UNODC Homicide Statistics

 

The backbone of the 2011 Global Study on Homicide, UNODC Homicide Statistics is a collection of statistical data on intentional homicide (unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person). The dataset covers 207 countries and territories and provides data on homicide levels, trends and contextual characteristics drawn from a variety of national and international sources relating to homicide.

All existing data sources on intentional homicides, both at national and international level, stem from either criminal justice or public health systems. In the former case, data are generated by law enforcement or criminal justice authorities in the process of recording and investigating a crime event. In the latter, data are produced by health authorities certifying the cause of death of an individual.

Criminal justice data were collected through UNODC regular collections of crime data from Member States, through publicly available data produced by national government sources and from data compiled by other international and regional agencies, including from Interpol, Eurostat, the Organization of American States and UNICEF. Public health data on homicides were mainly derived from databases on deaths by cause disseminated by the World Health Organization (WHO), both at central level and through some of its regional offices (PAHO and WHO-Europe).

As a result of the data collection and validation process, in many countries several homicide datasets have become available from different or multiple sources. Therefore, data series have been selected to provide the most appropriate reference counts respectively for:

A detailed description of the data collection and validation procedure is described in the Methodological annex.

Homicide statistics, Methodological annex

Please address all enquiries concerning UNODC homicide statistics to: sass.crime@unodc.org