- Police Department:
- Police reports give data on location of incident, type of weapon, age, sex, race and
home addresses of victim and perpetrator on homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated
assault. Homicide reports include information on the victim/offender relationship,
circumstances of the homicide and may provide more details on the type of weapon involved.
In solved cases, the relationship between victim and offender is identified as family
member, friend or acquaintance, or stranger. In unsolved cases, the relationship between
offender and victim is listed as unknown. For nonfatal violent crimes, an increasing
number of police departments collect data on the relationship between victim and offender,
as well as alcohol and other drug use. Records available from local city and county police
departments.
- Hospital Discharge Data:
- Local hospitals that use International Classification of Diseases External Codes, or
E-Codes, describe the external cause of an injury to a person, as well as the nature of
the injury, age and sex of patient, length of stay, diagnosis, expected source of payment
and medical charges. Records available from local hospitals.
- Medical Examiner or Coroner's Report:
- For deaths only, required for each person whose death resulted from violence, suicide or
unintentional injury, or if circumstances surrounding the death are unexplained. Data
include age, race, cause of death, results of autopsy and laboratory tests, including the
presence or absence of alcohol or other drugs. Available in medical examiner or coroner's
records.
- Vital Statistics Mortality Data:
- For deaths only, compiled by county offices of vital statistics for the National Center
for Health Statistics, from death certificates. Data include date, place, cause of death
(including whether firearms were involved), age, sex, race, address, how the injury
occurred and whether the injury occurred at work. Data conform to uniform death
certificate format based on U.S. Standard Certificate of Death, a periodically revised
form developed by the National Center for Health Statistics in collaboration with the
states.
- Trauma Registries:
- Some regional hospitals, trauma centers and burn centers collect and computerize data on
serious injuries, including the medical outcome and the circumstances of the injury. The
American College of Surgeons created a national trauma data bank based on data reported
from 100 U.S. trauma centers, hospitals and burn centers. The data bank issues standard
reports periodically, and requests for data may be made with the National Trauma Registry.
- National Trauma Registry,
800-435-3590
- Hospital Emergency Departments:
- Fatal and nonfatal injuries categorized based on International Classification of
Diseases External Codes, or E-Codes. Limitations: If gunshot involved, often difficult for
physician to identify type of firearm. Sometimes involvement of alcohol or other drugs
listed in a secondary E-code. Records available from local hospitals.
- Emergency Medical Services Data, or 911 Paramedic Data:
- Every time emergency medical technicians respond to a call, they make out a report that
can include data on time and location of the incident, the cause of injury, the medical
condition of the injured person, sex, age, race, alcohol or other drug use and injury
description. Limitations: Not all injured persons are brought to the hospital by emergency
technicians. Some are brought by friends, family members or passers-by.
- School Incident Records and Discipline Reports:
- Schools keep records of violent incidents within a school building or on school grounds.
Data usually include sex, age, description of incident and weapon involved. California
schools cannot permit access to student records except with parental consent or in the
case of a law enforcement investigation or judicial order, but some districts will release
schoolwide or districtwide data.
A good example:
The San Francisco Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Injury Center drew
on all these resources to put together Profile of Injury in San Francisco. The report,
published in March 1994, contains information, charts, graphs and demographic
cross-references for all injuries and injury deaths in San Francisco in 1991. It contains
some startling data that show how similar, as well as unique, San Francisco's injuries and
injury deaths are compared with other cities. For example, in 1990, homicide was the
leading cause of all deaths among females 15-24 years old, and between 1986 and 1991,
among teenagers 15-19 years old, suicide rates were highest for African Americans. As in
most urban areas, the distribution of most shootings, stabbings and other assaults is
associated with the distribution of poverty, which carries with it other factors linked to
the likelihood of intentional injury: competition for scarce resources leading to crime,
alcoholism, drug trafficking and deterioration of physical structures. Among solved
homicides, the number of family violence-related deaths exceeded the number of robbery,
drug, gang and carjacking homicides combined.
- California Department of Health Services, Injuries Surveillance and Epidemiology
section:
- a statewide project that collects data on all fatal and nonfatal injuries in the state,
by combining data from hospital discharge reports, coroner's reports and the Uniform Crime
Reports submitted by police agencies. A violence data subset includes information on
intentional and unintentional violence, with gender, age, sex, race and county.
Limitations: It's difficult to identify violence against women by spouses or boyfriends
and to identify the make and manufacturer of firearms used in violent incidents.
