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Article: Homicide, Epidemiology of
- Article from:
- Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. 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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Homicide, Epidemiology of
Homicide, the killing of one human being by another human being, has always been a concern in human society. It is a major social problem in the United States, where violence is endemic. The homicide rate in the United States peaked in 1980 at 10.7 per 100,000 population, but declined by 1997 to 6.8 per 100,000, the lowest number since
1967 when the murder rate was 7 murders per 100,000 (Adler, Mueller, and Laufer 2001).
Because various nations differ in their definitions of homicide and the manner in which they gather data, comparisons are difficult
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statistics will vary from one data-gathering source to another. In 1989, in a comparison of nineteen ...