DataState Data 

Despite the widespread use of felony murder in America, even the most basic questions about its reach have remained obscured by how data and public records on felony murder are kept. How many people in the U.S. are charged each year for felony murder? How many are incarcerated for it? No one knows; we set out to begin this work.

The Felony Murder Reporting Project was able to unearth and analyze more than 10,000 cases. Over the past year, through a combination of public records requests, data-gathering from online portals of incarcerated individuals, and review of existing research, we spent more than a thousand collaborative hours seeking out and analyzing as much data as possible.

In 11 states, we were able to analyze datasets independently verified to be as close to accurate as possible ("Complete"). In seven states, we were able to analyze partially complete datasets ("Partial"), containing acknowledged imperfections In the remaining plurality (30) of states ("Inadequate"), we documented the challenges we faced in obtaining the data.

Explore the methodology we used for our calculations in the 18 states where we were able to perform any analysis.

Click on a state in the map above or the list below to learn more.