Homicides in England and Wales: The Effects of Victim and Offense Characteristics on Case Clearance

Canadian homicide clearance rates are higher than for any other type of crime, but clearance rates have been decreasing since the late 1960s and they are not uniform across the country. This article examines homicide clearance in Canada using data derived from the Canadian Homicide Survey to determine whether the evident temporal and geographical variations in clearance are explained by either victim characteristics or offense details. There are two competing theories regarding homicide clearance characteristics. On one hand, it is argued that the police use discretion when determining which cases deserving more attention. The alternate theory is that police apportion the same effort to all homicide cases, regardless of the victim’s status owing to the heinous nature of the crime; therefore, only case details impede the process of determining culpability. Using logistic regression analysis, this examination first focuses on the influence of time and geography on clearance probabilities and then compares the effect of victim characteristics and offense characteristics on clearance outcomes. Empirically nested models indicate that victim characteristics are not a robust predictor of clearance; offense characteristics are found to be more influential. However, both temporal and geographical factors remain important predictors of homicide clearance. The impacts of increasing gang- and drug-related homicides are discussed, as are implications for future research.

One perspective on homicide clearance by arrest argues that clearance is influenced by police discretion based on victim characteristics. Another suggests that immediate situational characteristics, related to physical evidence and information, are more important in clearing homicides. Using event history analysis, this study examined the effects of victim and situational characteristics on homicide clearance for 1579 murder incidents from the 2002 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Unlike the logistic regression approach typically used in murder clearance research, event history analysis considers the length of time to clearance, increasing the accuracy of estimates. The current analysis found that incidents with female or younger victims were more likely to be cleared. Also, homicides with victims involved in drug- and gang-related activities were more likely to be cleared. However, the significant impact of victim characteristics disappeared after controlling for situational variables related to physical evidence, information, and witnesses. Situational characteristics such as under-the-influence offenders, non-stranger offenders, contact weapons, and concomitant serious offenses significantly increased the odds of homicide clearance.

Beginning in the 1960s, there has been a marked decline in clearance rates of homicides, a finding that has generated little interest among criminological researchers. This article presents a comparative analysis of homicide clearance in Canada and the United States using data generated by the Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Reports. Using logistic regression, homicide clearance is predicted on the basis of specific victim and offense characteristics for cases in Canada versus the United States and in Ontario versus New York State. The results indicate that the model is a good fit for homicide clearance in both countries as a whole. Whereas the homicide weapon, circumstances surrounding the offense, age, and gender of the victim were found to be significant homicide clearance predictors in New York State, only the circumstances surrounding the offense emerged as an important predictor in Ontario.

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of victim and offense characteristics on the amount of time detectives allocated to burglary and robbery investigations. Data were derived from an analysis of 292 robbery and 317 burglary investigative reports obtained from a medium-sized mid-western municipal police department and through six months of observations in the setting. The quantitative results showed that offense characteristics are by far more powerful predictors of time spent than victim characteristics. The qualtiative results showed interaction and dependency effects among many of the victim characteristic variables and highlighted the complex calculus by which causal influences are manifested in detectives' decision behavior. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Few studies examine homicide clearances despite trends across many jurisdictions that show a decrease in homicides cleared each year. This study addresses that research gap using Chicago homicide data from 1991 to 2002 to identify predictive factors in homicide clearances. Across five logistic regression models we found that victim and incident characteristics were significant predictors of homicide clearances, although the number and types of significant predictors were varied across the analyses. Moreover, we found differences in the factors that significantly predicted clearances for three specific homicide circumstances: expressive, instrumental, and gang-related.

ABSTRACTStudies on homicide clearance in the Scandinavian context are very rare. In this article, we explore the homicide clearance rate in Sweden with special reference to firearm-perpetrated cases. The study is based on homicide research data collected by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, comprising all 2160 homicides known to the Swedish authorities during the period 1990–2013. The annual clearance rate varied between 74 and 90%, with an overall minor decrease since the 1990s. However, there has been a considerable decrease in the clearance rate for firearm-perpetrated homicides. It can be concluded that this decrease is due to a shift in the characteristics of firearm-perpetrated offences, with homicides committed in public places against criminally active male victims having become more frequent. This finding is generally consistent with theories which argue that homicide clearance rates are predominantly affected by case-specific, non-discretional factors beyond the control of the police. The practical implications of the study are that investigative efforts should be more intense in cases where a male has been shot in a public place, and that homicides related to criminal milieus should be investigated by specialized units.

This study examined the Homicide in Chicago data 1965–1995 to further understand the effect of victim, incident, and environmental characteristics on homicide clearance. The hypotheses tested are formulated from a police perspective with the intent to capture how different types of victims, circumstances of homicides, and officers’ immediate work environment may influence homicide clearance. The findings demonstrate that a perspective based on psychological, situational, and environmental impact on police work may serve as an alternative explanation for homicide clearance to the social conflict perspective that focuses on the effect of preconceived or predisposed officer bias, and to the equal aggressiveness perspective that argues that officers work equally hard for all homicide cases due to the heinousness of such crime.

Homicide clearance rates in the United States have been steadily declining from the 1960s through the 1990s. Our study asks: (1) Are the factors commonly identified in homicide clearance research as being related to clearances consistent across time? (2) Can these factors shed light on the decline in homicide clearance rates during the past three decades? (3) How are community area characteristics related to clearances across time? Using Chicago data from 1966 to 1995, we find that the factors vary across time and space in terms of statistical significance and magnitude of their relationships. Specifically, the increasing significance of victim's race and firearm usage may account for some of the decrease in homicide clearance rates. Community area characteristics enhance our understanding of homicide clearances, although to a lesser extent than the victim and situational characteristics of a homicide case.

