NCJ Number
162123
Date Published
1994
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study examines the amount of variance, if any, in gun confiscations across police agencies in large U.S. cities.
Abstract
In May and June of 1994, one of the authors telephoned the chief executives' offices of all police agencies that serve cities of over 250,000 people in the United States, asking for the total number of guns seized by the police agency in 1993. By early July, 26 exact counts and four estimates had been received. Twenty-three other police agencies either failed to respond or said they did not compile such numbers. Other data obtained were the number of police employees for each agency, the population size of the city, and the number of homicides. Guns seized per 100 police employees is the best indicator of a department's success in gun recovery with its available resources. Both the number of police employees and the number of guns seized by police are dependent on the population size of a city; and since a substantial majority of all urban homicides are gun crimes, the number of homicides in a city is a crude indication of the number of gun crimes and perhaps the prevalence of gun carrying. The highest rate of guns seized per 100 police employees (331 in Phoenix) was seven times higher than it was in New York City (47). The highest rate per 100,000 population (1,075 in Chicago) was five times the lowest rate (in Long Beach at 202). The greatest variation, however, was in the rate of guns seized per 100 homicides, where the highest ranking city, Albuquerque (8,333), was 13 times higher than the lowest city, Los Angeles (639). Although there are many ways to interpret these results, the important point is that these rates do vary, and police initiative or styles may be an important reason for variations. 4 tables, 3 figures, and 8 references