Murder and manslaughter
These data are incorporated into the non-natural causes of death statistics which CBS has kept since 1996.
The two primary sources for the figures on murder and manslaughter are:
• data from cause-of-death certification as completed by the attending physician or coroner;
• court files in cases of unnatural death.
No distinction is drawn here between manslaughter (either voluntary or involuntary killing) and murder (killing with malice aforethought). This is due to the fact that at the time of consulting the court files, there has not (yet) been a court decision in most cases. This also means that no distinction has yet been made between suspects and offenders. The figures refer to suspects as those persons who are identified as suspects in the related court files.