Supplementary Homicide Reports

Supplementary Homicide Reports (abbreviated SHR) is a database of homicides in the United States maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of its Uniform Crime Reports program. The database consists of detailed reports of homicides reported to the FBI by local law enforcement agencies in 49 states and the District of Columbia. The only state that does not participate is Florida, which records homicides in a separate tally that is included in a separate spreadsheet online.{{Cite web |url=http://data.ap.org/projects/2016/domestic-gun-homicides/ |title=Domestic shooting homicides |website=Associated Press}}

Reports

Each SHR is more detailed than other UCR system reports, because, as Fox & Pierce noted, SHRs include "information about the date, location, circumstances, and method of the offenses and the demographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators."{{Cite web |url=https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/107057NCJRS.pdf |title=Uniform Crime Reports: Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-1983 |last1=Fox |first1=James Alan |last2=Pierce |first2=Glenn L. |date=May 1987 |website=National Institute of Justice}}

Limitations

The primary limitation of SHR data is that arising from missing or incomplete reports.{{cite journal|last1=Fox|first1=James Alan|last2=Swatt|first2=Marc L.|title=Multiple Imputation of the Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976–2005|journal=Journal of Quantitative Criminology|date=13 September 2008|volume=25|issue=1|pages=51–77|doi=10.1007/s10940-008-9058-2|s2cid=144696206}} Participation in the SHR is voluntary; as a result, many American law enforcement agencies either only intermittently submit SHR forms to the FBI, or do not submit any. In addition to missing homicides, some SHR reports that are filed can be missing information, such as that regarding the victim's age, gender, or race, or regarding the identity of the offender.{{Cite web |url=https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ntmh.pdf |title=The Nation's Two Measures of Homicide |website=Bureau of Justice Statistics}} This missing information can also include the offender's age, gender, or race, which was omitted from 31% of SHR reports filed in 2011.{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/21/police-killings-us-government-statistics |title=The counted: inside the search for the real number of police killings in the US |last=McCarthy |first=Tom |date=2015-03-21 |work=The Guardian |access-date=2017-12-28 |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}

Differences from the National Vital Statistics System

In 2000, the National Vital Statistics System's homicide estimates exactly matched those of the SHR in 22% of U.S. counties. The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) generally produced higher estimates than the SHR does, but in 28% of U.S. counties, the opposite was true.{{Cite journal |title=A Comparison of Supplementary Homicide Reports and National Vital Statistics System Homicide Estimates for U.S. Counties |journal = Homicide Studies|volume = 4|issue = 4|last1=WIERSEMA |first1=BRIAN |last2=LOFTIN |first2=COLIN |date=2000-11-01 |pages=317–340 |language=en |doi=10.1177/1088767900004004002 |last3=McDOWALL |first3=DAVID|s2cid = 144105941}}

References

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