This article is a descriptive epidemiological study of deaths by homicide in Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) from 1990 to 2007. Deaths due to external causes and homicides, as codified in the 9th and 10th revisions of the International Classification of Diseases/ICD, were analyzed considering sex, age and manner of assault. The numbers, ratios and adjusted rate...

BACKGROUND International variation in homicide rates may be attributable to cultural differences in acceptance of moral justifications for killing. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between measures of attitudes towards the justification of killing and homicide rates in diverse international populations. METHODS Four studies assessed variations in acceptance of killing...

OBJECTIVES This study determined the effect of income inequality on homicide rates in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. METHODS We conducted an ecological study at 2 geographical levels, municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro and administrative regions in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. The association between homicide and income inequality was tested by multiple regression proc...

Durkheim argued that rapid social change would produce anomic conditions which, in turn, would lead to increases in criminal and deviant behavior. Russia provides a unique opportunity to test this theory given the large-scale fundamental socioeconomic changes occurring in the nation. Russian homicide rates more than doubled in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and are now ...

 72% of all executions carried out in Florida between 1976 and 2014 were for crimes involving White victims despite the fact that 56% of all homicide victims are White.  Only 26% of all homicide victims are female, but 43% of all executions carried out in Florida were for homicides involving female victims.  Homicides involving White female victims are 6.5 times more likely to result in an e...

Recently, a number of states have enacted laws that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons. This “natural experiment” was analyzed by John Lott and David Mustard, who found that these right-to-carry laws reduced violent crime, with a substitution toward property crimes, in those jurisdictions that adopted this law. Of particular importance, they found that homicide was reduced significantly,...

BACKGROUND Homicide - a lethal expression of violence - has garnered little attention from public health researchers and health policy makers, despite the fact that homicides are a cause of preventable and premature death. Identifying populations at risk and the upstream determinants of homicide are important for addressing inequalities that hinder population health. This population-based study...

OBJECTIVES To describe the international epidemiology of the homicide of media workers, and investigate country-level risk factors. METHODS Data on the homicides occurring from 2002 to 2006 were collected and collated from five international databases. Analyses included consideration of seven existing international indices relating to human development, and to the social and political functio...

Much of the research on violent crime is situated within an exclusively structural or subcultural framework. Some recent work, however, argues that these unidimensional approaches are inherently limited and that more attention needs to be given to the intersection of structural and cultural determinants of violence. The present study takes up this challenge by examining both structural and cult...

OBJECTIVES We examined the relationship between levels of household firearm ownership, as measured directly and by a proxy-the percentage of suicides committed with a firearm-and age-adjusted firearm homicide rates at the state level. METHODS We conducted a negative binomial regression analysis of panel data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web-Based Injury Statistics Que...