Washington, D.C. (April 25, 2007)—While we know the number of homicides and suicides that occur in the U.S. each year—about 50,000—we cannot confidently answer even one of the questions below because of the lack of a uniform, comprehensive national data system.
How often do multiple homicides occur in public places?
Perpetrators of homicide/suicide are most likely to kill:
- Classmates
- Family members
- Strangers
- Members of opposing gangs
- Current or former intimate partners
What life crisis most commonly precedes a suicide?
- Loss of a job
- Divorce or breakup
- Confrontation with law enforcement
- Financial trouble
Homicide/suicides are most likely to occur:
- At school
- In a home
- In a public place
- More than one mile from home
What percent of women killed by an intimate partner had a restraining order against the offender?
It may be hard to believe – although various agencies collect some of the data relevant to these questions, there is no national system in place that gathers and links the information into a useable database. With the current fragmented system, we can’t answer these and many other critical questions in the wake of the recent violence at Virginia Tech and a Lancaster County Amish school, among other tragedies.
But the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) will:
- Permit us to answer these and many other questions by collecting and linking data about all violent deaths, including all homicides and suicides;
- Collect and link data at the state level, with funding and coordination provided at the national level, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
- Compile and combine data from medical examiners, coroners, death certificates, crime labs, and law enforcement officers, providing a more complete understanding of when, where, and how violent deaths occur; and
- Include timely information on the circumstances of the deaths and the relationship between victims and offenders. To protect confidentiality, names and personal identifiers will not be part of the national dataset.
The NVDRS will help police, policymakers, violence prevention groups, and public health experts develop and evaluate strategies to reduce deaths, including those caused by child abuse, domestic violence, youth violence, and suicide.
The National Violence Prevention Network is a broad-based coalition of national organizations dedicated to violent death prevention by advocating for the full implementation of NVDRS in the United States.
For more information about NVDRS and the National Violence Prevention Network, please visit www.PreventViolence.net.
To schedule an interview to discuss NVDRS, contact Melanie Fonder at 202-715-1568 or melanie.fonder@dittus.com.
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