Citation

Jiao AY. Crim. Justice Stud. Crit. J. Crime Law Soc. 2007; 20(1): 3-14.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14786010701241259

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examined the Homicide in Chicago data 1965–1995 to further understand the effect of victim, incident, and environmental characteristics on homicide clearance. The hypotheses tested are formulated from a police perspective with the intent to capture how different types of victims, circumstances of homicides, and officers’ immediate work environment may influence homicide clearance. The findings demonstrate that a perspective based on psychological, situational, and environmental impact on police work may serve as an alternative explanation for homicide clearance to the social conflict perspective that focuses on the effect of preconceived or predisposed officer bias, and to the equal aggressiveness perspective that argues that officers work equally hard for all homicide cases due to the heinousness of such crime.