"Justifiable Homicides, Taken Off the Books, Alter a Murder Tally" By Lisl Wangermann Period 1

J. David Goodman's article "Justifiable Homicides, Taken Off the Books, Alter a Murder Tally" was published by the New York Times on January 17, 2016. In New York City, a man opened fire with an illegal hand gun at another man, who returned fire, killing the assailant. This man also had an illegal hand gun. Although originally classified as a murder, the situation was later deemed "justified" and taken off the records. Many other homicides like this one have likewise been removed from the books, significantly altering New York City's crime tally. Although this might not have mattered a couple of years ago, it has a considerable effect in an age of all-time low crime rates.

This article is somewhat confusing because most people probably believe that homicides cannot be "justified." Although I believe that in scenarios of self-defense homicides can be "justified," I do not think that it means that they should be removed from the official tally of murders. Someone still killed another human being, and therefore it should be counted. This era of analyzing the number of murders in each city originates from the Gilded Age. In cities like Chicago and New York, there was such an influx of people that it was hard to keep track of everyone. In addition, communication between people was still very slow and many people in cities were isolated from their friends and families. This made it easy to murder someone without being noticed, and serial killers like H.H. Holmes definitely took advantage of that. Even though crime is not out of control now like it was then, it is still important to keep an accurate crime record, and therefore these "justifiable" homicides should be counted.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/nyregion/justifiable-homicides-taken-off-the-books-alter-a-murder-tally.html?hpw&rref=nyregion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0