Increase In Homicide Rates Research Articles

Intentional Homicides and Alcohol Abuse in Lithuania

The aim of the present study is to examine the links between high intentional homicide rates and alcohol abuse in the context of social transition in Lithuania. According to the extant literature, both the increase in homicide rates and the increase in alcohol abuse have a negative impact on public health and are often associated with challenges at the macrosocial level. In recent decades, Lithuania has experienced substantial political, economic, and social transformations. Lithuanian society has transitioned from a Soviet regime to embrace the Western principles of liberal democracy. Yet, despite positive political and economic progress, Lithuania remains a country with one of the highest homicide and alcohol-related harm rates in the European Union. These characteristics have made the Lithuanian homicide situation a captivating topic for a range of international and national studies, expert analyses, and evaluations. Unfortunately, the lack of reliable and consistent data on homicide continues to obstruct researchers from delving deeper into the analysis and explanation of the homicide phenomenon in Lithuania. To mitigate this issue, in this work, we present thoroughly collected and processed historical data on intentional homicide trends from 1961 to 2022. We also examine changes in the rate of homicide suspects, including their socio-demographic characteristics and alcohol intoxication for the 2004–2022 period. Finally, we investigate changes in homicide mortality rates and homicide victims’ socio-demographic characteristics. Our analyses are based on data sourced from the Lithuanian Special Archives, as well as national and international databases of crime statistics and demographic data. We noted a continuous decline in intentional homicide rates after the steep increase in 1989–1994. Furthermore, between 2004 and 2022, more than half of intentional homicide suspects were under the influence of alcohol. These findings are discussed in the broader context of societal changes in Lithuania.

US homicide rates increase when resources are scarce and unequally distributed.

As homicide rates spike across the United States, researchers nominate diverse causes such as temperature, city greenness, structural racism, inequality, poverty and more. While variation in homicide rates clearly results from multiple causes, many correlation studies lack the systematic theory needed to identify the underlying factors that structure individual motivations. Building on pioneering work in evolutionary human sciences, we propose that when resources are unequally distributed, individuals may have incentives to undertake high-risk activities, including lethal violence, in order to secure material and social capital. Here we evaluate this theory by analysing federal data on homicide rates, poverty and income inequality across all 50 US states for the years 1990, 2000 and 2005-2020. Supporting predictions derived from evolutionary social sciences, we find that the interaction of poverty (scarcity) and inequality (unequal distribution) best explains variation in US homicide rates. Results suggest that the increase in homicide rates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are driven in part by these same underlying causes that structure homicide rates across the US over the last 30 years. We suggest that these results provide compelling evidence to expand strategies for reducing homicide rates by dismantling structures that generate and concentrate sustained poverty and economic inequality.

Climate attribution of interpersonal violence: International evidence

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening interpersonal violence, yet global evidence for related impacts and potential transmission mechanisms remains limited. We examine whether and how climate change, particularly climate extremes, affects interpersonal violence. Using the panel data of 140 countries and regions from 2000 to 2019, we find that hot and wet extremes precipitated increase in homicide rates globally. Economic level, inequality, and resources scarcity were important intermediaries through which climate extremes affected homicide, while the direct effects still dominated the total effects. We then reveal the heterogeneous effects of climate extremes, further suggesting that poor countries and regions with relatively small contributions to climate change were particularly sensitive to climate extremes. These findings elucidate a strong climate-violence link, helping explain implications of facilitating violence prevention and mitigating climate change.

Does crime impede economic growth? An evidence from India

Crime imposes significant direct and indirect costs on society. While a great wealth of literature focuses on crime as a result of prevailing economic conditions, one cannot exclude the possibility that the relationship between crime and economic growth may go the other way around. This study employs an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to empirically examine the extent to which homicides affect economic growth. The case study was conducted in India, and longitudinal annual data from 1990 to 2019 were employed. The bounds cointegration test reveals that crime rate, proxied by homicide rate, along with investment, FDI, exports, and enrolment Granger cause real per capita GDP in the long run. The homicide rate will have a significantly negative impact on economic growth in the short run. A one percentage increase in homicide rates leads to 0.25% decrease in economic growth. The findings point to urgent attention to the reduction of crime rates by increasing the opportunity cost of criminal activities and reducing the damaging effects of homicides on economic growth.

