Over the last few years the nexus between criminological research and law-enforcement practice has been strengthened through the increased cooperation of police and researchers working towards common goals. The Australian Institute of Criminology, through its National Homicide Monitoring Program, continues to provide police, policy-makers and the public with timely research on homicide and its subsets. The present paper follows this tradition by outlining the latest research on homicide, but it also introduces another element to research: the view of the practitioner. This study examines the factors that differentiate solved and unsolved homicides in Australia, and includes the perspectives of homicide investigators in determining which factors are important in solving a given homicide.
In brief, the study found that unsolved homicides were more likely than solved homicides to occur in the course of other crime and at a location other than a residential premise. The victims of unsolved homicides were more likely to be killed with a firearm, and were likely to be aged 30 years or older.