U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

BJS

Program Report July 2014 | ncj 247060

The Nation’s Two Measures of Homicide

The United States uses two national data collection systems to track detailed information on homicides: the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Fatal Injury Reports. 

Both measures were developed as part of a federal effort to improve national statistical systems in the early twentieth century and 

have gone through a number of changes since then to improve their consistency and coverage. Each program provides valuable 

information on the nature, trends, and patterns of homicides in the United States. Although the two measures generally capture 

information on the same types of events, they are designed for distinct purposes and collect different types of information. In 

combination, however, they produce a fairly comprehensive understanding of homicide, the most serious form of violence.

Supplementary Homicide Reports

Federal Bureau of Investigation 

Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) are part of the 

Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. UCR data provide 

important information on crime at the local, state, and national 

level for law enforcement, policymakers, researchers, and the 

public. Administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

(FBI) since 1930, the UCR summary program provides data on 

the total number of crimes known to law enforcement agencies 

in the United States. In most states, reports from individual 

law enforcement agencies are compiled monthly by state-level 

agencies before being forwarded to the FBI.

The UCR provides aggregate annual counts of the number of 

homicides occurring in the United States. Beginning in the 

early 1960s, the FBI began to collect more detailed information 

on each homicide reported in the UCR aggregate count 

through the SHR form. The SHR data provide additional details 

about each homicide incident, including the jurisdiction, 

month, year, victim and offender demographic characteristics, 

weapon, the circumstances surrounding the incident (e.g., 

argument, robbery, gang-related), and the relationship between 

the victim and offender, if known. The detail provided on 

each incident permits the examination of specific types of 

homicides, characteristics surrounding the event, and victimoffender relationships.

The SHR form has two sections: one for all murders and 

nonnegligent manslaughters (including justifiable homicides) 

and one for negligent manslaughters. Murder and nonnegligent 

manslaughter homicides include cases that are suspected to be 

murders, violence-related manslaughters, law enforcementrelated killings, and homicides committed in self-defense. 

Negligent manslaughter homicides include cases that are 

determined to be unintentional killings of one person by 

another (excluding motor vehicle crashes).

Continued on next page Continued on next page

National Vital Statistics System, Fatal 

Injury Reports

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Fatal Injury Reports are developed from the National Vital 

Statistics System (NVSS), which includes data derived from the 

registration of births and deaths at the state and local level. The 

modern system dates back to 1933 when uniform collection 

and national-level reporting of birth and death certificates 

began. One public health function of the system is to permit 

identification of and public response to preventable causes 

of death.

The NVSS is maintained by the National Center for Health 

Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention (CDC). NVSS data are provided by vital registration 

systems operated in the various jurisdictions legally responsible 

for registering vital events—births, deaths, marriages, 

divorces, and fetal deaths. In the United States, legal authority 

for registering these events resides individually with the 

50 states, 2 cities (Washington, D.C., and New York City), 

and 5 territories (Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, 

American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern 

Mariana Islands).

The NVSS mortality data are produced from standardized 

death certificates filed throughout the United States. The death 

certificate data that the NVSS compiles include decedent age, 

race, ethnicity, marital status, resident status, educational 

attainment, residence, cause of death, and the nature of the 

injuries sustained. The death certificate does not include any 

information on the suspected perpetrator of a homicide or the 

victim/offender relationship.

State laws require that a medical examiner or coroner 

investigate all homicides and other sudden unexpected deaths. 

In homicide cases, medical examiners and coroners also 
2 The Nation’s Two Measures of Homicide | July 2014 | bjs.gov BJS

SHR data are collected on only those crimes occurring in the 

United States that come to the attention of law enforcement 

through citizen reports or observation.1 The SHR captures 

deaths by location of offense, and thus includes all homicides 

occurring in state and local law enforcement jurisdictions. 

Because the UCR program does not include federal law 

enforcement agencies, SHR data do not measure homicides 

occurring in federal prisons, on military bases, and on Indian 

reservations.2 The information provided on the SHR form 

reflects what agencies know based on their initial police 

investigation and does not reflect subsequent decisions made by 

prosecutors or courts.

