Supplementary Homicide Reports (abbreviated SHR) is a database of

homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

maintained by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(FBI) as part of its

Uniform Crime Reports The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and co ...

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 Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. The only state that does not participate is

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, which records homicides in a separate tally that is included in a separate spreadsheet online.

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."

Limitations

The primary limitation of SHR data is that arising from missing or incomplete reports. 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. This missing information can also include the offender's age, gender, or race, which was omitted from 31% of SHR reports filed in 2011.

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.

References

External links

Easy Access to the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports: 1980-2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Supplementary Homicide Reports Homicide Crime statistics Federal Bureau of Investigation Databases in the United States