Talk:Birmingham homicides by year

Some context

Current FBI crime reporting standards request from police departments that any death that, "results from a fight, argument, quarrel, assault or commission of a crime" should be classified as a murder for their purposes, regardless of the outcome of criminal prosecutions. Their definition of "justifiable" homicides is likewise limited to the deaths of people actively perpetrating serious crimes caused by police officers or private citizens, and does not extend to the range of homicides that may not be prosecuted for lack of evidence to dispute a claim of self-defense.

According to reporting by ProPublica, local police departments vary greatly in their own classifications, particularly for "justifiable" homicides. Their analysis suggests that some departments, such as St Louis, Missouri's, may actively seek to class more murders as justifiable in order to hold their murder statistics down.

Reference: Jeremy Kohler (March 31, 2022) "St. Louis’ Murder Total Has Fallen, but Some Killings Went Uncounted." ProPublica