The purpose of this study is to examine gun buy-backs as a policy response to gun-related crime. It improves upon past studies by examining a city that has used multiple gun buy-backs as a standard crime prevention approach, allowing the multiple intervention points to be assessed. Further, the study examined crime data over a longer period and included a comparison group of similar crime trends without a gun. Total crime, homicide, robbery and assault data spanning several years are subject to an interrupted time-series analysis. Non-gun crimes served as control variables. Examining the first two intervention dates indicated that the gun buy-back programme had no impact on reducing crimes. Specifically, the gun buy-back programme in the study location reduced gun homicide levels, but results failed to reach statistical significance. When the third intervention date was examined, the gun buy-back programme resulted in a significant decrease in gun robbery levels, controlling for non-gun robbery levels and unemployment rates.
An Evaluation of a Multiyear Gun Buy-Back Programme: Re-Examining the Impact on Violent Crimes
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An Evaluation of a Multiyear Gun Buy-Back Programme: Re-Examining the Impact on Violent Crimes
Category: Crime, Firearm Policies, Homicide|Journal: International Journal of Police Science & Management (full text)|Author: D Kim, J Sobol, S Phillips|Year: 2013