Community Violence and the Stability of Marriages and Cohabitations in Mexico

AbstractThis study evaluates the link between local violence and the stability of women’s first co-residential unions in Mexico by exploiting the drastic increase in homicide rates caused by the Mexican War on Drugs in December 2006. We use event history analysis and individual union histories collected by a national survey in 2009 to assess whether increasing homicide rates in the previous 2 years relates to the dissolution of marital and cohabiting unions, and to transitions to marriage among cohabitors. Cox models show that a recent spike in violence is associated with a higher risk of dissolution for first coresidential unions among less educated women. Competing-risks Cox models further show that for first cohabiting unions among the less educated, exposure to increasing violence is not only associated with a higher risk of dissolution, but also with a higher risk of transitioning to marriage. In contrast, recent spikes in violence were not significantly associated with union transitions for more educated women. This suggests that increasing local violence may be pushing disadvantaged women in coresidential unions to accelerate significant transitions in their family trajectories, by either dissolving their relationships, or getting married to their cohabiting partner, which plausibly reflects underlying differences in union quality. By evaluating the link between local criminal violence and union stability, our findings contribute to understanding how disadvantaged families cope with disruptions to their social environments.

Spreading Gangs: Exporting US Criminal Capital to El Salvador

This paper shows how deportation policies can backfire by disseminating not only ideas between countries but also criminal networks, spreading gangs, in this case, across El Salvador, and spurring migration back to the United States. In 1996, the US Illegal Immigration Responsibility Act increased the number of criminal deportations. In particular, the members of large Salvadoran gangs developed in Los Angeles were sent back to El Salvador. Using variation in criminal deportations over time and across cohorts, combined with geographical variation in US gangs’ location, I find that these deportations led to an increase in homicide rates and gang activity, as well as an increase in gang recruitment and migration of children. (JEL J15, J18, K37, K42, O17)

Homicide rates and housing prices in Cali and Bogotá, D. C.

Currently, the list of most violent cities in the world is dominated by Latin American cities. In 2015, Cali registered 65 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In Bogotá, the rate was 17 per 100,000 inhabitants. However, crime is not homogeneously distributed within the urban area, and literature indicates that the local response to crime affects the housing market. The objective of this paper is to estimate the relationship between housing prices and homicide rates in two Colombian cities: Cali and Bogotá. With the use of diverse sources of information and different econometric methodologies, we found that a 10% increase in homicide rates provokes a 2% decrease in housing prices in Cali and 1.8% in Bogotá.

Cities and Violence: An Empirical Analysis of the Case of Costa Rica

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the effect of urbanization on violent crime – particularly homicide in Costa Rica. Although violence is a major problem throughout Latin America, few empirical studies carried out in the area use high-quality socioeconomic and crime databases with a high level of geographical disaggregation. In this article, we employ data from all 473 districts of Costa Rica between 2010 and 2013. We develop a model which takes into account endogeneity problems and uses contrasts of marginal linear predictions. We conclude that the degree of urban concentration plays a key role in explaining homicide rates, other things being equal. This effect is progressive: the greater the urban concentration, the greater the increase in homicide rates. This causal relationship is not observed in offenses other than homicide.

Mapping disparities in homicide trends across Brazil: 2000\u20132014

BackgroundHomicides are a major problem in Brazil. Drugs and arms trafficking, and land conflicts are three of the many factors driving homicide rates in Brazil. Understanding long-term spatiotemporal trends and social structural factors associated with homicides in Brazil would be useful for designing policies aimed at reducing homicide rates.MethodsWe obtained data from 2000 to 2014 from the Brazil Ministry of Health (MOH) Mortality Information System and sociodemographic data from the Brazil Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). First, we quantified the rate of change in homicides at the municipality and state levels. Second, we used principal component regression and k-medoids clustering to examine differences in temporal trends across municipalities. Lastly, we used Bayesian hierarchical space-time models to describe spatio-temporal patterns and to assess the contribution of structural factors.ResultsThere were significant variations in homicide rates across states and municipalities. We noted the largest decrease in homicide rates in the western and southeastern states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo, which coincided with an increase in homicide rates in the northeastern states of Ceará, Alagoas, Paraiba, Rio Grande Norte, Sergipe and Bahia during the fifteen-year period. The decrease in homicides in municipalities with populations of at least 250,000 coincided with an increase in municipalities with 25,000 people or less. Structural factors that predicted municipality-level homicide rates included crude domestic product, urbanization, border with neighboring countries and proportion of population aged fifteen to twenty-nine.ConclusionsOur findings support both a dissemination hypothesis and an interiorization hypothesis. These findings should be considered when designing interventions to curb homicide rates.

