Homicide on TV Versus US Homicide Data

Christopher Janish, BA and Melanie Buskirk, BS, students at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn, discuss the results of their study on representations of homicide portrayed in dramatic television series compared with US homicide data from the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System.¹ While CDC data shows that the majority of homicides are committed by persons who use alcohol(Drug information on alcohol) prior to their crime, only 11 of 301 television perpetrators used alcohol.