Abstract
While scholarly work on homicide predominantly focuses on the United States, it is also crucial to study homicide within other countries or in a cross-national context. An international approach to studying homicide increases generalizability and gives us deeper understanding, and Europe is a particularly interesting setting for homicide research. Most contemporary criminological theories were developed in the United States, but many core theoretical ideas originate from European scholars such as Durkheim, Marx, and Beccaria. Also, while European nations are in close geographical proximity, they are still quite heterogeneous in homicide rates and the social, economic, cultural, and political correlates of homicide, with especially notable diversity between Europe’s central/eastern and western regions. The continent’s distinctive experience with historical events such as the Soviet Union’s collapse provides opportunities for studying the effect on crime of sociopolitical shocks that are unavailable to researchers who exclusively examine the United States. Furthermore, the United States and Europe share many important characteristics but also differ substantially in incarceration rates and policies, so that Europe is an extremely valuable additional setting in which to examine the relationship between crime rates and the criminal justice system’s actions.
But despite the importance of a cross-national approach to homicide research, U.S.-trained scholars may be reluctant to study homicide in other countries, including Europe, due to a lack of basic knowledge of homicide—definitions, data sources, and research traditions—in other nations. The chapters collected in Handbook of European Homicide Research: Patterns, Explanations, and Country Studies address this by providing an excellent overview of homicide in Europe. The edited book consists of two parts. The first part (Chapters 2–17) focuses on Europe as a whole and provides a valuable introduction for homicide researchers interested in comparing multiple European nations. Chapter 2 provides detailed up-to-date information on data sources for cross-national European homicide data, differences in homicide definitions among European countries, and a review of previous cross-national comparative homicide research in Europe. The International Criminal Police Organization was once a widely used data source but recently has stopped reporting cross-national homicide data. The chapter identifies four current sources of cross-national European homicide data that can be used instead (Eurostat, European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations). Even though criminologists agree that official statistics for homicide are more reliable and valid than those for other less serious offenses, the chapter describes the considerable variation in legal definitions and homicide recording practices across the European countries and the four main data sources. Because homicide is a relatively rare event, even slight differences in definitions or reporting practices could result in large distortions in homicide counts and estimated effects of homicide correlates in cross-national research.
Subsequent chapters demonstrate the difficulty, cautions, and limitations of constructing comparable homicide data across European nations for examining long-term trends or more contemporary regional patterns. The first part of the volume also includes original research in the European context on common theoretical and empirical correlates of homicide, such as poverty, mental illness, alcohol, immigration, gun ownership, and other social, political, and economic factors. Following the trend of U.S. research toward disaggregating homicides by age, race, victim–offender relationship, circumstance, and geographical region, some of the studies here focus on specific types of homicide, including family homicide, casualties from terrorism, and murder–suicide.
The chapter on “Theory and Explanation in Contemporary European Homicide Research” (Chapter 6) investigates recent use of theory in homicide research conducted by Europe-based scholars. Even with the search restricted to work appearing in a set of English language journals, it is still surprising to see only 38 published homicide research articles from Europe-based scholars since 2000. The authors concluded from their review that European homicide research is heavily influenced by American criminological theories. One partial exception is civilization theory, drawn from work of Norbert Elias, though even this also contains ideas from social control, self-control, and cultural learning approaches. I wonder whether the authors might have found a more distinctive pattern of theory use among Europe-based scholars if they had also reviewed non-English language articles. Of course, as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to search all of Europe’s non-English literatures. Review of cross-national homicide research in Europe given in Chapter 7 is also limited to English language sources, but is otherwise highly comprehensive and informative, with detailed information on nearly 70 studies in tables and sections organized by structural level homicide correlates. The chapter also discusses critical limitations and issues in previous cross-national homicide research in Europe, such as data reliability and validity and operationalization of concepts. The first part of the volume concludes with a chapter on homicide punishment variation among European nations, again focusing on the difficulty of cross-national comparison.
Each chapter in the handbook’s second part (Chapters 18–29) focuses on a different European nation. Chapters start with a brief yet informative overview of that nation’s demographic and social characteristics. The chapters also note previous homicide studies specific to that country, followed by descriptive analysis of homicide patterns and characteristics, including victim and offender characteristics, locations, motives, and other circumstances. Each chapter concludes with a country-specific homicide explanation. The second part of the handbook will be useful for scholars who want to focus on a particular European nation, but the similar format of its chapters also allows a researcher to systematically compare European nations in order to choose the nation or nations most suitable for his or her research question.
Each chapter in the handbook represents original research and provides current information and concludes with unresolved issues and useful suggestions for future research. The list of contributors is impressive and is drawn from a wide variety of European nations and academic disciplines, so the reader is exposed to a great diversity of perspectives. The availability of the Handbook of European Homicide Research should stimulate a good deal of important new scholarship, both cross-national and on single countries. It is also an excellent model for others who might produce similar handbooks on other world regions.