The graph illustrates the murder rate in the United States from 1985 to 2023. The x-axis represents the years, labeled with two-digit abbreviations from '85 to '23, while the y-axis shows the annual murder rate per 100,000 individuals. Throughout this 39-year period, the murder rate fluctuates between a high of 10.66 in 1991 and a low of 4.7 in 2014. Overall, the data reveals a significant downward trend in the murder rate from the mid-1980s, reaching its lowest point in the mid-2010s, followed by slight increases in the most recent years.

These data examine the effects on total crime rates of changes in the demographic composition of the population and changes in criminality of specific age and race groups. The collection contains estimates from national data of annual age-by-race specific arrest rates and crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary over the 21-year period 1965-1985. The data address the following questions: (1) Are the crime rates reported by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data series valid indicators of national crime trends? (2) How much of the change between 1965 and 1985 in total crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary is attributable to changes in the age and race composition of the population, and how much is accounted for by changes in crime rates within age-by-race specific subgroups? (3) What are the effects of age and race on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (4) What is the effect of time period on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (5) What is the effect of birth cohort, particularly the effect of the very large (baby-boom) cohorts following World War II, on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (6) What is the effect of interactions among age, race, time period, and cohort on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (7) How do patterns of age-by-race specific crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary compare for different demographic subgroups? The variables in this study fall into four categories. The first category includes variables that define the race-age cohort of the unit of observation. The values of these variables are directly available from UCR and include year of observation (from 1965-1985), age group, and race. The second category of variables were computed using UCR data pertaining to the first category of variables. These are period, birth cohort of age group in each year, and average cohort size for each single age within each single group. The third category includes variables that describe the annual age-by-race specific arrest rates for the different crime types. These variables were estimated for race, age, group, crime type, and year using data directly available from UCR and population estimates from Census publications. The fourth category includes variables similar to the third group. Data for estimating these variables were derived from available UCR data on the total number of offenses known to the police and total arrests in combination with the age-by-race specific arrest rates for the different crime types.

As of August 11, there were four mass shootings in the United States in 2025. This is compared to one mass shooting in 1982, one in 2000, and 12 mass shootings in 2022 and 2023. School shootings The United States sees the most school shootings in the world. Some motivations for school shootings included depression, seeking revenge, and bullying. As a result of the large amount of school shootings, gun control has become a central topic in U.S. politics. This widespread problem happens across the United States; however California saw the highest number of K-12 school shootings in the United States since 1970. However, the deadliest school shooting (as of October 2023) was the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. This tragedy left 33 dead and 23 injured. Mass shooting issues Mass shootings happen when there are several injuries or deaths from a firearm-related violence. Throughout the last century, mass shootings have become an epidemic in the United States. However, despite the increase in mass shootings and number of casualties, the U.S. government has done little to prevent future shootings from happening. As a result of the lack of cooperation in politics, mass shootings have become an important issue for Generation Z living in the United States. Furthermore, having the right to bear arms is a popular belief in the U.S. and the percentage of households in the United States owning at least one firearm has remained somewhat steady since 1972.

These data provide information on the number of arrests reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program each year by police agencies in the United States. These arrest reports provide data on 43 offenses including violent crime, drug use, gambling, and larceny. The data received by ICPSR were structured as a hierarchical file containing, per reporting police agency: an agency header record, and 1 to 43 detail offense records containing the counts of arrests by age, sex, and race for a particular offense. ICPSR restructured the original data to logical record length format with the agency header record variables copied onto the detail records. Consequently, each record contains arrest counts for a particular agency-offense.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2024.

As a contribution to nationwide efforts to more thoroughly understand urban violence, this study was conducted to assess the impact of cultural dynamics on homicide rates in Houston, Texas, and to profile homicides in the city from 1985 to 1994. This data collection provides the results of quantitative analysis of data collected from all Houston homicide cases recorded in the police murder logs for 1985-1994. Variables describe the homicide circumstances, the victim-offender relationship, the type of weapon used, and any drug- or gang-related activity involved. Other variables include the year and month in which the homicide occurred, whether the homicide occurred on a weekday or over the weekend, the motive of the homicide, whether the homicide was drug-related, whether the case was cleared by police at time of data entry, weapon type and means of killing, the relationship between the victim and the offender, whether a firearm was the homicide method, whether it was a multiple victim incident or multiple offender incident, whether the victim or the offender was younger than age 15, and the inter-racial relationship between the victim and the offender. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of the victim as well as the offender.

After the commercial ban on whaling was introduced in 1986 due to overexploitation of the resources, the number of whales killed sank dramatically. Today, there are only three countries left in the world that hunt whales for commercial purposes: Norway, Japan, and Iceland, and the latter has signaled that it will abandon commercial whaling by 2024. Moreover, whaling is allowed for aboriginal reasons in Denmark (Faroe Islands and Greenland), Russia (Siberia), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Bequia Island), and the United States (Alaska). Even though the commercial ban has succeeded in stabilizing the whale population, it remains a highly controversial practice due to the hunting methods, in which some whales are alive for several minutes after being hit by a harpoon. In 2022, ***** whales were killed worldwide, of which *** were for commercial purposes.