Due to the voluntary nature of the FBI program, a number of 

law enforcement agencies either do not consistently submit 

SHR forms to the FBI or do not submit any at all. Historically, 

between 85% and 90% of all homicides reported in the UCR 

summary data also have a corresponding SHR form. Homicides 

reported through the SHR can, however, have missing 

information about various characteristics of the homicide 

because the data were not available at the time of submission 

or not reported by the agency. Approximately 1% of SHR cases 

are missing victim information, including the victim’s age, 

gender, and race, and approximately 30% of SHR cases have 

an unknown offender. The proportion of SHR cases that are 

missing information on the relationship between the victim 

and the offender has increased from 25% in 1976 to more 

than 40% since 2000. This is most likely due to the substantial 

decline in the percentage of homicides cleared since the 1960s, 

which has produced large numbers of cases with unknown 

offender information.

The FBI publishes data from the SHR in its annual Crime 

in the United States series. Preliminary data from the UCR 

are generally released 6 months after the reference year. SHR 

data are not included until after the UCR data are finalized, 

approximately 1 year after the end of the reference year.

Online analysis with SHR data can be conducted through a 

web-based tool maintained by the Office of Juvenile Justice 

and Delinquency Prevention. Public use data are available 

from 1976 from the University of Michigan’s Inter-University 

Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the FBI’s 

website, and the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data 

(NACJD). 

Supplementary Homicide Reports (continued) National Vital Statistics System, Fatal Injury Reports 

(continued)

typically complete the medical part of the death certificate, 

including manner of death. Funeral directors complete the 

demographic and other portions through interviews with 

a member or friend of the family. The death certificates are 

submitted to state vital statistics offices and forwarded to 

the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). NCHS 

then classifies each death according to the International 

Classification of Diseases (ICD). Information on manner of 

death (e.g., homicide, suicide, unintentional) is combined with 

information on cause of death to classify deaths using ICD 

codes, including codes for deaths due to external causes of 

injury and poisoning.

Each year, a very small number of deaths remain without 

a manner of death or may be missing from the NVSS. It is 

believed that the NVSS covers 99% of the birth and death 

events in the United States. However, there are no published 

estimates on the coverage of the NVSS with regard to homicide 

specifically. Each jurisdiction maintains individual vital 

statistics files and sets its own criteria for closing those files. 

NCHS closes the national file after all states have submitted 

their records and all data are coded, classified, and standardized 

between states. The level of standardization and data review 

varies across states and may be dependent on state-level and 

annual variations in the number of deaths with the underlying 

caused coded as “other ill-defined and unspecified causes of 

mortality.” A small number of death certificates may not be 

included in the NVSS if they are filed after the NCHS file has 

closed. Some studies have examined the reliability of NVSS 

demographic data by comparing it to U.S. Census Bureau 

data and surveying funeral directors who are responsible for 

completing demographic information about the decedent. 

These studies have concluded that fatal injury reports may 

undercount American Indian and Alaska Native deaths by 

20% to 30% and undercount Asian deaths by 11% to 13%. 

Race misclassification can be more likely depending on the 

population make up of the jurisdiction and the cause of death.

Data from the NVSS are typically reported according to the 

victim’s place of residence. Data on place of injury are available 

but not routinely reported in official statistics. Deaths of nonU.S. residents are also collected but typically not included in 

official statistics.

Fatal Injury Reports are published annually and are available 

for public use from the CDC website as part of the NVSS. 

Preliminary data are generally released approximately 

2 years after the end of the reference year. The site provides 

online analysis tools and customized tables, as well as annual 

mortality files for download. Publicly available data files 

include state-level estimates of fatal injury report data. The 

CDC regularly publishes additional reports on mortality that 

include statistics not part of the regular annual reports. These 

may include special analyses by cause of death, age, and other 

demographic variables; geographic analyses; and trend analyses.

1

Territories are not excluded from the SHR collection, but historically have had 

inconsistent participation in the UCR program.

