DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03263.v1
title: Homicide, Bereavement, and the Criminal Justice System in Texas, 2000
title: Version 1

description: This study assessed the influence of the criminal justice system on the bereavement process of individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide. The primary question motivating this research was: Can the criminal justice system help to heal the harm of the bereaved's loss? The three main goals of this study were to examine: (1) bereaveds' perceptions of and experiences with the criminal justice system and its professionals, (2) the ways criminal justice professionals perceive and manage the bereaved, and (3) the nature of the association between the criminal justice system and bereaveds' psychological well-being. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews conducted in June through December 2000 with two different groups of people. The first group represented individuals who had lost loved ones to murder between 1994 and 1998 in one county in Texas (Parts 1-33). The second group (Parts 34-55) was comprised county criminal justice professionals (murder detectives, prosecutors, criminal court judges, victim's service counselors, and victim's rights advocates). For Parts 1-33, interviewees were asked a series of open-ended questions about the criminal justice system, including how they learned about the death and the current disposition of the murder case. They also were asked what they would change about the criminal justice system's treatment of them. The bereaved were further asked about their sex, age, race, education, marital status, employment status, income, and number of children. Additional questions were asked regarding the deceased's age at the time of the murder, race, relationship to interviewee, and the deceased's relationship to the murderer, if known. For Parts 34-55, respondents were asked about their job titles, years in those positions, number of murder cases handled in the past year, number of murder cases handled over the course of their career, and whether they thought the criminal justice system could help to heal the harm of people who had lost loved ones to murder. All interviews (Parts 1-55) were tape-recorded and later transcribed by the interviewer, who replaced actual names of individuals, neighborhoods, cities, counties, or any other identifiable names with pseudonyms.
description: Researchers consistently have found that those bereaved as a result of a homicidal event experience psychological difficulties, traumatic imaginings of the death, and frustrations with the criminal justice system. General sociological research on the criminal justice system has shown that criminal justice professionals play a key role in system outcomes and individual experiences. However, the specific effects of the criminal justice system on the bereavement process of people who have lost loved ones to murder has never been fully researched. This study sought to assess the influence of the criminal justice system on bereavement as a result of homicide. The primary question motivating this research was: Can the criminal justice system help to heal the harm of the bereaved's loss? The three main goals of this study were to examine: (1) bereaveds' perceptions of and experiences with the criminal justice system and its professionals, (2) the ways criminal justice professionals perceive and manage the bereaved, and (3) the nature of the association between the criminal justice system and bereaveds' psychological well-being.
description: Data were obtained from in-depth interviews conducted June through December 2000 with two different groups of people. The first group represented individuals who had lost loved ones to murder between 1994 and 1998 in one county in Texas (Parts 1-33). The second group (Parts 34-55) was comprised of county criminal justice professionals (murder detectives, prosecutors, criminal court judges, victim's service counselors, and victim's rights advocates). Names and contact information for the bereaved interviews were obtained from: (1) death certificate records furnished by the Texas Department of Health, (2) local newspaper articles, and (3) victim/witness counselors with the county District Attorney's Office. Individuals were asked to participate in the study via letters or telephone calls. The interviews allowed interviewees to talk about their experiences in their own words. Each interview lasted, on average, two-and-a-half hours. When the interview continued for more than two hours, the interviewer scheduled a second meeting. Those interviewees living out of state were interviewed via the telephone, while in-person interviews took place at the bereaved respondent's place of residence, local restaurants, or in the office of the interviewer. There was one non-English speaking bereaved, whose interview was conducted with the help of a Spanish-English interpreter who also transcribed the interview. For Parts 34-55, interviews were conducted with county criminal justice professionals. These interviews took approximately an hour to complete and took place in the professional's office, place of residence, or at local restaurants. All interviews (Parts 1-55) were tape-recorded and later transcribed by the interviewer, who replaced actual names of individuals, neighborhoods, cities, counties, or any other identifiable names with pseudonyms.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Not applicable.
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Bereaved Interview 1 
 DS2: Bereaved Interview 2 
 DS3: Bereaved Interview 3 
 DS4: Bereaved Interview 4 
 DS5: Bereaved Interview 5 
 DS6: Bereaved Interview 6 
 DS7: Bereaved Interview 7 
 DS8: Bereaved Interview 8 
 DS9: Bereaved Interview 9 
 DS10: Bereaved Interview 10 
 DS11: Bereaved Interview 11 
 DS12: Bereaved Interview 12 
 DS13: Bereaved Interview 13 
 DS14: Bereaved Interview 14 
 DS15: Bereaved Interview 15 
 DS16: Bereaved Interview 16 
 DS17: Bereaved Interview 17 
 DS18: Bereaved Interview 18 
 DS19: Bereaved Interview 19 
 DS20: Bereaved Interview 20 
 DS21: Bereaved Interview 21 
 DS22: Bereaved Interview 22 
 DS23: Bereaved Interview 23 
 DS24: Bereaved Interview 24 
 DS25: Bereaved Interview 25 
 DS26: Bereaved Interview 26 
 DS27: Bereaved Interview 27 
 DS28: Bereaved Interview 28 
 DS29: Bereaved Interview 29 
 DS30: Bereaved Interview 30 
 DS31: Bereaved Interview 31 
 DS32: Bereaved Interview 32 
 DS33: Bereaved Interview 33 
 DS34: Criminal Justice Interview 1 
 DS35: Criminal Justice Interview 2 
 DS36: Criminal Justice Interview 3 
 DS37: Criminal Justice Interview 4 
 DS38: Criminal Justice Interview 5 
 DS39: Criminal Justice Interview 6 
 DS40: Criminal Justice Interview 7 
 DS41: Criminal Justice Interview 8 
 DS42: Criminal Justice Interview 9 
 DS43: Criminal Justice Interview 10 
 DS44: Criminal Justice Interview 11 
 DS45: Criminal Justice Interview 12 
 DS46: Criminal Justice Interview 13 
 DS47: Criminal Justice Interview 14 
 DS48: Criminal Justice Interview 15 
 DS49: Criminal Justice Interview 16 
 DS50: Criminal Justice Interview 17 
 DS51: Criminal Justice Interview 18 
 DS52: Criminal Justice Interview 19 
 DS53: Criminal Justice Interview 20 
 DS54: Criminal Justice Interview 21 
 DS55: Criminal Justice Interview 22
description: Parts 1-33: Individuals who had lost loved ones to murder between 1994 and 1998 in one county in Texas. Parts 34-55: Criminal justice professional working in the same county in Texas with at least two years of experience with cases of murder.
description: Parts 1-33: Convenience sampling. Parts 34-55: Purposive sampling.