Sex workers are commonly claimed to be at heightened risk of fatal victimization. Although prior research indicates that the dynamics of sex worker homicides resemble sexual homicides more than nonsexual homicides, little is known about how these types of homicides compare in terms of offending patterns. This study considers a sample of 2,851 single-victim, single-offender homicide cases extracted from a 37-year (1976-2012) US Supplementary Homicide Reports database, and compares the offender, victim, and offender characteristics of 243 sex worker homicides (189 males and 54 females) with those of 2608 sexual homicides (2474 males and 134 females). The findings suggest that the offender, victim, and offense characteristics of general, male-offender, and female-offender sex worker homicides are essentially different from the characteristics of sexual homicides. Logistic regressions further indicate that most offender, victim, and offense characteristics on the occurrence of general and male-offender sex worker homicides were significantly associated with the perpetration of general and male-offender sex worker homicides, with reference to sexual homicides. These findings offer insights relevant to the prioritization of criminal investigative practices.

Direction and Scope of the <i>European Psychologist</i>

This study examines sex differences in assault, as well as the differences in arrest likelihood, for girls and boys in a sample of juvenile assaults from the National Incident-Based Reporting System. Using contingency tables, we compare dimensions of assault severity, victim characteristics, and victim–offender relationship across offender sex to identify patterns in boys and girls violence. Further, we employ logistic regression to analyze the effect of offender sex on the probability arrest, while controlling for these differences. The results indicated that the proportion of girls' offenses committed against older family members was greater than the proportion of boys' offenses. Furthermore, while controlling for victim, offender, and offense characteristics, log odds of arrest for girls were 11% higher than that for boys, a statistically significant effect. These results suggest that mandatory arrest policies for domestic violence may disproportionately affect girls, as a greater proportion of girls' offenses than boys' offenses take place at home, requiring the application of domestic violence policies with less discretion by police officers to respond with any response other than arrest. This study lends support to a selective chivalry model, where system actors treat women differentially depending on the circumstances of the offense.

ABSTRACTThis mixed-methods study compares experiences of female- and male-perpetrated child sexual abuse using self-report data from a correctional subsample of 26 women and 25 men currently incarcerated for a sex crime against a child. First, we use bivariate and logistic regression analyses to determine whether there are differences in offender, victim, and offense characteristics between women and men who commit child sexual abuse. Second, we examine participants’ open-ended responses eliciting details about their offenses. Quantitative results reveal some differences between women and men in victim characteristics, presence of a co-offender, and adulthood experiences with violence but no differences between women and men in experiences of childhood adversity, including prior child sexual abuse victimization. Qualitative results, however, suggest marked differences in the way women and men characterize their offenses. Overall, findings indicate that women and men report unique experiences with child sexual abuse perpetration and therefore would benefit from gender-specific treatment.

Because violent crime in general, and homicide in particular, has not posed a particularly significant problem in Great Britain, studies of homicide in that country are relatively sparse, and research on workplace homicide is nonexistent. This article is an initial attempt to shed some light on this phenomenon in Great Britain. The writers first discuss the methodological problems they encountered; then, using the Homicide Index from the Home Office for 1982-1992, they proceed to analyze these data using such variables as the method of killing, apparent circumstances of the event, and characteristics of both victims and offenders. The findings suggest that the premises identified as being at high risk for workplace homicide in the United States are also locations of high risk in England and Wales. Retail shops, small businesses, fast-food restaurants, and eating and drinking establishments are all highly vulnerable to workplace homicide both in the United States and in England and Wales.

Crimes against children, particularly cases involving abduction and/or homicide, continue to be problematic as both a social phenomenon and judicial responsibility. Such cases routinely receive immense community and media attention and rapidly overwhelm investigative resources. Research in the area of childhood victimization, however, has only recently gained national prominence. While numerous studies on child abuse and neglect have been conducted, research on child abduction and homicide remains scant. Previous studies examining child abduction suffer from limited geographical scope or fail to base predictive analyses on victim characteristics. The current study reports the results of a nationally representative sample (47 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico) of 550 cases of alleged child abduction obtained from Federal Bureau of Investigation files for the period 1985 through 1995. Study results demonstrate that both offender and offense characteristics vary significantly according to victim age, gender, and race. Such differences appear critical to crime reconstruction, criminal profiling, and investigative resolution. Additionally, these data suggest that current child abduction prevention programs may emphasize inaccurate offender traits.

Research QuestionWhat pathways to more accurate prediction of intimate partner homicide (IPH) can be found by reviewing two years of official Domestic Homicide Reviews in England and Wales?DataThis study conducted a detailed review of investigative source material, police database information and the official independent author reviews of the 188 cases of intimate partner homicide recorded in England and Wales between April 2011 and March 2013.MethodsDescriptive analytical techniques were used to explore the prevalence of various characteristics of victims, offenders and relationships in these cases, with special attention given to offender suicide ideation as a precursor to the crimes.FindingsOffenders in these cases were 86% male, with high rates of both chronic substance abuse (61%) and prior reported offending (50%) against their homicide victim. The most disproportionately prevalent characteristic appears to be that 40% of the male offenders were known by someone, but often not to police, as suffering suicidal ideation, self-harm or attempted suicides. The prevalence of that marker, while not measureable in the general population, is over four times higher than the pre-offence police indications of suicidal tendencies across 80 domestic homicides in Leicestershire (Button et al., 2017).ConclusionsIt is plausible that many more intimate partner homicides might be accurately predicted, and perhaps prevented, with more public investment in obtaining data on suicidal indicators and more proactive treatment of domestic abuse offenders known to suffer suicidal tendencies.