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Who Faces the Gravest Threats of Being Murdered? The 2013 U.S. murder rate of 4.5 means that out of every collection of 100,000 people, nearly 5 people were killed and 99,995 survived. Who were these unfortunate few that were marked for death? This statistic captures the odds of being slain for fictitious “average” Americans of […]

The Geographic Distribution of Violent Deaths in the United States Now that the murder rates in different countries and their biggest cities have been analyzed, the next logical step is to zoom in on the United States. The interna- tional comparisons in Tables 4.1 and 4.2 highlight the well-known fact that some parts of the

FOCUSING ON MURDERS Where It Is Safer or More Dangerous: Making International Comparisons In order to bring the big picture into sharper focus during the era of globalization, it is important to remember that victimization rates vary dramati- cally not only from time to time but also from one place to another. The greatest variations

ADDRESSING SOME TROUBLING QUESTIONS The previous chapter painted the “big picture” about all forms of victimization in the entire country in recent years. This chapter focuses on certain inter- personal crimes of violence and theft in greater depth. People attacked by murderers, other danger- ous assailants, and robbers are examined first. Indivi- duals and households

PUTTING CRIME INTO PERSPECTIVE: THE CHANCES OF DYING VIOLENTLY—OR FROM OTHER CAUSES One final way to grasp the big picture involves weighing the relative threats posed by different types of misfortunes. The chance of being harmed by a criminal needs to be compared to the odds of being hurt in an accident or of contracting

An Historical Overview of Homicide Rates, United States, 1900–2013 88 CHAPT ER 3 Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203 touched off another escalation of bloodshed. By the start of the 1990s, murder rates once again were close to their highest

The Rise and Fall of Murder Rates Since 1900 It is possible to look back over more than a century to note how the homicide rate has surged and ebbed in America during various historical periods. As the trend line in Figure 3.4 indicates, homi- cide rates appeared to rise at the outset of the

TAKING A LONGER VIEW: MURDERS IN THE UNITED STATES OVER THE PAST CENTURY Another aspect of the big picture involves getting a feel for historical trends. Is the level of criminal violence in the United States today far worse or much better than in the distant past? Is the United States becoming a safer place

Tapping into the UCR and the NCVS to Fill in the Details of the Big Picture The two official sources of government statistics can yield useful information that answers impor- tant questions about everyday life, such as, “How often does interpersonal violence break out?” (Note that when working with statistics and rounding off numbers such

Delving Deeper into the Big Picture: Examining Victimization Rates Statistics always must be scrutinized carefully, double-checked, and then put into perspective with some context. Victimologists and criminolo- gists look at both raw numbers and rates. Raw numbers reveal the actual numbers of victims. For example, the body count or the death toll is a raw