Deportation, crime, and victimization

We study whether the forced removal of undocumented immigrants from the USA increases violent crime in Mexican municipalities. Using municipal panel data on homicide rates matched with annual deportation flows from the USA to Mexico, we assess whether municipalities with repatriation points experience higher violent crime when deportation flows surge. We consistently find that municipalities with greater geographic exposure to deportation flows have higher violent crime. The effects are mostly driven by increases in homicide rates of young males and minors.

Modern trends of world crime

The article describes the spread of crime and its specific classes in the world and in the regions. It is established that in most countries there is a steady tendency to decrease relative crime rates, first of all, violent crime rates. Over the past 25 years, the homicide rates in the world have been gradually decreasing. At the same time, absolute figures for the number of victims of these crimes are on the rise. According to the UN, the intentional homicide rates in Asia in 2017 are the lowest in the world (2.3 per 100,000 population), the highest rate are in South America (25). In the EU Member States from 2008 to 2017, the number of motor vehicle thefts and assaults has decreased significantly. Although the number of crimes is decreasing, the world community has faced a new configuration of crime. Cybercrime, organized crime, including drug trafficking, is on the rise. These crimes are, for the most part, transnational. In Ukraine, the crime rate increased from 780 per 100,000 populations in 1991 to 1054 in 2019. The absolute number of reported crimes in Ukraine in 1991 was 405,516, in 2019 – 444,130. Ukraine's rate of intentional homicide per 100,000 population decreases: 2014 – 10.8, 2015 – 7.5; 2016 – 4.3; 2017 – 3.8; 2018 – 3.6; 2019 – 3.5.The increase in homicide rates in 2014-2015 is related to Russia's military aggression against Ukraine and the large number of people killed in the hostilities. The perception of crime depends largely on media coverage of the issue. Public opinion polls show that respondents believe that crime in the country is increasing at the national level even when official data and victim surveys indicate that it is decreasing. In many countries around the world, official reporting is compared to alternative sources of crime information, including National victimization surveys. Representative victim surveys should be conducted at a national level to verify and supplement official report in Ukraine.

Drug‐related violence and the decline in the number of Mexican cross‐border workers

AbstractThis study examines how variations in homicide rates in Mexico are associated with the likelihood of participating in cross‐border work, that is, living in Mexico but working in the U.S. Based on Mexican census data from 2000, 2010, and 2015, and information on homicides, a series of ordinary least squares models are estimated to analyze the relationship between cross‐border commuting and homicide rates at the individual level. Fixed effects models are also estimated to study this relationship at the municipal level. The results show that from 2000 to 2010 the increase in homicide rates in northern border municipalities in Mexico reduced the likelihood of being a cross‐border worker, while from 2010 to 2015 the decrease in the homicide rate increased the probability that workers engage in cross‐border work. The decline in the number of cross‐border workers is likely in part a result of the escalation in drug‐related violence that may have led them to change their country of residence.

