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Article: Homicide and medical science: is there a relationship?
- Article from:
- Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Article date:
- April 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Canadian Criminal Justice Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I. Introduction
Harris, Thomas, Fisher, and Hirsch (2002) investigate the relationship between homicide, aggravated assault, and medical science for the United States as a whole and call the disparity between the trend in the rate of aggravated assault, on the one hand, and that in the rate of homicide, on the other, a "paradox" in need of resolution (129). (See Figure 1 for the homicide and aggravated assault rates in the United States, 1960-2000.) They claim that advances in medical science decrease trauma-induced lethality and, therefore, homicide. Violent crimes that would have been homicides in the past are now aggravated assaults because such crimes do not ...