Violence and the crime drop

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, violence fell dramatically between 1995 and 2013/14. To improve understanding of the fall in violent crime, this study examines long-term crime trends in England and Wales over the past two decades, by scrutinizing the trends in (a) stranger and acquaintance violence, (b) severity of violence, (c) age groups, and (d) sexes. It draws on nationally representative, weighted data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and examines prevalence, incidence and crime concentration trends. The overall violence fall was driven by a decline in the victimization of young individuals and/or males perpetrated by acquaintances since 1995. Stranger and acquaintance violence followed different trajectories, with the former beginning to drop post 2003/4. Falls in both stranger and acquaintance violence incidence rates were led by a reduction in victims over time. Counting all incidents reported by the same victim (instead of capping at five incidents) significantly affects trends in stranger violence but not in acquaintance violence. In relation to the distributive justice within the crime drop, this study provides unique evidence of equitable falls in acquaintance violence but inequitable falls in stranger violence. These findings highlight the need to examine violence types separately and point to a number of areas for future research.

A Content Analysis of Personal Safety Apps: Are They Keeping Us Safe or Making Us More Vulnerable?

Despite personal safety apps claiming to increase safety, few studies have examined the usefulness of such apps in reducing public stranger violence. A content analysis of personal safety apps available in the iTunes store and Google Play identified location-based services, personal alarms, crowd-sourced hot spot data, and geofencing as the most common features. The majority of apps offered interventions either at the time of the event or post-event, suggesting that they may reduce a user’s fear of crime but have limited usefulness in reducing vulnerability to victimization. Implications for users, app designers, and key stakeholders are discussed.

Post-deployment family violence among UK military personnel

BackgroundResearch into violence among military personnel has not differentiated between stranger- and family-directed violence. While military factors (combat exposure and post-deployment mental health problems) are risk factors for general violence, there has been limited research on their impact on violence within the family environment. This study aims to compare the prevalence of family-directed and stranger-directed violence among a deployed sample of UK military personnel and to explore risk factors associated with both family- and stranger-directed violence.MethodThis study utilised data from a large cohort study which collected information by questionnaire from a representative sample of randomly selected deployed UK military personnel (n = 6711).ResultsThe prevalence of family violence immediately following return from deployment was 3.6% and 7.8% for stranger violence. Family violence was significantly associated with having left service, while stranger violence was associated with younger age, male gender, being single, having a history of antisocial behaviour as well as having left service. Deployment in a combat role was significantly associated with both family and stranger violence after adjustment for confounders [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.92 (1.25–2.94), p = 0.003 and aOR = 1.77 (1.31–2.40), p < 0.001, respectively], as was the presence of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, common mental disorders and aggression.ConclusionsExposure to combat and post-deployment mental health problems are risk factors for violence both inside and outside the family environment and should be considered in violence reduction programmes for military personnel. Further research using a validated measurement tool for family violence would improve comparability with other research.