Measuring homicides across the world helps us understand violent crime and how people are affected by interpersonal violence.

But measuring homicides is challenging. Even homicide researchers do not always agree on whether the specific cause of death should be considered a homicide. Even when they agree on what counts as a homicide, it is difficult to count all of them.

In many countries, national civil registries do not certify most deaths or their cause. Besides lacking funds and personnel, a body has to be found to determine whether a death has happened. Authorities may also struggle to distinguish a homicide from a similar cause of death, such as an accident.

Law enforcement and criminal justice agencies collect more data on whether a death was unlawful — but their definition of unlawfulness may differ across countries and time.

Estimating homicides where neither of these sources is available or good enough is difficult. Estimates rely on inferences from similar countries and contextual factors that are based on strong assumptions. So how do researchers address these challenges and measure homicides?

In our work on homicides, we provide data from five main sources:

The WHO Mortality Database (WHO-MD)1 The Global Study on Homicide by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)2 The History of Homicide Database by Manuel Eisner (20033 and 20144) The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)5 The WHO Global Health Estimates (WHO-GHE)6 These sources all report homicides, cover many countries and years, and are frequently used by researchers and policymakers. They are not entirely separate, as they partially build upon each other.

In Brazil, crime rates have been very high at least since the 1980s. There is a social perception that adolescents are the main responsibles to increase these rates, although there is no scientifical evidence to support it. Thus, as a way to try to reduce crime rates, congressmen proposed to amend the constitution to lower the age of criminal majority, which nowadays is 18 years old. According to Neil Hazel (2008), "criminal majority is the age at which the criminal justice system processes offenders as adults" (p. 7).

This dataset contains all Proposals to Amend the Constitution on lowering the ACM in Brazil, since 1989 to 2015. We collected them directly from Chamber of Deputies and Federal Senate's websites and put them together to make easier to researchers and stakeholders find them. Every proposals are divided in four parts. In the first part, there are the main information about the proposals, for example, the document's number and year of publication, its authors, subject, and which Constitution's article should be modified. In the second one, there is the new article redaction proposed by its author. In the third one (justification), there is a text the document's authors argue why the proposal should be approved by the National Congress. Finally, the fourth part contains the congressmen signatures who support the proposal.

Our main purpose is to provide dataset to researchers and stakeholders to content analyze these proposals and the congressmen justifications to do so.

BackgroundHomicide kills more people than war globally and is associated with income inequality. In Brazil, one of the most unequal countries of the world, the homicide rate is four times higher than the world average. Establishing if the Brazilian conditional cash transfer programme [Bolsa Familia Programme (BFP)], the largest in the world, is associated with a reduction in the rate of homicide is relevant for violence prevention programs. We aimed to assess the effect of BFP coverage on homicide and hospitalization rates from violence.MethodsBFP coverage and rates of homicide (overall and disaggregated by sex and age) and hospitalizations from violence from all 5,507 Brazilian municipalities between 2004 and 2012 were explored using multivariable negative binomial regression models with fixed effect for panel data. Robustness of results was explored using sensitivity analyses such as difference-in-difference models.FindingsHomicide rates and hospitalization from violence decreased as BFP coverage in the target population increased. For each percent increase in the uptake of the BFP, the homicide rate decreased by 0.3% (Rate Ratio:0.997; 95%CI:0.996–0.997) and hospitalizations from violence by 0.4% (RR: 0.996;95%CI:0.995–0.996). Rates of homicide and hospitalizations from violence were also negatively associated with the duration of BFP coverage. When, coverage of the target population was at least 70% for one-year, hospitalizations from violence decreased by 8%; two-years 14%, three-years 20%, and four years 25%.InterpretationOur results support the hypothesis that conditional cash transfer programs might have as an additional benefit the prevention of homicides and hospitalizations from violence. Social protection interventions could contribute to decrease levels of violence in low-and-middle-income-countries through reducing poverty and/or socioeconomic inequalities.

Abstract A time series analysis was conducted to identify trends in homicide mortality in border regions in the State of Paraná, Brazil between 2002 and 2012. Homicide mortality rates were analyzed by sex, age group, region (border regions, non-border regions, and the state as a whole), and type of assault. Trend analysis was performed using polynomial regression. The findings showed that mortality rates were higher in the border regions; however the growth in homicide rates was greater in the non-border regions and in the state as a whole, with these states showing an upward trend in homicide rates (p < 0.001) and border regions showing a downward trend, although the latter was not significant. Mortality rates were higher among men across all regions and highest in the 20 to 29 age group. The findings regarding homicide rates in border regions provide compelling evidence of the urgent need for intersectoral prevention policies targeting the most affected groups.

Although Brazil remains severely affected by civil violence, the state of São Paulo has made significant inroads into fighting criminality. In the last decade, São Paulo has witnessed a 70% decline in homicide rates, a result that policy-makers attribute to a series of crime-reducing measures implemented by the state government. While recent academic studies seem to confirm this downward trend, no estimation of the total impact of state policies on homicide rates currently exists. The present article fills this gap by employing the synthetic control method to compare these measures against an artificial São Paulo. The results indicate a large drop in homicide rates in actual São Paulo when contrasted with the synthetic counterfactual, with about 20,000 lives saved during the period. The theoretical usefulness of the synthetic control method for public policy analysis, the role of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as a causal mediator, and the practical implications of the security measures taken by the São Paulo state government are also discussed.