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Detailed, comparative research on firearm violence in Europe is rare. Using data from the European Homicide Monitor, this paper presents the prevalence and characteristics of firearm homicides in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland between 2001 and 2016. Furthermore, we compare firearm to non-firearm homicides to assess the degree of uniqueness of firearms as modus operandi. We find that the firearm homicide rate varies across our sample of countries. We also identify two country profiles: in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, most firearm homicides take place in public and urban areas, involving male victims and perpetrators. In these countries, the use of firearms in homicides is largely concentrated in the criminal milieu. In Finland and Switzerland, firearms are mostly used in domestic homicides, with a higher share of female victims. We explore these findings in relation to firearm availability in each country.

Nordic Homicide in Deep Time draws a unique and detailed picture of developments in human interpersonal violence and presents new findings on rates, patterns, and long-term changes in lethal violence in the Nordics. Conducted by an interdisciplinary team of criminologists and historians, the book analyses homicide and lethal violence in northern Europe in two eras – the 17th century and early 21st century. Similar and continuous societal structures, cultural patterns, and legal cultures allow for long-term and comparative homicide research in the Nordic context. Reflecting human universals and stable motives, such as revenge, jealousy, honour, and material conflicts, homicide as a form of human behaviour enables long-duration comparison. By describing the rates and patterns of homicide during these two eras, the authors unveil continuity and change in human violence. Where and when did homicide typically take place? Who were the victims and the offenders, what where the circumstances of their conflicts? Was intimate partner homicide more prevalent in the early modern period than in present times? How long a time elapsed from violence to death? Were homicides often committed in the context of other crime? The book offers answers to these questions among others, comparing regions and eras. We gain a unique and empirically grounded view on how state consolidation and changing routines of everyday life transformed the patterns of criminal homicide in Nordic society. The path to pacification was anything but easy, punctuated by shorter crises of social turmoil, and high violence. The book is also a methodological experiment that seeks to assess the feasibility of long-duration standardized homicide analysis and to better understand the logic of homicide variation across space and over time. In developing a new approach for extending homicide research into the deep past, the authors have created the Historical Homicide Monitor. The new instrument combines wide explanatory scope, measurement standardization, and articulated theory expression. By retroactively expanding research data to the pre-statistical era, the method enables long-duration comparison of different periods and areas. Based on in-depth source critique, the approach captures patterns of criminal behaviour, beyond the control activity of the courts. The authors foresee the application of their approach in even remoter periods. Nordic Homicide in Deep Time helps the reader to understand modern homicide by revealing the historical continuities and changes in lethal violence. The book is written for professionals, university students and anyone interested in the history of human behaviour.

This research brief is the manual of the Historical Homicide Monitor (HHM), providing background information, general coding instructions, and the detailed Historical Homicide Monitor 2.0 codebook. The Historical Homicide Monitor: • Is intended for use in long-duration homicide research, enabling comparisons of homicide patterns and rates over long time spans and across study regions. • Transforms information from qualitative-textual sources into a standardized and mostly quantitative format. • Is source neutral: any type of qualitative source can be made commensurate with other sources by using the instrument. • Is designed to be compatible with the European Homicide Monitor standard (Granath et al. 2011), with identical, compatible and new variables. Compatible variables come with transformation syntax for full or enhanced mutual comparability. Data structure is compatible. • Has been developed to reflect the main theories of historical criminology while retaining flexibility in theoretical operationalizations. • Has been developed and tested in the Nordic area but can be applied anywhere. • Has been developed and tested in early modern and modern data but can be applied and improved for use in any historical period. • Requires standard procedures of historical source criticism and criminological validity assessments when used in research. The Historical Homicide Monitor was developed in the cross-national and interdisciplinary project “Nordic Homicide from Past to Present”, which brought together Nordic criminologists and historians. Funded by the Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology, the project used early modern court protocols from Denmark (1608–1622), Sweden (1640–1650) and Finland (1640–1699), 20th century criminal justice sources from Iceland (1900–1989), and contemporary homicide monitors from the same countries (2006–2017) to create a long-duration homicide research instrument. The Historical Homicide Monitor 2.0 manual is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. The manual can be used and distributed freely in research and teaching; no permissions are required. The manual can be used in full or in part. To ensure comparability and data merger options, variable names and categories should not be changed. nonPeerReviewed

Studies on homicide clearance in the Scandinavian context are very rare. In this article, we explore the homicide clearance rate in Sweden with special reference to firearm-perpetrated cases. The s...

This study provides an overview of homicide clearance in four West European countries: Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Using data from the European Homicide Monitor, employing similar definitions and uniform coding schemes, this study allowed for unique cross-country comparisons in factors influencing differences in homicide clearance rates. Findings based on homicides occurring in the period 2009–14 revealed overall low homicide rates in all countries, with a wide variety in homicide clearance rates, ranging from 77 percent in the Netherlands to 98 percent in Finland. Results further showed that both event-based as well as victim-based characteristics significantly influenced the likelihood of homicide clearance, suggesting that homicide clearance rates can, for a large part, be attributed to the prevalent types of homicide in each of these European countries.

Research on homicides followed by suicides has largely relied on very localized samples and relatively short time spans of data. As a result, little is known about the extent to which patterns within cases of homicide-suicides are geographically specific. The current study seeks to help fill this gap by comparing twenty years of homicide-suicide data for Sweden and a large U.S. county. Although some of the underlying patterns in the two countries are similar (e.g., decreasing rates), a number of important differences emerge, particularly with respect to incidence, weapons used, perpetrator age, and relationship of the perpetrator to the victim.

