Homicide Investigations in Los Angeles, California: An Analysis of Solved and Unsolved Cases, 1990-2010

In 2018 Justice and Security Strategies, Inc. (JSS) recieved funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to code and analyze detailed homicide data collected by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The data in this study were compiled from the LAPD's digitized homicide
casefiles, or Murder Books, stored at the Homicide Library. These digitized
casefiles included relevant information from the chronological log of detective
activity, crime scene log, first responder statements and officer reports,
incident history from the CAD and 911 tapes, Los Angeles Fire Department
medical service report, death/autopsy report, suspect arrest report, evidence
reports, follow-up reports, investigator final report, search warrants, crime
scene sketches, crime scene notes, scientific evidence analysis, witness
statements and notes, suspect interview notes, and case status information. A
total of 4,111 Murder Books detailing homicides from four of 21 LAPD area stations in South Los Angeles between 1990 to 2010 were digitally scanned and preserved
for posterity. Through a grant from the National Institute of Justice, JSS
researchers 'tagged' the data to facilitate sharing these Murder Books among
detectives in the South Bureau. These 'tags' also serve to encode features and
outcomes from the Murder Book case files.
The data archived from this project consist of the digital database of the tagged
Murder Books. There are two files included in this project. The victim file
contains information about both the incident (obtainable from unique incident
numbers) and information about the victim (victim number associated with each
incident). The suspect file contains information about the suspects associated
with each incident and can be linked to the original incident through the
incident number.