Since LaFree's review of 34 cross-national homicide studies in 1999, an additional 50 studies have been published on this topic. There have been a few reviews of the extant literature, and a meta-analysis of cross-national predictors of homicide. However, none of these have directly assessed the degree to which the subsequent research has heeded the recommendations provided by LaFree, nor considered the long-term implications of his analysis for ongoing cross-national homicide research. We extend the literature by updating the review conducted by LaFree and detailing the major changes that have occurred in this body of research since the late 1990s. Our review reveals that recent studies appear to have taken into account LaFree's recommendations, particularly in regard to data sources, theoretical perspectives, and variable choices. We conclude that while advances in this field have been made, there are issues that have remained problematic over time and should be considered by researchers engaged in cross-national homicide research.
IntroductionResearch on cross-national homicide spans five decades. Since the early 1960s, over 85 quantitative studies have examined the issue of cross-national homicide rates. In 1999, Gary LaFree published the first comprehensive review of cross-national homicide research, analyzing 34 academic articles published between 1965 and 1997. He reviewed data sources, independent and control variable specification, methodological issues (e.g., sample sizes, sampling procedures, and homicide definitions), theoretical perspectives, and significance of findings. He then outlined several recommendations for future cross-national homicide research based on his analysis of these 34 studies.Since 1999 (i.e., LaFree's study), the extant literature on cross-national homicide has flourished, with over 55 quantitative studies published assessing the nature and extent of cross-national homicide in nearly one-third the time span of LaFree's study. Of these 55 more recent studies, over one-third (18 articles) make reference to LaFree's (1999) review. This includes seven articles that use LaFree as a source for review of the cross-national homicide literature, another seven articles that cite his study as a justification for their use of the World Health Organization (WHO) data, and six that refer to
