Washington,
D.C. (August 6, 2007)—Since 2000, the number of homicides in New Jersey has increased, and the most rapid rise has been among homicides with certain characteristics: those involving firearms, those with a young male victim, those committed in a public place and incidents with multiple suspects or victims. The majority of these killings take place in New Jersey’s biggest cities.
Those findings were presented yesterday by Katherine Hempstead, Director of Injury Surveillance and Prevention with the New Jersey Department of Health, as part of a panel on violent crime at the National Conference of State Legislature’s Annual Meeting in Boston. Hempstead provided information about the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) and how it is being used to measure gang-related homicide and aid prevention efforts in New Jersey.
"Measuring gang-related homicide is difficult using conventional sources,” Hempstead said. “The detailed circumstance information in the NVDRS allow us to create definitions based on homicide characteristics of concern to law enforcement. This aids prevention and enforcement activities and the monitoring of progress.”
The panel, “Crime and Violence Trend Upward,” also featured Pamela Price, the Director of Research and Constituent Services for the Delaware House of Representatives, Jeffery L. Sedgwick, Director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, Russell B. Laine, Chief of Police for Algonquin, Illinois, International Association of Chiefs of Police and Robert J. Valihura Jr., a state Representative from Delaware. The panel met as major cities across the United States saw sharp increases in homicides and increases overall in violent crime in 2006, according to the most recent statistics available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
NVDRS is a comprehensive, linked reporting system that collects and centralizes information on violent deaths, including homicides and suicides, from a variety of sources including medical examiners and coroners, law enforcement and public health officials. The National Violence Prevention Network (www.preventviolence.net) is working to fully implement NVDRS in the United States to enable every state to design and implement effective violent death prevention programs.
NOTE: To schedule an interview to discuss the National Violence Prevention Network or NVDRS, contact Melanie Fonder at 202-715-1568 or melanie.fonder@dittus.com.
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