Education and Public Safety

"Education and Public Safety," one of four briefs, finds that states that invest more in education have lower rates of violent crime and incarceration. The upcoming briefs will examine the intersection of policies on housing, employment, and drug treatment with safety and crime rates.Key findings from "Education and Public Safety" include:Graduation rates were associated with positive public safety outcomes. Researchers have found that a 5 percent increase in male high school graduation rates would produce an annual savings of almost $5 billion in crime-related expenses.States that had higher levels of educational attainment also had crime rates lower than the national average. Nine out of the 10 states with the highest percentage of population who had attained a high school diploma or above were found to have lower violent crime rates than the national average, compared to just four of the 10 states with the lowest educational attainment per population.States with higher college enrollment rates experienced lower violent crime rates than states with lower college enrollment rates. Of the states with the 10 highest enrollment rates, nine had violent crime rates below the national average. Of the states with the lowest college enrollment rates, five had violent crime rates above the national average.States that made bigger investments in higher education saw better public safety outcomes. Of the 10 states that saw the biggest increases in higher education expenditure, eight saw violent crime rates decline, and five saw violent crime decline more than the national average. Of the 10 states that saw the smallest change in higher education expenditure, the violent crime rate rose in five states. The risk of incarceration, higher violent crime rates, and low educational attainment are concentrated among communities of color, who are more likely to suffer from barriers to educational opportunities. Disparities in educational opportunities contribute to a situation in which communities of color experience less educational attainment than whites, are more likely to be incarcerated, and more likely to face higher violent crime rates

Predicting Violent Crime

This research works to predict the likelihood that an individual is going to participate in a violent crime. The predictors were taken from several bodies of work and synthesized into a survey format, which can be distributed to the desired population. These measures operate on the hypothesis that certain characteristics increase the likelihood of, but do not predict with certainty, an individual\u27s propensity to participate in violent crime. The work also serves as a manual for how to interpret the selected data sets as well as how to break down the statistical correlations of each question to their predictive power

Untangling the concept of coercive control: Theorizing domestic violent crime

The paper assesses three approaches to domestic violence: two that use the concept of ‘coercive control’ and one that uses ‘domestic violent crime’. These are: Stark’s concept of coercive control; Johnson’s distinction between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism, in which coercive control is confined to the latter; and that of domestic violent crime, in which all physical violence is conceptualised as coercive and controlling. The paper assesses these three approaches on seven issues. It offers original analysis of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales concerning variations in repetition and seriousness in domestic violent crime. It links escalation in domestic violent crime to variations in the economic resources of the victim. It concludes that the concept of domestic violent crime is preferable to that of coercive control when seeking to explain variations in domestic violence

Violent Crime Reported in Alaska, 1986–2015

Data available in both Excel and PDF format. (Download below.)This fact sheet presents data on violent crimes reported in Alaska from 1986 to 2015 as reported in the Alaska Department of Public Safety publication Crime in Alaska. "Violent crime" is an aggregate category that includes homicide (murder and non-negligent manslaughter), rape, robbery, and aggravated assault offenses reported to police. From 1986 to 2015, violent crime rates increased in Alaska although the overall crime rate decreased. Homicide and robbery rates declined over the 30-year period, while rape and aggravated assault rates increased from 1986 to 2015 – with aggravated assault acting as the main driver of increases in the violent crime rate over the period. On average, violent crime accounted for 11 percent of all crime reported in Alaska from 1986 to 2015. Aggravated assault accounted for nearly three-quarters, robbery for nearly 15 percent, rape for nearly 13 percent, and homicide for just over one percent of all violent crime reported in Alaska over the period.Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of JusticeHomicide crime rate / Rape crime rate / Robbery crime rate / Aggravated assault crime rate / Summary / Note

Our Vulnerable Teenagers: Their Victimization, Its Consequences, and Directions for Prevention and Intervention

Teenagers are twice as likely as any other age group to be victims of violent crime, and one in five teenagers report being the victim of a violent crime, according to a new report. The single greatest factor in predicting criminal behavior on the part of teenagers, the report also found, was not teenage pregnancy, drug use, or truancy, but whether they had been a victim of crime. This publication provides a new and comprehensive analysis of existing -- but largely unnoticed -- research and data on the crime experiences of American teenagers ages 12-19, who make up about 14 percent of the general population, but represent 25 percent of victims of violent crime

