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Article
Publication date: 26 February 2019

Gianni Pirelli and Liza Gold

Firearm-involved violence and suicide in the USA, often collectively referred to as “gun violence,” has been labeled a public health problem and an epidemic, and even an endemic…

Abstract

Purpose

Firearm-involved violence and suicide in the USA, often collectively referred to as “gun violence,” has been labeled a public health problem and an epidemic, and even an endemic by some. Many lawmakers, community groups, mainstream media outlets and professional organizations regularly address gun-related issues and frequently associate firearm violence with mental health. As a result, these groups often set forth positions, engage in discussions and promote policies that are at least partially based on the widely held but incorrect assumption that medical and mental health professionals are either inherently equipped or professionally trained to intervene with their patients and reduce gun deaths. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

Furthermore, notable proportions of medical and mental health professionals self-report a level of comfort engaging in firearm-specific interventions that is often disproportionate to their actual education and training in the area. This type of overconfidence bias has been referred to as the Lake Wobegon Effect, illusory superiority, the above average effect, the better-than average effect or the false uniqueness bias. While medical and mental health professionals need to serve on the front line of firearm-involved violence and suicide prevention initiatives, the vast majority have not actually received systematic, formal training on firearm-specific issues.

Findings

Therefore, many lack the professional and cultural competence to meet current and potential future in regard to addressing gun violence. In this paper, the authors discuss empirical studies that illustrate this reality and a novel model (i.e. the Know, Ask, Do framework) that medical and mental health professionals can use when firearm-related issues arise. In addition, the authors set forth considerations for clinicians to develop and maintain their professional and cultural competence related to firearms and firearm-related subcultures.

Originality/value

This paper provides empirical and conceptual support for medical and mental health programs to develop formal education and training related to guns, gun safety and gun culture. A framework is provided that can also assist medical and mental health professionals to develop and maintain their own professional and cultural competence.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 March 2019

Margaret K. Formica, Sonali Rajan and Nicholas Simons

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between rates of firearm homicide in New York State (NYS) and indicators of access to and quality of healthcare from…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between rates of firearm homicide in New York State (NYS) and indicators of access to and quality of healthcare from 2011 to 2017.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing data from the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services Uniform Crime Reporting Supplemental Homicide Reports and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings Program, a county-level ecologic study was conducted, descriptive statistics provided and multivariable analyses conducted to determine the associations between critical indicators of county health and firearm homicide.

Findings

The majority of firearm homicide victims (n=2,619) were young, Black, men and the highest rates of firearm homicide were situated in urban centers. Subgroup analyses excluding large urban centers and controlling for key demographics illustrated that those counties with lower rates of clinicians were significantly associated with higher rates of firearm homicide.

Research limitations/implications

Despite challenges integrating two large data sets, the present findings were able to illustrate the critical relationship between access to healthcare and prevalence of firearm homicide.

Practical implications

The results of this study reinforce the importance of access to primary healthcare services and its relationship to critical health outcomes.

Social implications

In urban settings, firearm homicides disproportionately impact young Black men, who are among the least likely to have access to healthcare. In more rural areas, access to healthcare is related directly to improved health outcomes, including reduced rates of firearm homicides.

Originality/value

This is the first study to explore and subsequently establish the relationship between indicators of community health and firearm homicide in NYS.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 July 2017

Gianni Pirelli and Philip Witt

Although cultural competence is gaining increased attention among mental health practitioners, such primarily has centered on race, religion, ethnicity, language, and nationality…

Abstract

Purpose

Although cultural competence is gaining increased attention among mental health practitioners, such primarily has centered on race, religion, ethnicity, language, and nationality. Thus far, there has been relatively little recognition of specific socialized subcultures aside from the aforementioned groups, and virtually no discussion regarding those associated with various firearm-related subcultures. This topic is particularly relevant to mental health practitioners, as positions on firearm use and ownership frequently split across political party lines, and mental health professionals and academics are more likely to espouse liberal rather than conservative views. It follows that practitioners may understand little about firearms culture and, therefore, are at increased risk for biased decision making when working with clients for whom firearms have relevance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper takes a conceptual approach to reviewing potential areas of bias in both clinical and clinical-forensic practice in the US context.

Findings

The authors detail the prevalence of firearm-related issues in the USA, contextualize firearm-related issues in forensic treatment and evaluation scenarios, delineate a number of firearm subgroups, and recommend considerations for mental health professionals to develop cultural competence as it relates to firearms and associated subcultures.

