Murder in New York City

"Murder in New York City expands what we know about urban homicide, and challenges some of the things we think we know. Eric Monkkonen's investigation covers two centuries of murder in America's big city, combining newly assembled statistical evidence with many other documentary sources to tease out the story behind the figures.". "Monkkonen's long view allows us to look back to a time when guns were rarer, poverty was more widespread, and racial discrimination was more intense and to ask what difference these things make. With many vivid case studies for illustration, Monkkonen examines the crucial factors in killing through the years: the weapons of choice; the sex, age, race, and ethnicity of offenders and victims; and the circumstances and settings in which homicide tends to occur. There are surprises: political killings, for instance, were common in the mid-nineteenth century, and political parties maintained their own militia. Murder by children is far from unique to the late twentieth century, whereas the proportionally large number of offenders approaching or at the age of twenty is demonstrably new.". "In a final chapter, Monkkonen looks to the international context and shows that New York - and, by extension, the United States - has had consistently higher violence levels than London and Liverpool. No single factor, he says, shapes this excessive violence, but exploring the variables of age, ethnicity, weapons, and demography over the long term can lead to hope of changing old patterns. Although some crimes and some criminals may always remain beyond our comprehension, examining the past will take us into the future better able to understand ourselves and our society."--BOOK JACKET.