Homicide and Suicide in a Metropolitan County

Because homicide represents the ultimate deterioration of personal interactions, its frequency in a given population furnishes an objective index of violent reactions to the cumulative stresses in the group. Moreover, problems generated by these tragic losses of life are larger than a simple summation of individual misery. Ultimately, a high rate of homicide disrupts almost every facet of society. Since homicide has such extensive social, legal, and medical ramifications, its study possesses an immediacy matched by comparatively few other aspects of life on the current scene in the United States. Previous studies in Cleveland1and elsewhere2-4all show that the incidence of homicide is correlated with poverty, with an intimate acquaintance between victim and assailant, and with a preponderance of non-white male victims. A marked increase in the local and national5homicide rates during the past decade prompted us to restudy homicide in the Cleveland area, partly