Originality/value

This is an original conceptual study of cultural competence and various firearm-related subcultures.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2013

Christopher S. Koper, Daniel J. Woods and Bruce E. Kubu

The purpose of the study is to examine gun violence prevention practices among urban police in the USA, assessing their scope, effectiveness, limitations, and impacts.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to examine gun violence prevention practices among urban police in the USA, assessing their scope, effectiveness, limitations, and impacts.

Design/methodology/approach

A national survey was conducted with police agencies serving cities of 100,000 or more people.

Findings

Strategies used most frequently and rated as most effective include targeted efforts focussed on high‐risk places and groups, as well as multi‐agency problem‐solving efforts, particularly those involving federal authorities. However, most agencies make limited use of proactive strategies to reduce gun crime, and there are substantial gaps in the enforcement of many gun laws. Results also suggest that gun crime is lower in places where police engage in more intensive gun‐related enforcement and prevention efforts.

Research limitations/implications

The survey focussed only on large US cities. Implementation of the strategies could not be examined in detail, and assessments of the effectiveness of strategies reflect the views of practitioners. There is a need for more in‐depth research on gun‐related enforcement and prevention practices, their effectiveness, and the organizational and environmental factors that facilitate or hinder them.

Practical implications

The study highlights strategies that should be given priority consideration in policy decisions. The findings also suggest that police efforts to address gun crime can be enhanced considerably – and that doing so may produce demonstrable reductions in gun crime. Further examination of policy changes necessary to facilitate these efforts is warranted.

Originality/value

This study represents the first national survey of gun violence reduction efforts by police in the USA.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 November 2020

Elliott Currie

A central focus of Sustainable Development Goal 16 is to ‘Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere’. This chapter explores the magnitude of…

Abstract

A central focus of Sustainable Development Goal 16 is to ‘Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere’. This chapter explores the magnitude of this task, focussing on the persistence – and in some cases intensification – of stark differences both within and between societies around the world in the level of suffering and death imposed by ‘ordinary’ violence in the streets and homes. These differences dramatically shape the lived experience of people on different sides of what I call the ‘violence divide’. At the extreme, they produce rates of violent death that are over 200 times higher in the most dangerous countries than in the least. These disparities are both a consequence and a cause of failures of sustainable and equitable development. They are sharpest and most consequential between parts of the global South and most of the advanced industrial societies, but they also appear in stark relief within some advanced societies, most notably the United States, reflecting broader, enduring inequities that are only weakly challenged, if at all, in the current political climate. Reducing these fundamental disparities in life and death will require moving well beyond the relatively minor criminal justice reforms and limited prevention efforts that often dominate national and international dialogue, to grapple seriously with the structural forces that breed them.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-355-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 April 2018

Kelle Barrick, Kevin J. Strom and Nicholas Richardson

Violence against the police represents an ongoing and serious problem in the USA. In 2014, over 48,000 law enforcement officers assaulted while on duty. Although over one in four…

Abstract

Purpose

Violence against the police represents an ongoing and serious problem in the USA. In 2014, over 48,000 law enforcement officers assaulted while on duty. Although over one in four of these resulted in injury, little is known about the conditions under which injury is likely to occur. The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of the individual and situational factors that predict injurious assaults against law enforcement.

Design/methodology/approach

Using logistic regression, the current study analyzes data from the 2012 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) on all assaults against the police (n=8,987) in order to understand, within a routine activities theoretical framework, how individual-level characteristics (i.e. officer and offender characteristics) and situational influences (i.e. assignment type, activity type, and location) predict the likelihood that an assault will result in injury.

Findings

Overall, findings suggest support for a routine activities theory of violence against the police. Initiating an arrest, one-officer vehicle type, and incidents occurring on highways/roads were all more likely to result in injurious assaults against the police. Other predictors of injury include officer and offender demographics as well as the time the incident took place.

Research limitations/implications

This research was unable to control for some factors that may influence the likelihood of injury such as wearing body armor. Additionally, NIBRS data are not nationally representative, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

Originality/value

This is one of the first papers to use national data to examine the individual and situational factors that predict injurious assaults against law enforcement.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 41 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 March 2014

Brian Wyant

The purpose of this paper is to generate information about the contours of police responsiveness, focussing on how quickly and precisely police make firearm arrests after a…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to generate information about the contours of police responsiveness, focussing on how quickly and precisely police make firearm arrests after a shooting incident.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a modified version of the Knox close pair method, a spatio-temporal clustering technique, over 11,000 shooting incidents and firearm arrests between 2004 and 2007 in Philadelphia, PA were analyzed.

