The Case for Studying Criminal Nonfatal Shootings: Evidence from Four Midwest Cities

Abstract

Using law enforcement data from four Midwest communities, we document the similarities and differences between criminal nonfatal and fatal shooting incidents, including the spatial dimensions of the events. We present a definition for a nonfatal shooting incident that guides our victim and incident characteristic comparisons. Our work suggests that law enforcement agencies should build capacity for standardized data collection surrounding gun violence to include nonfatal shootings especially for use in evaluations of gun violence prevention strategies.

Keywords:

• Gun violence
• nonfatal shootings
• spatial data analysis
• community characteristics
• gun crime

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There were 1,844 official UCR Aggravated Assaults with a Firearm in 2014 and 2,092 in 2015 in St. Louis. However, cases for this study were drawn from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department records management system and had not been officially screened for UCR. Using random digits, researchers sampled 614 cases from 2014 and 632 cases from 2015 (approximately one-third for each year) labelled ‘aggravated assault with a firearm.’ From those, 236 and 167 cases (2014 and 2015 respectively) met our nonfatal shooting definition and were included in this study.

2 The Appendix available in the online supplemental material includes data on incident and victim characteristics by site.

3 Data on victim characteristics were captured from police files. Data were not consistently or reliably available for ethnicity. Gender is presented as a binary construct.

4 We did not have access to any medical records.

5 We used multinomial logistic regression to estimate differences in the proportion of nonfatal and fatal shootings that occurred in in each block group in the study. Using predicted probabilities and standard errors, we examined whether the differences were statistically significant, per Wheeler and colleagues (2018). See Appendix A in the online supplementary material for details.

6 In 2016, the FBI announced that it would sunset the UCR Summary Reporting System and move exclusively to a national incident-based system. All U.S. law enforcement agencies would be required to begin reporting crime data under the NIBRS standard by January 2021. Injury categories include: apparent broken bone; possible internal injury; severe laceration; apparent minor injury; other major injury; loss of teeth; unconsciousness.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natalie Kroovand Hipple

Natalie Kroovand Hipple is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University. Her research interests include gun violence, police partnerships and problem solving, police line of duty deaths, and restorative justice. Her current work focuses nonfatal shootings and crime reduction strategy implementation.

Beth M. Huebner

Beth M. Huebner is a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her research interests include the collateral consequences of incarceration, racial and gender disparities in the criminal justice system, and public policy. She is currently serving as the research partner for the St. Louis Police-Prosecution Partnership Initiative (3PI).

Theodore S. Lentz

Theodore S. Lentz is a PhD candidate in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His research examines spatial and temporal patterns of crime and the processes underlying those patterns. He is involved in several ongoing projects on topics of offender decision-making, crime networks, gun violence, and police effectiveness. He is currently serving as a research partner for the St. Louis Police-Prosecution Partnership Initiative (3PI).

Edmund F. McGarrell

Edmund F. McGarrell is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on communities and crime, policing, and violence prevention. He serves as the local research partner in Detroit Ceasefire, Detroit Project Safe Neighborhoods, and related violence reduction initiatives.

Mallory O'Brien

Mallory O'Brien is an assistant professor in the Institute for Health and Equity, Division of Epidemiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her areas of research include violence prevention, gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, data integration, and opioid overdose.