Homicide committed by female offenders is an understudied phenomenon. This study examines whether incidence rates of male-perpetrated and female-perpetrated homicide have changed from 1990 to 2010, and investigates similarities and differences between male and female homicide offenders, by examining a dataset comprising all cases of homicide in Sweden (N = 1,570). The results indicate a decline in the incidence of both male-perpetrated and female-perpetrated homicide during the observed period, as well as stable proportions of female offenders. There were also pronounced differences between male and female homicide offenders with adult victims: victims of female offenders were more often male, intimate partners, intoxicated at the time of the offense, and killed by sharp force injuries. Previous violence between victim and offender was also more common in cases with female offenders, and they committed homicide-suicide less often. There were less pronounced differences between male and female homi...

This descriptive study examines patterns of and trends in violence in public places in Stockholm City, with a focus on offender residential status, repeat offending and the trend in serious violence. The data are taken from official registers of police-reported assault offences in Stockholm City. The findings indicate that public-place violence is for the most part committed by individuals who themselves do not live in the urban core district. Nearly half of the perpetrators have also been victims of violence in public places in Stockholm, and there was a considerable element of repeat offending. As regards the trend since 2001, the total level of reported violence in the public places in Stockholm City has increased. However, serious violence decreased by 30–40% between 2001–2002 and 2011–2012. The findings thus appear to be roughly consistent with the crime drop hypothesis. The results are discussed in relation to situational crime prevention, particularly since new methods of situational ‘hot spots’ po...

The objective of the study was to examine the change in child homicides in Sweden between the 1990s and the 2000s based on a study of all cases registered during the periods 1990-1996 and 2002-2008. The results show a significant annual 4% decrease in the number of child homicides, with the main decline being due to a decrease in cases of filicide–suicide among both fathers and mothers. One possible explanation for the decrease may be the increases in the general prescription of antidepressant medication. However, other factors may also have played a significant role in the decline as well.

Objective Recent systematic reviews have highlighted that the relationship between autism and violent offending is still unclear, but some cases have received extensive media scrutiny. We investigated whether autism is associated with convictions for violent crimes, and studied the associated risk and protective factors. Method We analyzed data from the Stockholm Youth Cohort, a total population-based record-linkage cohort in Stockholm County comprising 295,734 individuals followed up between 15 and 27 years of age. Of these, 5,739 individuals had a recorded autism diagnosis. The main outcome measure was a conviction for violent crimes identified using the Swedish National Crime Register. Results Individuals with autism, particularly those without intellectual disability, initially appeared to have a higher risk of violent offending (adjusted relative risk = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.23−1.58). However, these associations markedly attenuated after co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or conduct disorder were taken into account (adjusted relative risk = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.75−0.97). Among individuals with autism, male sex and psychiatric conditions were the strongest predictors of violent criminality, along with parental criminal and psychiatric history and socioeconomic characteristics. There was some evidence that a delayed diagnosis of autism was associated with a greater risk of violent crime. Better school performance and intellectual disability appeared to be protective. Conclusion An initially observed association between autism and violent crimes at a population level was explained by comorbidity with ADHD and conduct disorder. Better understanding and management of comorbid psychopathology in autism may potentially help preventive action against offending behaviors in people with autism.

A well-written, sound and highly relevant paper, with good language. Impressively economical and straight forward presentation with well-chosen figures. This must be viewed in light of the complex issues and rich data at hand. Both the two empirical studies that the paper is based on seem robust, and have been quality-checked by external reviewers due to the usual process for reports from the national council for crime prevention.

Due to differences in definitions, data sources and criminal justice procedures, comparing homicides between countries is not without problems. To overcome these limitations, we have constructed a joint European Homicide Monitor (EHM). So far, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden constitute the basis of the database. In this contribution, we give an overview of this new data set. In doing so, we elaborate on methodological issues that arose when constructing this data set and discuss the feasibility of constructing an international and comparable homicide data set. Preliminary results show that the EHM as a joint database provides unique opportunities to closely monitor homicide across Europe.

The chapter describes the trends and basic structure of homicides in Sweden known to the police in 2002–2008, as well as 1990–1996. The analyses are based on a code scheme that all police reports (around 100 annually) and court decisions (around 70 annually) on homicides are put into, as well as data on homicides based on death causes coded in the ICD ten system by the health department. Since the time span consists of 7 plus 7 years, there are around 1,200 cases analyzed. The main question for the analysis is if there have been any changes in the level and the structure of homicides in Sweden over the last two decades, in the matter of for example age and sex of the individuals involved, motives, methods of attack, crime scenes and clearance rates. The phenomena of homicide in Sweden is since the mid-1970s characterized by a quite stable overall level (a little less than 1 per year and 100,000 pop.), a relatively high clearance rate and a large proportion of knife- and alcohol-related cases in comparison with other countries around the world. Hypotheses have been raised, though, that the number of gun-related homicides, as well as the proportion of unsolved cases, has increased in Sweden in the last decade, due to an overall raise in organized and gang-related crime. On the other hand, there are theories that the number of homicides has decreased as a result of improvements in emergency health care and the presence of cell phones.