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Murder is the killing of another person without justification or valid excuse, and it is especially the unlawful killing of another person with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. In some U.S. states, laws regarding murder are determined by the Model Penal Code. Most societies, from ancient to modern, have considered murder a very serious crime deserving harsh punishment for purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. There are many reasons why murder has been criminalized, including its costs to society as well as being considered intrinsically wrong. For example, murder may be considered intrinsically wrong because it violates a right to life, or objectifies the victim, or is oppressive; murder may be costly to society by undermining law and order, by squandering potential accomplishments of the victims, by risking escalation of violence, or by spreading fear and grief. In most countries, a person convicted of murder is typically given a long prison sentence, possibly a life sentence where permitted. In some countries, the death penalty may be imposed for such an act – though this practice is becoming less common. In the United States, 666,160 people were killed between 1960 and 1996.[82] Approximately 90% of murders in the US are committed by males.[83] Between 1976 and 2005, 23.5% of all murder victims and 64.8% of victims murdered by intimate partners were female.[84] For women in the US, homicide is the leading cause of death in the workplace.[85] In the US, murder is the leading cause of death for African American males aged 15 to 34. Between 1976 and 2008, African Americans were victims of 329,825 homicides.[86][87] In 2006, Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Report indicated that nearly half of the 14,990 murder victims were Black (7421).[88] In the year 2007 non-negligent homicides, there were 3,221 black victims and 3,587 white victims. While 2,905 of the black victims were killed by a black offender, 2,918 of the white victims were killed by white offenders. There were 566 white victims of black offenders and 245 black victims of white offenders.[89] The "white" category in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) includes non-black Hispanics.[90] In London in 2006, 75% of the victims of gun crime and 79% of the suspects were "from the African/Caribbean community."[91] Murder demographics are affected by the improvement of trauma care, which has resulted in reduced lethality of violent assaults – thus the murder rate may not necessarily indicate the overall level of social violence.[92] Workplace homicide is the fastest growing category of murder in America.[85] Development of murder rates over time in different countries is often used by both supporters and opponents of capital punishment and gun control. Using properly filtered data, it is possible to make the case for or against either of these issues. For example, one could look at murder rates in the United States from 1950 to 2000,[93] and notice that those rates went up sharply shortly after a moratorium on death sentences was effectively imposed in the late 1960s. This fact has been used to argue that capital punishment serves as a deterrent and, as such, it is morally justified. Capital punishment opponents frequently counter that the United States has much higher murder rates than Canada and most European Union countries, although all those countries have abolished the death penalty. Overall, the global pattern is too complex, and on average, the influence of both these factors may not be significant and could be more social, economic, and cultural. Despite the immense improvements in forensics in the past few decades, the fraction of murders solved has decreased in the United States, from 90% in 1960 to 61% in 2007.[94] Solved murder rates in major U.S. cities varied in 2007 from 36% in Boston, Massachusetts to 76% in San Jose, California.[95] Major factors affecting the arrest rate include witness cooperation[94] and the number of people assigned to investigate the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder