Australian Institute of Criminology National Homicide Monitoring Program

Identifying and definitional attributes

The National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) commenced on 1 July 1989. Through it, the Australian Institute of Criminology monitors trends and patterns in homicide across Australian jurisdictions. The NHMP data provides details of victims, offenders and the circumstances of the incident.

Key sources of data for the NHMP include:

• offence records derived from each Australian state and territory police service, supplemented where necessary with information provided directly by investigating police officers and/or associated staff; and
• state coronial records such as toxicology and post-mortem reports. As of 1 July 2001, the National Coroners Information System enabled online access to coronial findings including toxicology reports.

Where appropriate, the data are further supplemented by newspaper clippings.

The information is divided into four key areas:

• an incident file, which describes the case and its circumstances (eg location, date and time of the incident, status of investigation and whether the incident occurred during the course of another crime);
• a victim file, which contains socio-demographic information relating to the victim(s), details of the cause of death and the type of weapon used to kill the victims, and alcohol and illicit drug use;
• an offender file, which details persons who have been charged and includes data on the socio-demographic characteristics of the offender, their previous criminal history, alcohol/illicit drug use, mental health status and relationship to the victim (at all times, the term offender refers to suspected offenders only, and not to convicted persons, unless otherwise stated); and
• a merged incident, victim and offender file, combining details from all three datasets.