Date
11-13-2024
Department
Helms School of Government
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (PhD)
Chair
Jared Perry
Keywords
Gun violence, crime gun, homicide, group violence intervention, forensic science, crime gun intelligence, forensic intelligence, firearms
Disciplines
Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
Recommended Citation
Garvey, Michael P., "Analysis of Forensic Crime Gun Data as a Predictive Tool for Crime Gun Intelligence and the Disruption of the Shooting Cycle" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 6190.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/6190
Abstract
Gun violence is a national issue; however, major cities account for most recovered crime guns and shootings. Various efforts to address gun violence by identifying shooters and sources of crime guns, enhancing intervention efforts, improving social services, and prosecuting prolific offenders have been offered over the last twenty years. However, large urban cities continue to observe high homicides and non-fatal shooting rates. Forensic techniques have been used to generate leads to solve crimes. In addition, group violence intervention programs, such as Operation Ceasefire, are used to identify potential groups associated with gun violence to provide social alternatives or enhanced prosecution. However, there has been limited research on the combination of these techniques to improve the identification of those most likely to commit future crimes and increase focused deterrence efforts to reduce gun violence. The current study combined forensic data from the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and associated meta-data to show statistically significant associations between prior gun-related arrests, NIBIN correlations, the combination of prior arrest and NIBIN correlations, and the number of NIBIN correlations in an illegal gun possession case with future arrest for gun-related crime. Study subjects who had prior gun arrests and were associated with NIBIN correlations had future gun-related arrests in 56.7% of the cases. Subjects associated with three or more NIBIN correlations had a 60% future gun-related arrest rate. Crime gun intelligence has proven to be an effective tool in solving shooting events that also has the potential for enhancing focused deterrence efforts and other gun-violence prevention programs.