Hate, Conflict, and Public Space: Stand Your Ground Laws and Potential Immunity for Hate Crimes

Statistics reveal that hate crimes in the United States have increased for the past two years in a row. From 2014 to 2016, the number of reported hate crimes has increased from 5,479 in 2014, to 5,850 in 2015, to 6,121 in 2016. These numbers do not include crimes that were not shared with the FBI by local law enforcement, or crimes that were not reported to the police at all. Early indicators reveal that the number of hate crimes in 2017 is expected to further continue this upward trend. The current social and political climate has raised much concern regarding the reported increase in hate crimes, and the safety of persons who may be the targets of bias-motivated crime. One concern that has not received much attention in the scholarly literature or otherwise is the intersection of hate crimes and Stand Your Ground laws. Stand Your Ground laws remove the “duty to retreat” requirement in claims of self-defense, and permit a person to use any force necessary to protect oneself when in a public place that the person has a right to occupy. Empirical research on Stand Your Ground laws indicates that these laws contributed to an increase in homicide rates in states that offer Stand Your Ground as a legal defense, and that these laws have an implicit racial bias that affects the outcome of Stand Your Ground criminal cases. As written, these laws offer much subjectivity to the person employing the Stand Your Ground defense. This study examines the use of Stand Your Ground laws as a legal defense and suggests that, given the current social and political climate, these laws need to be modified to ensure that violence against others because of bias or prejudice cannot be translated into fear for one’s safety, and therefore, a justifiable defense for hate crimes.

Did de‐policing cause the increase in homicide rates?

Research SummaryWidespread protests and demands for accountability in the wake of broadly publicized police killings of unarmed civilians coincided with the marked upturn in homicide levels, especially in large U.S. cities, in 2015. Many observers, including prominent political figures, claimed that de‐policing caused the homicide rate to rise: Fearing increased legal liability and publicity, the police employed less proactive enforcement and made fewer arrests, producing an increase in homicide levels. We use structural equation modeling to estimate the simultaneous relationship between arrest and homicide rates between 2010 and 2015 in 53 large cities. We find no evidence of an effect of arrest rates on city homicide rates for any offense category for any year in this period, including 2015, the year of the spike in homicide levels.Policy ImplicationsThe results of our analysis reveal that declining rates of arrest did not produce the rise in homicide levels. But arrests, the chief formal reaction to crime, can play an important supporting role in crime prevention. Ample research findings have demonstrated the effectiveness of proactive policing practices, such as targeted patrol, in reducing crime rates. The success of such tactics depends, in turn, on citizens’ belief that criminal offenders face an appreciable risk of arrest. It is equally important, however, that residents of communities that have experienced unwarranted police violence believe that law enforcement is fairly applied. Lack of trust and confidence in the police militates against crime prevention as a co‐production of police and community and may promote violence as a form of self‐help.

The effect of violent crime on teenage pregnancy in Mexico

This paper explores the effect of violent crime on teenage pregnancy in Mexico using data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey conducted before and after an unexpected surge in violence. In order to identify the effects, we use a triple difference-in-differences strategy exploiting variation in (i) exposure to the surge in violence between sample periods, (ii) the intensity of violence as measured by municipal homicide rates, and (iii) age of different cohorts. We find that the average increase in homicide rates over the study period reduced the probability of teenage pregnancy by approximately 1.5%. We also demonstrate that the effect is more acute among women with worse economic conditions prior to the surge in violence. Analysis of mechanisms shows that reductions in teenage pregnancy is partly explained by changes in the sexual behavior of young women.

Homicide Arrest Rate Trends in the United States: The Contributions of Periods and Cohorts (1965–2015)

To determine the contributions of period effects (controlling for ages and cohorts) and cohort effects (controlling for ages and periods) to the changes in the homicide arrest rates in the United States over the time span from 1965 to 2015. This determination faces the age–period–cohort identification problem: the linear trends of these three factors are linearly dependent and there are an infinite number of solutions that fit the data equally well. I address this problem in multiple ways: by setting reasonable bounds around the age-distribution of homicide arrests using constrained estimates, presenting estimable functions that are identified, and by using an age–period–cohort–characteristic model. The cohort effects on homicide arrest rates have on average trended upward since the cohort born in 1945–1949; and the period coefficients have on average trended downward since 1965, but trended upward during the mid-1960s to the early-1970s. These trends over time are somewhat different depending on the bounds under consideration. Theories that posit period effects as responsible for at least part of the drop in homicide rates from 1990 to 2015 and the increase in homicide rates from the mid-1960s to the early-1970 are consistent with this analysis. Cohort effects worked in the opposite direction of the period effects for the years from 1990 to 2015. The existence of both sets of effects has implications for criminological theories and for policy prescriptions.

