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This is a review of the research literature on homicide arrest clearances or homicides for which no offender is arrested. The article describes the decline in the percent of homicides resulting in arrests and charges from over 90 pecent in 1960 to 61 percent in 2006. Research is reviewed on the reasons for the lack of public attention and concern and the low homicide clearance rates in the USA in comparison with other countries. Research on the extent to which homicides are uncleared because they involve low‐status persons and those economically disadvantaged is compared with research suggesting that it is the characteristics of the homicide event that make clearance difficult. It seems that such factors as age, gender, and race/ethnicity play a role in whether the homicide is cleared by arrest. Characteristics of homicides that increase clearances include occurrence in private residences, domestic homicides, and homicide with weapons other than firearms. Research on what police can do to increase clearances is examined. Suggestions on how to increase access to information on how homicide investigations are carried out are also discussed.

The percent of offenders arrested for murder in the United States has declined in all reporting cities from 92% in 1960 to 66% in 1997. This paper evaluates three sources of evidence that account for the decline in homicide arrests: police-based programs; changes in the character of homicides; and community and social factors. In the final section we suggest a view of homicide as self-help and explore third party behavior in relation to police cooperation, fear of retaliation, and type of homicide.

The record of executions in the United States has long shown that black defendants are disproportionately subjected to this sanction. But racial differentials in the use of the death penalty may not alone reveal the existence of racial discrimination. The Supreme Court in the Furman decision ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is a "cruel and unusual" punishment. Some allusions to racial discrimination appeared in the opinions, but more evidence seems called for. Some earlier studies of racial differentials in sentencing are reviewed, followed by a summary of the research procedure and conclusions from an elaborate study of sentencing for rape in states where that offense has been a capital crime. Strong statistically significant differences in the proportions of blacks sentenced to death, compared to whites, when a variety of nonracial aggravating circumstances are considered, permit the conclusion that the sentencing differentials are the product of racial discrimination.

This article is an introduction to the special issue of Homicide Studies on missing data. The first section is an overview of the status of missing data approaches in homicide research. It begins by describing the importance of missing data estimation in homicide. This is followed by a discussion of missing data mechanisms, complete case analysis, imputation and weighting, and model-based procedures. The second section is a brief description of each of the articles in this issue. The conclusion describes the myth associated with imputing missing data, the use of missing data approaches in public records, the Supreme Court case that found hot-deck imputation acceptable for the census, and guidelines for handling missing data published by the American Psychological Association. This section concludes by describing the kinds of research that need to be done.