Despite the fact that most states enacted rape reform legislation by the mid-1980s, empirical research on the effect of these laws was conducted in only four states and for a limited time span following the reform. The purpose of this study was to provide both increased breadth and depth of information about the effect of the rape law changes and the legal issues that surround them. Statistical data on all rape cases between 1970 and 1985 in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, were collected from court records. Monthly time-series analyses were used to assess the impact of the reforms on rape reporting, indictments, convictions, incarcerations, and sentences. The study also sought to determine if particular changes, or particular combinations of changes, affected the case processing and disposition of sexual assault cases and whether the effect of the reforms varied with the comprehensiveness of the changes. In each jurisdiction, data were collected on all forcible rape cases for which an indictment or information was filed. In addition to forcible rape, other felony sexual assaults that did not involve children were included. The names and definitions of these crimes varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. To compare the pattern of rape reports with general crime trends, reports of robbery and felony assaults during the same general time period were also obtained from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation when available. For the adjudicated case data (Parts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), variables include month and year of offense, indictment, disposition, four most serious offenses charged, total number of charges indicted, four most serious conviction charges, total number of conviction charges, type of disposition, type of sentence, and maximum jail or prison sentence. The time series data (Parts 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12) provide year and month of indictment, total indictments for rape only and for all sex offenses, total convictions and incarcerations for all rape cases in the month, for those on the original rape charge, for all sex offenses in the month, and for those on the original sex offense charge, percents for each indictment, conviction, and incarceration category, the average maximum sentence for each incarceration category, and total police reports of forcible rape in the month. Interviews were also conducted in each site with judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and this information is presented in Part 13. These interviewees were asked to rate the importance of various types of evidence in sexual assault cases and to respond to a series of six hypothetical cases in which evidence of the victim's past sexual history was at issue. Respondents were also presented with a hypothetical case for which some factors were varied to create 12 different scenarios, and they were asked to make a set of judgments about each. Interview data also include respondent's title, sex, race, age, number of years in office, and whether the respondent was in office before and/or after the reform.

This project sought to investigate a possible relationship between sentencing guidelines and family structure in the United States. The research team developed three research modules that employed a variety of data sources and approaches to understand family destabilization and community distress, which cannot be observed directly. These three research modules were used to discover causal relationships between male withdrawal from productive spheres of the economy and resulting changes in the community and families. The research modules approached the issue of sentencing guidelines and family structure by studying: (1) the flow of inmates into prison (Module A), (2) the role of and issues related to sentencing reform (Module B), and family disruption in a single state (Module C). Module A utilized the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data for 1984 and 1993 (Parts 1 and 2), the 1984 and 1993 National Correctional Reporting Program (NCRP) data (Parts 3-6), the Urban Institute's 1980 and 1990 Underclass Database (UDB) (Part 7), the 1985 and 1994 National Longitudinal Survey on Youth (NLSY) (Parts 8 and 9), and county population, social, and economic data from the Current Population Survey, County Business Patterns, and United States Vital Statistics (Parts 10-12). The focus of this module was the relationship between family instability, as measured by female-headed families, and three societal characteristics, namely underclass measures in county of residence, individual characteristics, and flows of inmates. Module B examined the effects of statewide incarceration and sentencing changes on marriage markets and family structure. Module B utilized data from the Current Population Survey for 1985 and 1994 (Part 12) and the United States Statistical Abstracts (Part 13), as well as state-level data (Parts 14 and 15) to measure the Darity-Myers sex ratio and expected welfare income. The relationship between these two factors and family structure, sentencing guidelines, and minimum sentences for drug-related crimes was then measured. Module C used data collected from inmates entering the Minnesota prison system in 1997 and 1998 (Part 16), information from the 1990 Census (Part 17), and the Minnesota Crime Survey (Part 18) to assess any connections between incarceration and family structure. Module C focused on a single state with sentencing guidelines with the goal of understanding how sentencing reforms and the impacts of the local community factors affect inmate family structure. The researchers wanted to know if the aspects of locations that lose marriageable males to prison were more important than individual inmate characteristics with respect to the probability that someone will be imprisoned and leave behind dependent children. Variables in Parts 1 and 2 document arrests by race for arson, assault, auto theft, burglary, drugs, homicide, larceny, manslaughter, rape, robbery, sexual assault, and weapons. Variables in Parts 3 and 4 document prison admissions, while variables in Parts 5 and 6 document prison releases. Variables in Part 7 include the number of households on public assistance, education and income levels of residents by race, labor force participation by race, unemployment by race, percentage of population of different races, poverty rate by race, men in the military by race, and marriage pool by race. Variables in Parts 8 and 9 include age, county, education, employment status, family income, marital status, race, residence type, sex, and state. Part 10 provides county population data. Part 11 contains two different state identifiers. Variables in Part 12 describe mortality data and welfare data. Part 13 contains data from the United States Statistical Abstracts, including welfare and poverty variables. Variables in Parts 14 and 15 include number of children, age, education, family type, gender, head of household, marital status, race, religion, and state. Variables in Part 16 cover admission date, admission type, age, county, education, language, length of sentence, marital status, military status, sentence, sex, state, and ZIP code. Part 17 contains demographic data by Minnesota ZIP code, such as age categories, race, divorces, number of children, home ownership, and unemployment. Part 18 includes Minnesota crime data as well as some demographic variables, such as race, education, and poverty ratio.