and maintenance to audits and redaction.

• Nearly all agencies use BWC footage to accomplish an internal objective, whether that be investigating uses of force and citizen complaints (99 percent), monitoring BWC use (i.e., activation compliance; 85 percent), or conducting performance evaluations (44 percent). More than one-quarter of agencies (29 percent) examine metadata to inform their BWC program.

• About three-quarters of responding agencies (74 percent) share BWC footage with the public. Among those that do, nearly all have a policy in place to govern that public release process.

• Most agencies also share the footage with external stakeholders, including city and county prosecutors, public defenders, private attorneys, and other law enforcement agencies. Agencies use several methods to share footage, including providing direct access to cloud storage, secure email links, and physical copies (USB devices). Sharing methods vary notably based on who is receiving the footage. Agencies generally reserve direct access to cloud storage for prosecutors (48 percent have provided access to their prosecutors).

• The primary DEM-related challenges are associated with costs, staffing, and resources (28 percent); storage and infrastructure (19 percent); and video redaction (13 percent). Agencies also identified these same issues as areas for future development. Most of the identified future developments were internally focused (i.e., things that the departments themselves can or should do to address challenges). Very few responding agencies mentioned future developments involving the vendors or others outside their agency.

Tempe: Arizona State University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, California State University, Long Beach, 2024. 17p.

By Michael Ostermann, Nathan W. Link, Jordan M. Hyatt

Legal financial obligations (LFOs) associated with justice system involvement are increasingly a focus for policymakers and researchers seeking to understand sources of inequality and the factors that promote successful reentry. These conversations often rely on an assumption that LFOs are associated with or may even drive higher rates of recidivism. The empirical research in this area, however, has not kept up with the growing strength of these claims. This study reports findings that may offer a new perspective and contribute to an evidence-based debate. Multi Sourced administrative data on all individuals released from carceral supervision in an East Coast state (N = 21,301) over 3 years are used to examine the complex relationship between criminal justice debt and reoffending. We detail the results of survival analyses estimating the impact of these debts on various forms of recidivism. Broadly, we find that even though the relationship between case-level LFO assessments and future offending did not reach statistical significance, the association with the cumulative effect of monetary sanctions over the life course did. Furthermore, the impact of LFO debt is greater for certain racial groups, supporting theoretical and practical inquiries into factors informing structural disadvantage. Implications for policy and future research are considered.

Criminology, 

Volume62, Issue2

May 2024

Pages 331-363

By Robert J. Sampson, Roland Neil

Although racial disparities in criminal justice contact are long-standing and the subject of continuing public debate, few studies have linked early-life social conditions to racial disparities in arrest over the life course and in changing times. In this article, we advance and test a theoretical model of racial inequality in long-term arrest histories on a representative sample of nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple birth cohorts in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Large Black–White disparities in arrests from ages 10 to 40 arise from racial inequalities in exposure to cumulative childhood advantages and disadvantages rather than from race-specific effects. Smaller but meaningful Hispanic–White gaps follow a similar pattern, and the same explanations of racial disparities hold across different offense types and across birth cohorts who came of age at different times during 1995 to 2021. These findings indicate that inequalities in early-life structural factors, which themselves are historically shaped, trigger processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage that produce racial disparities in arrests over the life course and that persist across different points in contemporary history.

Criminology, Volume62, Issue2

May 2024

Pages 177-204

By Seena Fazel, Matthias Burghart, Achim Wolf, Daniel Whiting, and Rongqin Yu  

  To address the societal harms of violence, many violence prevention interventions have been developed, tested, and implemented in the general population. These have been reported in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which have typically focused on one type of intervention or outcome. We aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the current evidence regarding the effectiveness of different psychosocial interventions in reducing all forms of violence toward others. We have conducted an umbrella review of previous meta-analyses using standard approaches and converted findings on effectiveness into odds ratios. We tested for the underlying quality of the meta-analytic evidence by examining heterogeneity, excess statistical significance, prediction intervals, and small study effects. We identified 16 meta-analyses, including nine investigating psychosocial interventions, and five legislative and policy changes. Most meta-analyses reported positive effects of tested interventions. The strongest effects were found for sports-based initiatives, and the weakest for general population programs aimed at early childhood, youth development, and reducing sexual assault perpetration by men. Legislative changes had varying effectiveness. We conclude that simple, scalable, and cost-efficient programs, such as sport-based initiatives, have the clearest empirical support as population-based approaches to violence prevention.  

  TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, & ABUSE 2024, Vol. 25(2) 1709 –1718

By Brice J. Terpstra

The findings of this study on the role of military service in the lives of justice-involved military veterans suggest that the role of military service is nuanced and that for many veterans the military directly impacted both deviance and mental health outcomes. Further, emotionality of these veterans is quite variant over time, while social togetherness and engagement in activity show to be impactful on emotional well-being. Overall, this research expands the understanding of the role of military service in the life-course and provides an in-depth look into the daily and life-course experiences of justice-involved veterans, ultimately giving voice to the veterans themselves to articulate their own experiences and needs. This study explores the life-course experiences of justice-involved veterans in three separate, yet interconnected ways: (1) trajectories of deviance across the life-course and the impact of military service on deviance; (2) the relationships between military service, mental health, and negative life-course outcomes; and (3) the daily experiences of justice-involved veterans, including who they spend time with, what they spend time doing, and how these factors impact emotion. This work is one of the few to utilize qualitative inquiry to better understand the relationship between military service and trajectories of deviance for justice-involved veterans, and is the first to use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology to examine the daily experiences of justice-involved veterans.

Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 2024. 215p.

By Terra Wiens 

  The devastation homicide inflicts on Black teens and adults is an ongoing national crisis, yet it is all too often ignored outside of affected communities. This study examines the issue of Black homicide victimization by analyzing 2022 WISQARS mortality data1 from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This analysis offers national and state data, ranks the states by their Black homicide victimization rates, and offers additional information on the 10 states with the highest rates. Previous versions of this report used exclusively FBI SHR data to describe Black homicide victimization. In January of 2021, the FBI changed the way crime data are collected in the United States, which negatively impacted the reliability of such data from some states. As a result of the incomplete nature of state-by-state SHR crime data for 2022, using this data for ranking the states is not possible. In order to continue examining state-specific Black homicide victimization rates and offering state rankings, this report utilizes CDC WISQARS data to describe victim demographics and weapons used at both the national level and the state level for the 10 states with the highest Black homicide victimization rates. To offer further detail on Black homicide victimization in the United States, FBI SHR data are used to describe the victim and offender relationship and homicide circumstances at the national level. The Violence Policy Center hopes that at some point in the near future FBI crime data will once again be sufficiently robust to allow for a more complete analysis of the data.  

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center  2024. 24p.