This study investigates the impact of traffic patterns and the availability of emergency medical services on the lethality of violent interpersonal encounters. Key situational and contextual factors are controlled using the criminal events perspective. Data were taken from the 2002 National Incident-Based Reporting System of the FBI, as well as from fire/rescue and EMS services of Memphis, TN, Cincinnati, OH, and Richmond, VA. Additive models of logistic regression analysis revealed that fire/rescue availability, firearm use, incidents arising out of arguments, outdoor locations, and victim gender are the most consistent predictors of whether or not a violent incident will result in a homicide.

This study, framed in the criminal events perspective, investigates situational and contextual factors of violent interpersonal encounters that impact the likelihood of offender weapon usage and, when a weapon is used, the likelihood that it will be a firearm. Furthermore, this study examines the effects that weapons have on levels of victim injury along with other factors that may impact injury independent of weapon use. Three specific topics of interest are addressed: whether or not black offenders were more likely to make use of a firearm, what factors impact firearm use amongst female offenders, and if the findings of Kleck and McElrath (1991), which stated that firearm use largely prevents injury, but when victim injury does occur, it is more likely to be lethal, could be replicated using a more recent and comprehensive source of information. Data were collected from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Findings were that black offenders were more likely to use firearms, but this pattern is essentially limited to black male offenders. Female offenders were more likely to use a firearm against a stranger and during the course of a robbery. Finally, firearm use was associated with a decrease in the likelihood of a victim suffering nonlethal injury, but when injury did occur, firearms significantly increased the chances of victim death. Theoretical and policy implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

Violence against police officers is a major problem in America. Previous studies on violence and police officers have usually focused on violence by police officers, not violence against police officers. This study is the first of its kind as it examines violence against police officers from a comprehensive, criminal events perspective with detailed use of force/officer violence data collected by the Orlando Police Department. Individual officer characteristics, individual offender characteristics, situational variables, and geographical factors are considered. Logistic regression results indicate that use of force incidents are more likely to involve battery against one or more police officers when multiple officers are involved, when offenders are female, when offenders are of larger size (measured by weight), and when offenders are known to have recently consumed alcohol before the incident. Spatial analysis results indicate that there is significant clustering of batteries against police officers within the City of Orlando, and that the areas where police battery is predominant are very similar to areas where alcohol-related businesses are prevalent, and theoretically, more alcohol is consumed. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The concern with public safety somehow defines the way of life and also the social relationships. From medieval walled cities to contemporary gated communities, it is possible to observe different strategies to prevent invasions, goods appropriations or even physical violence. There also is a complete normative setting, which responds to a historical and social time, in order to define what a crime is. In face of an event characterized as criminal there is, at least, two perspectives to be considered, one related to the involvement and reaction of the people directly involved and another one concerning the socio-institutional treatment of such event, both reflecting and revealing power relations. This study assumes that the reaction to the event is a remarkable fact and it brings revealing elements of other past events and for future projections experience both in the individual aspect or in relation to historical and collective elements. It considers, from the autobiographical testimony of people involved in criminal situations, what is collective and what is historical on such experiences. The crime in this study is considered from its institutional judgement and it brings revealing elements of a collective history. Four different people, frequent users of the several Crime Prevention Centers of Uberlândia, were asked to speak about their life histories, to talk about the crime for which they are being penalized and to talk on the institutional treatment related to the same one. The Oral Life History method was the basis for the interviews. Specialized authors on Psycho-criminology and on Critical Psychology were the main theoretical support chosen for the interviews analysis and reflections around the crime, subjectivity, interdisciplinarity and also the role of the psychologist in Law and Public Safety institutions. From such analysis, it is observed that there is a wide path redefinition of some concepts and professional positions regarding the various elements of a crime. Among the professionals, the psychologist, in such field, must assume the political role where he is inserted. It is concluded that interventions in public safety rely on facts, which are not always the most significant events for the involved individuals, and that concentrates almost all of their actions in individual interventions, insufficient to deal with the criminal matters, which are much more complex and involve historical and collective variables that go far beyond to the individuals directly involved on it. / A preocupação com a segurança pública é aspecto definidor de modo de vida e de relações sociais. É possível perceber estratégias de evitar invasões, apropriações materiais ou a violência física na própria estruturação das cidades e na forma com que as pessoas se relacionam desde as cidades muradas medievais até os condomínios fechados contemporâneos. Há, no mínimo, duas perspectivas a serem consideradas diante de um acontecimento criminal, uma relacionada ao envolvimento e reação das pessoas diretamente envolvidas e outra que diz respeito ao tratamento social deste acontecimento e que passa por instituições, ambas refletem e revelam relações de poder. Este estudo parte do pressuposto que a reação ao acontecimento é fato marcante e que traz elementos reveladores de outras vivências passadas e também para projeções de vivências futuras seja no aspecto individual, seja em relação aos elementos históricos e coletivos. Considera, a partir da narração autobiográfica de pessoas envolvidas em situações criminais, o que há de coletivo e histórico nestas vivências. O crime, neste estudo, é considerado a partir de sua inscrição institucional, no entanto, traz elementos reveladores de uma história coletiva. Quatro pessoas, usuárias dos Centros de Prevenção à Criminalidade de Uberlândia, foram convidadas a narrar suas histórias de vida, a falar sobre o crime pelo qual respondem pena e sobre o tratamento institucional ao mesmo. O método de História Oral de Vida foi a base das entrevistas. Autores em Psicocriminologia e em Psicologia Crítica foram os principais apoios teóricos escolhidos para análise das entrevistas e reflexões acerca do crime, subjetividade, interdisciplinariedade e do papel do psicólogo nas instituições de Direito e Segurança Pública. A partir da análise, percebe-se que há um caminho aberto de ressignificação de alguns conceitos e posições profissionais em criminologia, que o psicólogo, neste campo, deve assumir o papel político no qual está inserido e ainda, conclui-se que as intervenções em segurança pública se apoiam em fatos que nem sempre são os acontecimentos mais significativos para o sujeito, e que concentram a quase totalidade de suas ações em intervenções individuais, insuficientes para lidar com as questões criminais, que são muito mais complexas e envolvem variáveis históricas e coletivas que vão muito além dos sujeitos envolvidos. / Mestre em Psicologia Aplicada