Measuring Homicide by Police Officers

Abstract

Criminologists have long viewed homicide as the least difficult type of crime to measure.'The difficulty of disposing of bodies, the generally high level of agreement between the Uniform Crime Reports anci the Vital Statistics of the United States, " 2 and the monitoring function of coroners in recording homicide events all support the view that official statistics provide a highly accurate measure of homicide.The excellence of this official measurement, however, is confined to citizens killing other citizens.The official measurement of officials killing citizens falls far short of excellence.The widespread American belief that official killings do not constitute violence3 is reflected by the complete absence of