2

Although some crimes occurring on tribal lands are reported to the UCR 

by tribal law enforcement agencies, an unknown proportion of more 

serious crimes, including homicide, fall under the jurisdiction of federal law 

enforcement and are not reported to the UCR. Homicides occurring on tribal 

lands and reported to the UCR by local law enforcement agencies cannot be 

distinguished from homicides occurring on nontribal lands also under the 

agency’s jurisdiction.
3 The Nation’s Two Measures of Homicide | July 2014 | bjs.gov BJS

Continued on next page

Note: SHR data include intentional homicides known to law enforcement and 

exclude justifiable homicides and nonnegligent manslaughter. NVSS data include 

all homicides committed by civilians (regardless of intent) and exclude homicides 

due to legal intervention. Both data sources exclude homicides resulting from 

operations of war and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Rates are 

calculated as the number of homicides per 100,000 U.S. residents. SHR rates are 

weighted to the annual number of homicide victims reported in the FBI’s Uniform 

Crime Reports.

Homicide rates in the NVSS and SHR, 1981–2011

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

SHR 

NVSS

1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011

Rates

Comparing the SHR and the NVSS

There is considerable overlap in homicides reported to the SHR 

and the NVSS (see table). Coroners and medical examiners often 

work closely with law enforcement on homicide cases. Thus, 

there is generally agreement on the cause of death and victim 

information reported to the CDC and the FBI, because cases are 

investigated and documented through collaborative efforts and 

then reported through NVSS and SHR.

Both systems follow the same rules in applying homicide labels 

to incidents and victims; however, each system has different 

subcategories of homicide, which are well-defined and can be 

used to identify similar types of homicides in the two systems. For 

example, the FBI classifies homicides as intentional, justifiable, or 

negligent. Homicides reported through the NVSS are classified 

according to the ICD system into two general categories: homicide 

or legal intervention. Both intentional and negligent homicides 

are defined as “homicides” in the NVSS, which makes no judgment 

of criminal intent. The legal intervention deaths in NVSS generally 

align with the FBI definition of “justifiable homicide,” while the 

single NVSS category of “homicide” includes the SHR’s two 

categories of intentional and negligent homicide. Unlike the SHR, 

the NVSS homicide classification includes assault by the crashing 

of a motor vehicle, but this category generally accounts for less 

than 100 deaths per year.3

Both systems have potential issues with data quality, which can 

affect the information’s accuracy and lead to misclassification of 

death incidents. Data quality may also be affected when records 

are not submitted in a timely manner or when the cause of death 

or other information is not updated as more accurate information 

becomes available. 

The NVSS consistently shows a higher number and rate of 

homicides in the United States compared to the SHR, likely due to 

the differences in coverage and scope and the voluntary versus 

mandatory nature of the data collection as described above. 

Despite these differences, the two sources show similar trends for 

the rate of homicides over time at the national level (see figure). 

Greater discrepancies between the two sources exist at the state 

level. Most states report more homicides through the NVSS than 

the SHR, yet in some states the opposite is true. Furthermore, the 

state-level ratio of homicides reported in the NVSS versus the SHR 

varies over time. State-level variations in reporting may be due to 

missing data, where cases that fall within the scope of the SHR or 

NVSS are not reported to the appropriate system. Variations may 

also be due to true differences between the homicide victim’s 

state of residence, which would be reported to the NVSS, and 

the state where the homicide incident occurred, as reported 

to the SHR. These differences may be particularly apparent in 

state or jurisdiction-level rate calculations based on the resident 

population. Since the NVSS is based on the residence of the victim, 

it is considered the more applicable source for resident-based 

rate calculations, while the SHR is more applicable for jurisdictionbased crime rates.

Unique features of each measure should be considered when 

using these data. Publicly available SHR datasets provide 

victim demographic information at the agency level, while 

NVSS homicide victim demographic estimates are not publicly 

3

NVSS fatal injury data are publicly available through the WONDER and 

WISQARS systems. The WONDER system combines legal intervention 

deaths and operations of war into the same category. The WISQARS system 

presents legal intervention deaths only, excluding the small number of 

operations of war deaths that occur in the United States each year (generally 

fewer than 25 deaths per year).