- As of 1996, information available
by making request for specific data from the office. Dr. Roger Trent, epidemiologist,
916-323-3642. E-mail: rtrent@hw1.cahwnet.gov. If your request is simple, a verbal or fax
report can be provided. For more detailed and complex information, the office provides
data on computer disks.
- Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development:
- state collection of local hospital discharge data on fatal and nonfatal injuries
categorized based on International Classification of Diseases External Codes, or E-Codes.
Limitations: If gunshot involved, often difficult for physician to identify type of
firearm. Sometimes involvement of alcohol listed in a secondary E-Code. Data is published
in a variety of forms and can be requested by phone from the Office of Statewide Health
Planning and Development.
- Crime and Delinquency in California, Division of Law Enforcement, California
Department of Justice:
- The state collects data gathered by local law enforcement agencies. This data is
forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for inclusion in the annual Uniform Crime
Reports. The California Criminal Justice Statistics Center publishes annual state crime
data each fall but without the same detail found in the Uniform Crime Reports. If
reporters want types of information found in the Uniform Crime Reports that is not in the
state publication, they can make a special request by phone to the state center, which can
provide the information in a day or two.
- Child Death Review Teams:
- Fifty-four out of California's 58 counties have Child Death Review Teams. These teams
combine the health and criminal justice perspectives in examining a suspicious death of a
child. They often include members of the coroner's office, law enforcement, social
services, the district attorney's office and health services. The Child Death in
California Report collects data on all child deaths in most of the state's counties, as
well as suggested preventions and policies from the Child Death Review Teams. The Child
Death Review Team Directory is a listing of all the review teams and all of the members in
each.
- These resources are available
from the Family Violence Prevention Programs office in the Crime and Violence Prevention
Center of the Office of the Attorney General, 916-324-7863.
NATIONAL
- Crime in the United States, Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice:
- all crimes known to 16,000 city, county and state law enforcement agencies gathered on a
monthly and annual basis. The crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault,
burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. Homicide reports include
information on age, race, sex of victim and offender; the victim/offender relationship;
and circumstances of the homicide. In unsolved cases, the relationship between offender
and victim is listed as unknown. Limitations: Data are incomplete for 5 to 10 percent of
the total homicide cases. Data on nonfatal violent crimes represent only offenses known to
police - many more appear in hospital emergency rooms than are reported to police. For
nonfatal violent crimes, relationships between victim and offender, as well as
circumstances of the violent incident, including alcohol or other drug use, are not
available nationally but are on a limited basis locally.
- Crime in the United States,
Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice,
published annually in the fall. FBI press office: 202-324-3691, FBI
- National Crime Victimization Survey Report, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S.
Department of Justice:
- surveys 100,000 individuals age 12 and older, inhabiting about 49,000 housing units,
about nonfatal assaultive violence: rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny and motor
vehicle theft. Data include physical injury, medical treatment, property loss,
characteristics of victim, relationship of the victim to the offender and whether police
were notified. Used to estimate the numbers and types of crimes not reported to police and
to establish uniform measures for selected types of crimes for comparison over time and
geographical areas. Includes estimates of hospital costs and days lost from work. Reports
published annually, with target release in spring. Limitations: does not collect data on
murders or kidnapping. People are not interviewed privately, so accuracy of child, spouse
and elderly abuse is questionable (likely underestimated). People interviewed may not
regard family assaults as criminal.
- National Center for Health Statistics:
- all deaths in the United States based on death certificates filed in state vital
statistics offices in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Age, sex, gender,
geographic data. Limitations: No information about victim/offender relationship, no
information about involvement of alcohol or other drugs.
- 301-436-7551, Contact for Monthly Vital Statistics Report,
annual Vital Statistics of the United States, Series 20 and 21 of the Vital and Health
Statistics Series, Advance Data Series, and special reports and publications: National
Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Inventory of Services and Funding Sources for Programs Designed to Prevent
Violence Against Women, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention:
- This extensive, nationwide survey identifies the services available in the areas of
domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as the funding sources for these services.
Also, journalists can find contact names for domestic violence and sexual assault
organizations in each state. Conducted between January 1994 and December 1995, before the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed, the survey should show the impact of VAWA
funds on domestic violence and sexual assault. The results of the Inventory should be
available by summer 1997 and can be accessed through the National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control's website.
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF):
- Issues firearms licenses and conducts firearms licensee qualification and compliance
inspections. BATF collects data on firearms statistics (i.e. origin and ownership of
recovered firearms used in crimes) and tracks the number of firearms manufacturers,
importers and dealers. Firearms statistics are maintained for each state. This information
can be requested from BATF.
