This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Rock, D. Articles by Hallmayer, J. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Rock, D. Articles by Hallmayer, J. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Cyclical Changes of Homicide Rates

A Reanalysis of Brearley's 1932 Data

Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry

David M. Greenberg

University of Western Australia

Joachim Hallmayer

Stanford University

The objective of this analysis is to explore the possibility that Brearley's failure to detect a coherent pattern of seasonal variation in his well-known study of homicide in the United States was due to a lack of statistical refinement. The original data on homicides in the United States between 1923 and 1928 (N = 51,798) were reanalyzed using spectral analysis. The results show a significant seasonal dependency with a peak in the homicide rate in August. The seasonal dependency explains between 23% and 30% of the total homicide variance. The importance of this finding is the degree of explained variance and the location of the peak, which is remarkably consistent with more contemporary studies using similar methods despite substantial sociodemographic changes, suggesting an endogenous etiology.

Key Words: homicide • seasonality • violence

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?