The report is based on WISQARS mortality data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The study details homicide rates for 2023, the most recent year for which comprehensive national data is available.
Previous versions of the VPC report used exclusively FBI SHR data to describe Black homicide victimization. In January of 2021, the FBI changed the way crime data are collected in the United States, which negatively impacted the reliability of such data from some states. As a result of the incomplete nature of state-by-state SHR crime data for 2023, using these data for ranking the states is not possible. In order to continue examining state-specific Black homicide victimization rates and offering state rankings, this report utilizes CDC WISQARS data to describe victim demographics and weapons used at both the national level and the state level for the 10 states with the highest Black homicide victimization rates. To offer further detail on Black homicide victimization in the United States, FBI SHR data are used to describe the victim and offender relationship and homicide circumstances at the national level. The Violence Policy Center hopes that at some point in the near future FBI crime data will once again be sufficiently robust to allow for a more complete analysis of the data.
The age-adjusted rates published in this report were calculated by the National Center for Health Statistics. The rates are calculated by dividing the number of Black homicide victims by the Black population and multiplying the result by 100,000. This result is then weighted according to the U.S. standard population. More information about how rates are calculated can be found at: https://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/ucd-expanded.html#Age-Adjusted%20Rates.
