The Global Study on Homicide 2019 is based on comprehensive data and examines and analyses patterns and trends in homicide at the global regional national and sub-national levels. Such analysis is fundamental to understanding the various factors and dynamics that drive homicide so that measures can be developed to reduce violent crime. The Study provides a typology of homicide including homicide related to crime coexistence-related homicide and socio-political homicide. The study shows that the overall number of people who suffered a violent death as a result of homicide increased in the past quarter of a century from 395542 in 1992 to 464000 in 2017. However because the global population has risen faster than the increase in recorded homicide victims the overall risk of being killed in homicides has declined steadily. The global homicide rate measured as the victims of homicide per 100000 people declined from 7.2 in 1992 to 6.1 in 2017.

Intentional homicide is serious in nature and recorded by multiple data sources (police and public health). As such it is widely accepted as one of the most accurate reliable and comparable crime indicators for world crime trends and patterns. Using data from the United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (UN-CTS) and the latest homicide statistics dataset of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime this publication provides a global overview on levels and trends of intentional homicide and its relationship with and impact on human development. It also examines the links between homicide and some forms of organized crime including drug trafficking as well as the use of firearms. The study describes characteristics of homicide victims and perpetrators (including from the gender perspective) as well as provides detailed data on homicide location.