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Relationships of US Youth Homicide Victims and Their Offenders, 1976-1999
Harry Moskowitz, MD, MS;
Danielle Laraque, MD;
John T. Doucette, PhD;
Eric Shelov, BS
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:356-361.
Background Homicide is the second leading cause of death in children aged 0 to 19 years. Tailoring violence prevention programs to high-risk individuals requires understanding victim-offender relationships.
Objective To elucidate differences in the relationships between homicide victims aged 0 to 19 years and their offenders.
Design Cross-sectional study using the Uniform Crime Reports: Supplemental Homicide Reports, 1976-1999.
Setting and Participants The Supplemental Homicide Reports contain incident-level information about criminal homicides, including location and victim and offender characteristics. National coverage is approximately 92%; 70 258 victims were studied.
Main Outcome Measures Differences in the relationships of homicide victims and offenders based on sex, age, population of homicide location, and weapon.
Results Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are reported. Using strangers as the referent group, murdered girls were 3.6 (95% CI, 3.4-3.9) times more likely to have been killed by family members and 21.3 (95% CI, 18.5-24.4) times more likely to have been killed by intimate partners than murdered boys. Victims younger than 10 years were 33 (95% CI, 30.4-36.1) times more likely than victims older than 10 years to have been killed by a family member and 2.4 (95% CI, 2.2-2.6) times more likely to have been killed by someone else known to them. Stranger homicides occurred in areas with approximately 145 000 more residents (P<.01). Handguns were more likely to be used during homicides committed by strangers (P<.01). These associations remained after adjusting for potential confounders.
Conclusions Future violence prevention programs may have more effect when targeted to specific sex and age groups. Elucidation of the origins of sex differences, focus on evidence-based child abuse prevention efforts, and enforcement of current gun control laws may help reduce the number of homicides among children.
Author Affiliations: Division of General Pediatrics (Drs Moskowitz and Laraque and Mr Shelov) and Department of Community and Preventive Medicine (Dr Doucette), Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.
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