From Murder to Imprisonment: Mapping the Flow of Homicide Cases—A Systematic Review

• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Author: Katharina Krüsselmann,Manuel Eisner,Marieke Liem
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767920924447
• Date: 01 August 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767920924447

Homicide Studies

2020, Vol. 24(3) 220 –241

© 2020 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767920924447

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Article

From Murder to

Imprisonment: Mapping

the Flow of Homicide

Cases—A Systematic Review

Marieke Liem1, Katharina Krüsselmann1,

and Manuel Eisner2

Abstract

This systematic review examined the evidence on factors influencing the flow of

homicide, from suspicious death to imprisonment. Bibliographic databases and thesis

portals were searched. The total number of hits was 15,986, of which 15,830 were

irrelevant, 35 did not include a quantitative sample, 26 did not focus on homicide, 18

did not present flow data, and for seven there was no full text available. The remaining

70 papers were analyzed. With the exception of one, no study presented a complete

longitudinal flow. Results indicated that both legal and extralegal characteristics

influence the likelihood of cases to drop out. Aside from a first mapping of homicide

case flows, future research should explore false positives and false negatives, to come

to a first understanding of funnel selectivity in homicide cases.

Keywords

case linkage, method, clearance, policing, exceptional clearance, investigation

Introduction

Background

Homicide serves as a global barometer for criminal justice policy. It has been suggested

that while one homicide may trigger the most severe punishment, a similar homicide

1Leiden University, The Hague, The Netherlands

2University of Cambridge, UK

Corresponding Author:

Marieke Liem, Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University, 2501 EE The Hague, The

Netherlands.

Email: m.c.a.liem@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

924447HSXXXX10.1177/1088767920924447Homicide StudiesLiem et al.

research-article2020

Liem et al. 221

may elicit no sanctions at all (Cooney, 2009). The critical question that arises, then, is

what explains the variability in homicide case outcome? The pursuit of criminal justice

involves a large number of individuals making a series of complex decisions. In most

jurisdictions, this process entails four main steps, and starts with the discovery of a

suspicious death. Subsequently, the coroner or medical examiner assesses the deceased.

If the autopsy suggests or confirms foul play, the legal process is set in motion (Step 1)

(Timmermans, 2007). The case then goes through a series of criminal justice decision-

making stages, also known as the so-called criminal justice funnel model (Charette &

van Koppen, 2016). These stages include clearance (through arrest or otherwise) (Step

2), prosecution (Step 3), and sentencing (Step 4) (Baumer et al., 2000). At each of these

judicial stages, selectivity takes place. Homicide cases may drop out for several legal

reasons, for example, no clearance when the evidence is insufficient, no prosecution

when the suspect is dead, or no sentencing when the suspect is not criminally respon-

sible. Although decisions made at each stage of the criminal justice process are restricted

by substantive and procedural criminal law, it has been argued that a considerable

amount of discretion remains in the decision-making process and structural inequalities

(including victim and offender gender, age or ethnicity) that may influence this process

(Baumer et al., 2000). This selectivity may lead to a population at the end of the crime

funnel that becomes less representative of the total offender population at the start of

the funnel (Charette & van Koppen, 2016). Despite its relevance to public health and

criminal justice policy, to our knowledge, no systematic literature review has been con-

ducted on factors influencing the flow of homicide through the system, from the detec-

tion of a suspicious death to imprisonment (Liem & Eisner, 2020).

In this contribution, we move beyond the empirical vacuum by (a) conducting an

extensive search for empirical studies written in English by searching in five electronic

databases, together covering a total of 731 electronic databases from 1976 up to March

2019; (b) expanding our search to include unpublished graduate theses; and (c) focus-

ing on studies that explicitly describe the flow of homicide cases with empirical data.

Objectives

With this systematic review, we aim to summarize the evidence on factors influencing

the flow of homicide through the public health and criminal justice systems, from

suspicious death to imprisonment. In doing so, we seek to synthesize all available

scientific evidence arising from empirical studies.

Method

The methods used were based on the “PRISMA” guidelines for conducting systematic

reviews (Moher et al., 2009).

Eligibility Criteria

Studies were included if they met the following criteria: Published in English from the

beginning of the year 1976 to March 2019; explicitly mentioned homicide cases (either