Findings

Police are responding quickly and in a geographically targeted fashion to shootings. Across Philadelphia elevated patterns of firearm arrests were approximately two and a half times greater than would be expected if shootings and firearm arrests lacked a spatio-temporal association. Greater than expected patterns of firearm arrests persisted for roughly one-fourth of a mile and for about one week from the shooting incident but the strength of these associations waned over space and time. The pattern of police response varied slightly across different police divisions.

Research limitations/implications

The current method uncovered spatio-temporal patterning and determined when these patterns were significantly different from what would be expected if the events were completely independent. Specific events and processes surrounding each event are not known.

Practical implications

Findings can help inform the knowledge about police behavior in terms of how police produce arrests.

Originality/value

The patterns observed here provide more micro-level detail than has been revealed in previous studies regarding police responsiveness to firearm violence while also introducing a more integrated spatially and temporally specific framework.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 April 2021

Philip J. Levchak

This study examines the effect of TimeZup – a lever pulling strategy designed to reduce gun violence in New Haven, Connecticut.

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the effect of TimeZup – a lever pulling strategy designed to reduce gun violence in New Haven, Connecticut.

Design/methodology/approach

A series of ARIMA and dynamically complete models are estimated to determine if TimeZup was associated with any significant changes in New Haven's murder, firearm robbery and firearm assault rates. A quasi-experimental design is also used to compare New Haven to six, similarly situated cities in the Northeastern United States.

Findings

The results indicate that New Haven experienced a significant decrease in its firearm robbery rate in the summer of 1997 – a date that preceded TimeZup but coincided with other lever pulling strategies implemented by the New Haven Police Department.

Originality/value

Although an older program, TimeZup was not rigorously analyzed. After the conclusion of the program, basic pre- and post-comparisons suggested TimeZup was effective. Using a rigorous methodology, this study shows it was not. This study points out that interventions such as TimeZup often coincide with pre-existing crime reduction strategies. Evaluators should account for those pre-existing strategies because it may be those strategies – and not the intervention being examined – that are impacting crime rates.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 44 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 September 2015

Frederic Lemieux, Samantha Bricknell and Tim Prenzler

– The purpose of this paper is to compare the incidence and main characteristics of mass shooting events in Australia and the USA in the period 1981-2013.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare the incidence and main characteristics of mass shooting events in Australia and the USA in the period 1981-2013.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a conservative definition of mass shootings derived from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, covering four or more fatalities not including the offender. Australian cases were accessed from the Australian Institute of Criminology’s National Homicide Monitoring Programme (NHMP) database and several secondary sources. The US data were collected from the Mother Jones database, a report prepared for Mayors Against Illegal Guns and a New York Police Department report. The time series data were related to changes in firearms regulations in the two jurisdictions.

Findings

For Australia, the study identified 13 mass shooting events and 104 fatalities from gunshot wounds. For the USA, there were 73 events and 576 victims. Of note is the fact that all cases in Australia pre-dated the implementation of the restrictive 1996 National Firearms Agreement. In the USA, a small decline was evident during the 1994-2004 Federal Assault Weapon Ban. Incidents and fatalities increased after 2004.

Research limitations/implications

Of necessity, the paper adopts a conservative FBI-based definition of mass shootings that limits the number of cases captured. The absence of an official government US database also most likely limits the number of cases identified.

Practical implications

The findings lend support to policy considerations regarding regulating access to firearms.

Originality/value

The paper is unique in comparing mass shootings in these two jurisdictions over three decades in association with changes in firearms regulation.

Details

Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, vol. 1 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-3841

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 August 2014

Terrence H. Witkowski

This chapter fosters understanding of core U.S. gun culture and how it promotes its political ideology through visual means.

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter fosters understanding of core U.S. gun culture and how it promotes its political ideology through visual means.

Methodology

The research applies key visual theory concepts to investigate a selection of political representations made by gun rights advocates. The images analyzed include photographs, posters, and other ephemera posted on blogs and commercial websites located through informed keyword searches of Google Images.

Findings

Core gun culture in the U.S. aggressively promotes its libertarian and right-wing ideology through tactics of interpellation, intertextuality, and exhibitionism, often in tandem with humor, sarcasm, paranoia, and sex appeals.

Research limitations/implications

Although the findings are preliminary, visual theories and methodologies present a promising direction for further consumer research on American gun culture.

Social implications

U.S. gun culture produces levels of gun violence that far exceed those in other developed countries. Knowledge of how the core gun culture represents itself visually may deliver insights for mitigating this social problem.

Originality

Relatively little consumer culture research has addressed U.S. gun culture and visual theories have not been fully deployed.

Details

Consumer Culture Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-811-2

Keywords

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