WASHINGTON -- A Justice Department report released Wednesday shows that it is more likely a person will be murdered by someone they know than by a stranger.
The study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that at least 80 percent of murder victims knew the person who killed them. The report was based on 10,000 cases during 1988 in 75 of the nation's most populous counties, which accounted for more than half of the murders that year.
'What it says most is that violence (happens) when there is a breakdown of on-going relationships or an exacerbation of tensions,' said Robert Johnson, chairman of American University's Department of Justice, Law and Society.
The study, the first the agency has done on a multi-jurisdictional level, also found that 12 percent of male victims were killed by a family member compared with 31 percent of females.
One-third of the female victims were killed by their spouse or a romantic interest compared with 11 percent for men.
The study also found that most murderers tend to kill people of the same race, said John Dawson, the study's author and acting chief of the prosecution and adjudication unit.
The report's findings are not surprising to some criminology experts.
John Stein, deputy director for the National Organization for Victim Assistance, said the number of domestic abuse cases are a good example to show people tend to direct their frustrations at people they know.
'If you're thinking about preventing murders, we must be more alert with (domestic) assaultive behavior,' he said.
Johnson said he finds it troubling that 20 percent of killers are strangers, a phenomenon that seems to be on the rise.
Edward Shaughnessy, a law and social policy professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said this reflects a changing pattern in crime toward what he calls more 'disorganized crime.' This is reflected by the number of people who are killed in random attacks such as drive-by shootings, he said.
'We're dealing with people who's view of life is cheap,' Shaughnessy said. He and others attribute this view to what they say is a breakdown in the educational system and the values children are learning.
