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Homicide is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. Armed Forces and is the eleventh in the civilian population overall. The purpose of this study was to compare homicide rates of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force to the civilian population for the years 1983 through 1999. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to test specific effects of year, service branch, and gender on homicide rates. A hierarchical linear regression equation resulted in R2 = .246, a statistically significant predictive finding [ F(6,163) = 8.843, p = .000]. Additional hypothesis testing indicated that each independent variable provided a unique contribution to the total variance accounted for in homicide rates. A set of time series regressions was then used to gauge the effects of gender and military branch on homicide rates over the seventeen-year period. Findings revealed that homicide rates for the military were consistently lower than civilians. However, while military female rates per 100,000 averaged almost double those of civilian females (6.65/3.78), military male rates were less than one-third the rate of their civilian counterpart (4.22/12.82). Although no significant trends were found among specific branches of service across time, significant declines were found for all U.S. Armed Forces combined. |
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