Comparing the NVSS fatal injury reports and the UCR 

supplementary homicide reports

NVSS SHR

Purpose Track all deaths Track crime statistics

Reporting 

source

State vital registrars Law enforcement agencies

Initial report Death certificate Police report

Reporting 

responsibility

Medical examiners and coroners Law enforcement officers

Homicide 

definition

Injuries inflicted by another 

person with intent to injure or kill 

by any means

Willful killing of one human 

being by another, includes 

murders & nonnegligent 

manslaughters

Reporting is Mandatory Voluntary

Data collection 

methods

Manner/cause of death 

determined by medical 

examiners/coroners; 

demographic information is 

recorded by funeral directors on 

death certificates

In most states, reports from 

individual law enforcement 

agencies are compiled 

monthly by state-level 

agencies and then 

forwarded to the FBI
Office of Justice Programs

Innovation • Partnerships • Safer Neighborhoods

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

avaliable.4 The NVSS will produce more accurate homicide trends 

at the national level than the SHR, because the NVSS includes 

deaths that occur in federal jurisdictions and more complete state 

and local jurisdiction reporting. More complete information on 

homicide victim characteristics is available through the NVSS. 

In particular, the NVSS provides more complete information 

about victim Hispanic origin compared to the SHR and includes 

measures of victim marital status and educational attainment, 

which are not found in the SHR. Mass homicide events are 

included in the NVSS; however, only deaths specifically labeled 

as a foreign terrorist act by the FBI are identified as such in the 

NVSS data and can be linked together. To date, this includes 

only the events of September 11, 2001. The SHR also includes 

mass homicide events but excludes deaths that occurred on 

September 11, 2001.

Since the SHR collects information about the offender and 

incident, SHR data are better suited for understanding the 

circumstances surrounding homicide incidents, including events 

leading up to the homicide, characteristics of the offender, and the 

relationship between the victim and the offender. SHR data are 

also advantageous for examining certain subtypes of homicides, 

including police and child homicides. Research on specific types 

of homicides identified by victim-offender relationship, such as 

those involving intimate partners, are possible with SHR data, but 

not with the NVSS data. However, the SHR has high proportions of 

homicides for which the offender is unknown to law enforcement, 

particularly for certain victim subgroups. For example, among 

male victims, the victim-offender releationship is undetermined 

in about 50% of incidents. Researchers must determine whether 

the data are appropriate for use and use caution when drawing 

conclusions about homicide offenders.

The SHR is designed to capture homicides known to law 

enforcement by jurisdiction, so SHR data can be used for research 

on homicides based on where they occurred. The NVSS collects 

data on both where the death occurred and where the victim 

lived, although homicide rates are typically calculated using placeof-residence data.

A more comprehensive understanding of homicide in the United 

States can perhaps be achieved by combining the strengths of the 

two data collection systems.

For more information about the SHR, see Crime in the United States

available online at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr#ucr_

cius; online analysis tool at http://ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/; 

and downloadable data files from http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

icpsrweb/landing.jsp and http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/

NACJD/.

For more information about mortality data in the NVSS, see 

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm; online analysis tools at 

http://wonder.cdc.gov/ and http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/

fatal.html; and downloadable data files from http://www.cdc.gov/

nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm.

4

Users may apply to the CDC to gain access to compressed datasets, which 

contain selected variables for the full mortality files at the county level.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible 

for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the 

operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels. BJS collects, analyzes, and 

disseminates reliable and valid statistics on crime and justice systems in the United States, supports improvements to 

state and local criminal justice information systems, and participates with national and international organizations 

to develop and recommend national standards for justice statistics. William J. Sabol is acting director.

This report was written by Wendy Regoeczi of Cleveland State University and Duren Banks of Research Triangle 

Institute. Michael Planty and Lynn Langton of BJS, J. Lee Annest and Margaret Warner of the CDC, and Cynthia 

Barnett-Ryan of the FBI consulted on content. Kyle Shea, BJS Intern, verified the report.

Jill Thomas edited the report. Barbara Quinn produced the report.

July 2014, NCJ 247060

Comparing the SHR and the NVSS (continued)