TITLE:
The Dependence of Reported Homicide Rates on Reported Non-Motor Vehicle Accident Death Rates in US Young Children and Infants, 1940-2007
AUTHORS:
Jack E. Riggs, Gerald R. Hobbs
KEYWORDS:
Accidental Death Rates; Child; Classification; Homicide Rates; Infant; Mutually Exclusive Events
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.3 No.1,
March
18,
2013
ABSTRACT: An analysis of the relationship between
reported homicides and reported non-motor vehicle accident deaths in young
children and infants was performed. Reported young child (aged 1 to less than 5
years) and infant (aged less than 1 year) homicide and non-motor vehicle
accident mortality rates in boys and girls in the United States from 1940 to
2007 were analyzed using the 4-parameter logistic model. Homicide rate growth
over time displayed sigmoid curves with inflection points near 1968 in young
children and near 1984 in infants. Using the maximum and minimum homicide rate
asymptotes from those analyses over time, 4-parameter logistic model between
homicide rates and non-motor vehicle mortality rates suggests that 84.2% and
94.2% of the variation in young child homicide rates, in boys and girls respectively,
can be explained by variation in the corresponding non-motor vehicle accident
mortality rates and that 69.4% and 66.3% of the variation in infant homicide
rates, in boys and girls respectively, was explained by variation in the
corresponding non-motor vehicle accident mortality rates. These findings are
consistent with the thesis that changing propensities in the classification of
young child and infant deaths as either homicides or non-motor vehicle accident
deaths, rather than actual changes in societal violence, may explain a
substantial proportion of the reported increases in homicide rates in young
children and infants. Moreover, the observation that increases in homicide
rates in young children and infants were separated in time by nearly 16 years
further supports this thesis.