By Laura Bailey, Vincent Harinam and Barak Ariel

Knife crime is a source of concern for the police in England and Wales, however little published research exists on this crime type. Who are the offenders who use knives to commit crime, when and why? Who are their victims, and is there a victim-offender overlap? What is the social network formation for people who are exposed to knife crime? Using a multidimensional approach, our aim is to answer these questions about one of England and Wales’ largest jurisdictions: Thames Valley. We first provide a state-of-the-art narrative review of the knife crime literature, followed by an analysis of population-level data on central tendency and dispersion of knife crimes reported to the police (2015–2019), on offences, offenders, victims, victim-offender overlaps and gang-related assaults. Social network analysis was used to explore the formations of offender-victim networks. Our findings show that knife crime represents a small proportion of crime (1.86%) and is associated largely with violence offenses. 16–34 year-old white males are at greatest risk of being the victims, offenders or victim-offenders of knife crime, with similar relative risks between these three categories. Both knife offenders and victims are likely to have a criminal record. Knife crimes are usually not gang-related (less than 20%), and experienced mostly between strangers, with the altercation often a non-retaliatory ‘one-off event’. Even gang-related knife crimes do not follow ‘tit-for-tat’ relationships—except when the individuals involved have extensive offending histories and then are likely to retaliate instantaneously. We conclude that while rare, an incident of knife crime remains predictable, as a substantial ratio of offenders and victims of future knife crime can be found in police records. Prevention strategies should not be focused on gang-related criminals, but on either prolific violent offenders or repeat victims who are known to the police—and therefore more susceptible to knife crime exposure.

PLoS ONE 15(12):2020.

By Linda A Teplin, Nicholas S Meyerson, Jessica A Jakubowski, David A Aaby, Nanzi Zheng 1, Karen M Abram, Leah J Welty

In adulthood, 41.3% of males and 10.5% of females perpetrated firearm violence. Depending on the type of behavior during adolescence, between 44% and 67% of participants who had been involved with firearms before age 18 years perpetrated firearm violence as adults. All but 1 type of involvement before age 18 years was associated with firearm perpetration in adulthood . Notably, participants who had owned a firearm during adolescence had 9.0 (95% CI, 4.5-18.2; P < .001) times the odds of perpetrating firearm violence in adulthood. Victimization was also significant: adolescents who had been threatened with a weapon or injured by gunshot had 3.1 (95% CI, 2.0-4.9; P < .001) and 2.4 (95% CI, 1.2-4.9; P = .01) times the odds of perpetrating firearm violence in adulthood, respectively.

JAMA Network Open. 2021;4(2):e2034208. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.34208

By Michael Siegel

In 2017, there were 14,542 firearm-related homicide deaths in the United States. Despite constituting only 13% of the U.S. population, Black persons made up 59% of these victims. Many states have addressed the problem of firearm-related homicide by enacting stronger firearm laws. While many studies have already been conducted on the effectiveness of various firearm laws in reducing overall population homicide rates, the vast majority of these studies do not distinguish between victims of different races/ethnicity. In failing to do so, these studies assume that state-level firearm laws produce homogeneous effects, even while Black communities continue to bear the undue burden of firearm violence. The purpose of this research was to fill this critical gap by rigorously evaluating the differential impact of state-level firearm laws on homicide rates among White, Black, and Hispanic populations. This project sought to answer two major research questions: (1) Is there heterogeneity in the effect of different state firearm laws on homicide rates by race/ethnicity? (2) To what extent are any differences in the impact of firearm laws by race/ethnicity explained by contextual differences in homicide victimization across urban vs. non-urban settings, as opposed to differences among racial groups per se?

Report to the U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2020. 13p.

By Jana Mudra, with the assistance of Yuriy Kryvonos, Iina Kuuttila, Jane Lawson and Ida Scarpino

Illicit trafficking of SALW affects numerous States in the Asia-Pacific region, many of which continue to experience relatively high levels of gun violence. Following the call by multiple UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions since 2000, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific (UNRCP) has sought to further arms-control objectives by strengthening women’s participation in preventing and combating illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (SALW). With the aim of promoting gender-responsive efforts to combat the uncontrolled spread of and enhance national control over SALW and to prevent gun-violence, UNRCPD implemented a region-wide project on ‘Gun Violence and Illicit Small Arms Trafficking from a Gender Perspective’. This project was designed for women leaders of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) focused on gender issues/women’s empowerment, and for Members of Parliament (MPs) engaging in arms-control issues. The project had the following five activities: 1) Sub-regional workshop for Southeast Asia; 2) Sub-regional workshop for South Asia; 3) Sub-regional workshop for the Pacific; 4) Regional seminar for Asia and the Pacific; and 5) Compiling outcomes of the events in the Compendium The primary goal was to enhance the understanding on the impacts that illicit SALW trafficking and gun violence has on women, girls, men and boys for NGOs and MPs in the region.

Kathmandu: United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, 2020. 45p.