Matthew J. Hickman, Ph.D., Kristen A. Hughes, M.P.A., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Kevin J. Strom, Ph.D., Jeri D. Ropero-Miller, Ph.D., DABFT, RTI International

June 24, 2007    NCJ 216756

Presents key findings from the 2004 Census of Medical Examiners and Coroners (ME/C) Offices. This special report describes the medicolegal investigation of death in the United States. It provides an overview of the personnel, budgets, and workload of these offices by type of office and size of jurisdiction. It also includes information on the number of unidentified human decedents handled by ME/C offices. The report examines record keeping practices and use of national databases for unidentified remains. Detailed data tables on topics covered in this report are available on the BJS website

Highlights:

• About 2,000 medical examiners and coroners' (ME/C) offices provided death investigation services across the United States in 2004.
• In a typical year ME/C offices reported that they handled about 4,400 unidentified human decedents of which about 1,000 remained unidentified after one year.
• Nearly 1 million human death cases were referred in 2004; about 500,000 accepted

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