Social disorganization and homicide mortality rate trajectories in Brazil between 1991 and 2010

Since the 1990s, researchers have noted declining trends in crime and violence, particularly homicide, in Western countries. Studies have explored national and sub-national trends using latent trajectory analysis techniques and identified several factors associated with declining and/or increasing trajectories. Social disorganization (SD) has been consistently linked to increases in homicide rates over time, explaining at least some of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of homicide. Similar studies have not yet been carried out in Latin America's cities. In this paper we use Group Based Trajectory models to study homicide mortality rate [HMR] trajectories in Brazilian municipalities between 1991 and 2010. Then, through binary and multinomial logistic regression we investigated the association between SD in 1991, and the likelihood of an increasing HMR trajectory. We carried out an ecological time series study using all Brazilian municipalities in the period between 1991 and 2010 (n = 4491). Data on homicide deaths were collected from the Mortality Information System of the Ministry of Health and standardized by age to calculate HMR per 100,000 population. Socioeconomic and demographic data for 1991 were used to compose the composite measure of SD. Our results highlight the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of homicide mortality in Brazilian municipalities. While national trends are steadily increasing, disaggregating municipal trajectories shows that this is driven by a small proportion of municipalities in the country. We found that SD is associated with an ascending homicide trajectory. This result generally supports the notion that poor social structural conditions can create ‘space’ for criminal behavior and groups and, consequently, violent death.

La minería de oro y las tasas de homicidios en Colombia, 2004-2015

Este articulo estudia la relacion causal entre la mineria de oro y las tasas de homicidios en los municipios productores de oro en Colombia para el periodo 2004-2015. Para lograr este objetivo se usa un modelo econometrico de datos de panel con efectos fijos, estimado por minimos cuadrados ordinarios. Los resultados obtenidos sugie­ren que en el periodo de auge del precio del oro (2004-2010), el incremento de la produccion de oro genero un aumento en las tasas de homicidios en los municipios auriferos de Colombia, mientras que la caida del precio del oro (2011-2015) ocasiono a una disminucion de las muertes violentas.

Local Labor Market Conditions and Crime: Evidence from the Brazilian Trade Liberalization

This paper estimates the effect of local labor market conditions on crime in a developing country with high crime rates. Contrary to the previous literature, which has focused exclusively on developed countries with relatively low crime rates, we find that labor market conditions have a strong effect on homicides. We exploit the 1990s trade liberalization in Brazil as a natural experiment generating exogenous shocks to local labor demand. Regions facing more negative shocks experience large relative increases in crime rates in the medium term, but these effects virtually disappear in the long term. This pattern mirrors the labor market responses to the trade shocks. Using the trade liberalization episode to design an instrumental variables strategy, we find that a 10% reduction in expected labor market earnings (employment rate × earnings) leads to a 39% increase in homicide rates. Our results highlight an additional dimension of adjustment costs following trade shocks that has so far been overlooked in the literature.

Determinants of homicides in the state of Bahia, Brazil, in 2009.

To carry out a study of association between socioeconomic and demographic factors and homicides in general population, in the state of Bahia, in 2009. This is an ecological study. The data were collected from the database of the Information System about Mortality of the Ministry of Health, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and the Institute of Applied Economic Research. The Global Moran index was calculated for the detection of spatial autocorrelation, and the Local Moran index was calculated for the detection of spatial Clusters. The transformation in the variable answer (homicides rates) was performed and it was shaped using the Conditional Autoregressive Model. The data showed spatial autocorrelation. Two clusters of municipalities with high rates of homicides were identified, one located predominantly in the Greater Metropolitan Region of Salvador and the other in the South Region of Bahia, especially Eunápolis and Lauro de Freitas, which had the highest rates. The Average Residents Variables, local GDP and the Percentage of Illiteracy presented an inverse association with homicide rates, and the variables Firjan's municipal development index of work and income. Enrolment in high school and the Average of Bolsa Família were directly associated. The urbanization process, in most cases, not controlled by the State, in most cases, made the cities bigger and with better socioeconomic conditions, attraction centers for people with different socioeconomic levels, increasing the social inequality among the residents of these regions, with parallel increase in homicide rates.