BACKGROUND South Africa has continued to receive increasing attention due to unprecedented high levels of violence. Homicide-related violence accounts for a significant proportion of unnatural deaths and contributes significantly to loss of years of expected life. We investigated levels and factors associated with homicide-related deaths and identify communities with excessively high homicide r...

Canada has implemented legislation covering all firearms since 1977 and presents a model to examine incremental firearms control. The effect of legislation on homicide by firearm and the subcategory, spousal homicide, is controversial and has not been well studied to date. Legislative effects on homicide and spousal homicide were analyzed using data obtained from Statistics Canada from 1974 to ...

Importance In 2005, Florida amended its self-defense laws to provide legal immunity to individuals using lethal force in self-defense. The enactment of "stand your ground" laws in the United States has been controversial and their effect on rates of homicide and homicide by firearm is uncertain. Objective To estimate the impact of Florida's stand your ground law on rates of homicide and homic...

Homicidal behaviour is influenced by a complex interaction of behavioural, situational, and environmental factors that raise many challenging psychological questions. A large and continually-growing body of research has explored the crime of homicide, its epidemiology, victims and perpetrators. The area is developing rapidly, opening up new avenues of study. This special issue of the Journal of...

Connections between drugs and homicide are widely acknowledged. Belief in those links has helped to understand the nature of homicide, to direct homicide investigations and to develop approaches to homicide prevention. These connections, however, have rarely been specifically delineated. Thus no common vocabulary for describing the connections between drugs and murder has developed and no commo...

The present study describes regional variations in homicide rates in Jalisco State, Mexico, in 1989-1991, 1994-1996, and 1999-2000, analyzing the trends by gender and socioeconomic stratum. Using mortality data generated by the National Institute for Statistics, Geography, and Information Technology, homicide rates adjusted by age and gender were calculated, along with rate/female rate ratios; ...

BACKGROUND The homicide of strangers by people with psychosis, referred to here as "stranger homicides," are rare and tragic events that generate adverse publicity for mental health services and have resulted in significant changes in mental health policy and law. AIM To estimate the incidence of stranger homicides, using data from previously published studies, and to compare the characterist...

BACKGROUND Violence that leads to homicide results in an extreme financial and emotional burden on society. Juveniles who commit homicide are often tried in adult court and typically spend the majority of their lives in prison. Despite the enormous costs associated with homicidal behavior, there have been no serious neuroscientific studies examining youth who commit homicide. METHODS Here we ...