Addendum to “Homicide Injury Quantification: Correlations and Reliability of Injury Severity Scores Applied to Homicide Victims.” Volume 19, Issue 1, pp. 88-100

Homicidal Physical Violence: An Exploratory Analysis of Relevant Cognitive, Demographic, and Criminological Factors in a Sample of Murderers

“…Scores range from 1 to 6, higher scores indicating greater injury severity (see Table 1). Additional criteria to operationalize injuries considered “overkill” were used (see Tamsen et al, 2015 for a detailed description). The first and senior author independently completed the ratings.…”

“…Fifth, although the Homicide Injury Scale is the best-validated measure of the construct, it leaves some criteria including "overkill" and "excessive" injuries ambiguous. This study utilized previously validated overkill criteria (see Tamsen et al, 2015) and future investigations may consider using similar criteria to optimize generalizability. Sixth, research regarding the HIS construct has been limited to single-victim murders.…”

“…Several systems have been developed to quantify the degree of physical injury inflicted on victims during the commission of a homicide (Safarik & Jarvis, 2005; Tamsen et al, 2015). Homicide injury severity (HIS) has emerged as a promising criminological variable associated with victim age (Jordan et al, 2010), survival time (Cros et al, 2013), and the distance between the offender’s and victim’s residence (Safarik et al, 2002; Safarik & Jarvis, 2005).…”

Quantifying Homicide Injuries: A Swedish Time Trend Study Using the Homicide Injury Scale

“…[9] Their applicability to homicide victims has recently been evaluated together with other injury severity scores. [10] In that study, it was argued that the sum of all AIS scores (SAIS) in a victim could be used as a gold standard for quantifying injuries in homicide victims, since it takes into account both the number of injuries as well as their individual severities in an objective way. The ISS was deemed too crude when compared with this gold standard; while, the homicide injury scale (HIS) was the best alternative when looking for a valid method that was quick and easy to apply.…”

“…By transforming some qualitative definitions of the original HIS into objective measures, the scale can be made less ambiguous and, thus, more reliable. [10] This modified version of the HIS was used in the present study. In the original definition, the term overkill was not explicitly defined.…”