Is violence increasing or decreasing?: a new methodology to measure repeat attacks making visible the significance of gender and domestic relations

The fall in the rate of violent crime has stopped. This is a finding of an investigation using the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1994–2014, and an improved methodology to include the experiences of high-frequency victims. The cap on the number of crimes included has been removed. We prevent overall volatility from rising by using three-year moving averages and regression techniques that take account of all the data points rather than point to point analysis. The difference between our findings and official statistics is driven by violent crime committed against women and by domestic perpetrators. The timing of the turning point in the trajectory of violent crime corresponds with the economic crisis in 2008/09

Violent Crime Arrests in Alaska

This fact sheet presents data for 1980–2011 on violent crime arrests in Alaska: murder/non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Data is drawn from the annual Crime in Alaska report of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, which represents the State of Alaska's contribution to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program.Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of JusticeArrests as criminal process inputs / Violent crime arrests in Alaska / Characteristics of those arrested / Summary / Note

The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales

Widely televised firearm murders in many countries during the 20th Century have spurred politicians to introduce restrictive gun laws. The politicians then promise that the new restrictions will reduce criminal violence and "create a safer society." It is time to pause and ask if gun laws actually do reduce criminal violence. Gun laws must be demonstrated to cut violent crime or gun control is no more than a hollow promise. What makes gun control so compelling for many is the belief that violent crime is driven by the availability of guns and, more importantly, that criminal violence in general may be reduced by limiting access to firearms. In this study, I examine crime trends in Commonwealth countries that have recently introduced firearm regulations: i.e., Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. The widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearms crime. Since firearms are only a small fraction of criminal violence, the public would not be safer if the new law could reduce firearm violence but had no effect on total criminal violence. The upshot is that violent crime rates, and homicide rates in particular, have been falling in the United States, but increasing in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The drop in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world. In 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s. This contrast should provoke thinking people to wonder what happened in those countries where they introduced increasingly restrictive firearm laws

The decline in the rate of domestic violence has stopped: removing the cap on repeat victimisation reveals more violence

• The decline in the rate of domestic violence since the mid-1990s has stopped, although violent crime by other perpetrators is still falling • The most reliable data on domestic violence is from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), rather than police recorded crime since there is no statutory category of domestic violence • Official published CSEW data ‘caps’ the maximum number of incidents in a series at 5, so further recorded incidents are not included in official estimates• Analysis of CSEW finds that when the cap is removed there are 60% more violent crimes. • The increase due to removing the cap is concentrated on violent crime against women (70% increase) rather than men (50% increase) and on violent crime by domestic relations (70% increase) and acquaintances (100% increase) rather than by strangers (20% increase)

Alcohol consumption as a factor in gun or knife crimes in South Africa

South Africa is one of the top ten alcohol-consuming countries in Africa. The South African government has undertaken multifaceted efforts to regulate alcohol consumption to address violent crime. Despite integrated regulation, the link between alcohol consumption and violent crime remains blurred and unclarified. The paper examines the significance of alcohol consumption in relation to violent crime victimization. The study utilized data obtained from the South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey, 2012. Descriptive, inferential statistics and a factor analysis were used to measure the association between alcohol consumption and violent crime victimization. About 30% of the respondents had been a victim of violent crime where gun or knife was used in the past 12 months. Respondents indicated that 41.1% of the perpetrators were under the influence of alcohol; whereas 20.9% of the victims were under the influence of alcohol. Respondents who had drinking problems were more likely to be a victim of violent crime than those who did not have drinking problem. Furthermore, respondents who were unemployed were two times more likely than those who were employed to be a victim of violent crime. Young people were two times more likely than older people to be a victim of violent crime by gun or knife. Low level of education was a predictor of gun or knife violent crime victimization. Our findings indicate that alcohol consumption was not a strong factor influencing violent crime but having drinking problem underscored violent crime victimization. Furthermore, effort towards education and reducing unemployment would considerably decrease gun or knife violent crime victimization. Keywords: Alcohol, gun violence, knife violence, South Africa, crime victimizatio