The detection and policing of gun crime: Challenges to the effective policing of gun crime in Europe
| Author | Erica Bowen,Mike Hellenbach,Becky Crookes,Helen Poole,Thanos Stamos,F. Jeane Gerard,Sue Elliott |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370816686122 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2018, Vol. 15(2) 172 –196
The detection and policing of
© The Author(s) 2017
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gun crime: Challenges to the
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370816686122
DOI: 10.1177/1477370816686122
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effective policing of gun crime
in Europe
Mike Hellenbach, Sue Elliott, F. Jeane Gerard,
Becky Crookes and Thanos Stamos
Coventry University, UK
Helen Poole
University of Northampton, UK
Erica Bowen
University of Worcester, UK
Abstract
Despite a shared understanding across the European Union (EU) that access to firearms by
the general public should be restricted, detailed legislation regarding the ownership, use and
trade of firearms varies between EU member states. It is unclear, however, how such variations
impact on the policing of gun-enabled crime. By using qualitative data generated from interviews
with police, policy and decision makers from 13 European countries, we aim to determine
how stakeholders perceive that national variations in firearms legislation affect the policing of
gun-enabled crime within and across EU countries. Four main themes were identified from
the qualitative data: disparities in legislation, disparities in the priority given and the resources
allocated to investigations into gun-enabled crime, as well as interventions. Owing to the
aforementioned disparities, cross-national investigations into incidents of gun crime are at risk
of remaining impaired in their effectiveness. Therefore, more legislative coherency as well as
sustainable long-term interventions will be needed to successfully reduce ownership and use of
firearms in the criminal world. In this context, a departure from an exclusive use of an economic
model of gun crime is recommended to allow for a better understanding of the dynamics of the
black gun market.
Corresponding author:
Mike Hellenbach, Faculty of Health and Life Science, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry,
CV1 5FB, UK.
Email: m.hellenbach@hotmail.com
Hellenbach et al.
173
Keywords
Firearm, illegal, intervention, investigation, policy
Introduction
Historically, guns have always had a legal place in society and have been available to
groups such as hunters, sport shooters, collectors or arms dealers. Furthermore, fire-
arms are a commodity of monetary value and are bought and sold on the European
and global markets; the global arms trade has been estimated to amount to USD 100
billion a year (Amnesty International, 2015). If handled and stored responsibly fire-
arms do not necessarily pose an immediate threat to public safety. If, however, used
inappropriately, firearms can have wide-ranging social and economic costs. It is esti-
mated that globally in the period 2007–12 approximately 508,000 people died as a
result of violence with a firearm. Excluding victims of legal intervention and armed
conflicts, the majority (n = 419,000) have fallen victim to intentional or unintentional
homicides (SAS, 2015a). In addition to the human and social costs, the global, eco-
nomic impact of non-conflict armed violence in terms of lost productivity is estimated
to be as high as USD 163.3 billion, or 0.14 percent of the annual global Gross
Domestic Product (SAS, 2016).
Although Western Europe has one of the lowest gun-enabled crime (GEC) rates in the
world (UNODC, 2014), the number of illegally held firearms in the European Union
(EU) is estimated to be up to 67 million (Duquet and Van Alstein, 2015). Illegal firearms
are often used in organized crime activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution, money
laundering and gang-related violence (Hales et al., 2006; Robert and Innes, 2009; Squires
et al., 2008). In this context, the use of firearms poses a significant destabilizing factor in
European societies. It is estimated that illicit trafficking has been directly responsible for
at least 10,000–15,000 firearms-related deaths in EU member states over the past decade
(UNODC, 2014).
Getting a clear comparative picture of the prevalence of GEC is, however, difficult
because statistical definitions and counting rules vary across countries. Often the defini-
tion of GEC – such as ‘firearm shot’, ‘used as a blunt weapon’, ‘used as a threat’, ‘fire-
arm carried’ or ‘firearm ready to hand even if not carried’ – does not translate into police
statistics. Instead, incidents of GEC may be summarized into ‘blocks of crimes’ – such
as violent crimes, robberies, domestic violence – that do not allow detailed analyses of
the social, cultural or situational contexts in which offences may have occurred.
In this context, national statistics on gun homicides provide the best data that allow
for cross-national comparisons. Duquet and Van Alstein (2015) state that the European
countries with the highest rates of gun homicide in the total numbers of homicides are
Montenegro (93 percent), Cyprus (63 percent), the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (50 percent), Italy (45 percent) and Ireland (42 percent). In the same study it
is revealed that countries with the lowest firearm homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants
are Iceland (0 percent), Luxembourg (0 percent), Malta (0 percent), the United Kingdom
(0.04 percent), Poland (0.05 percent), Slovenia (0.05 percent), Austria (0.06 percent),
Denmark (0.06 percent) and Germany (0.07 percent).
174
European Journal of Criminology 15(2)
Unlike US law, within the EU a shared understanding exists whereby possession and
use of firearms should be limited to state authorities and access to firearms by the general
public should be restricted (EU Firearms Directive 91/477/EEC, UN Protocol against the
Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and
Ammunition 2001). There are, however, significant variations across EU member states
as to how legal gun ownership, use and trade are regulated in detail.
The focus of legislation across EU member states reflects the original 1991 EU
Firearms Directive and the subsequent 2005 United Nations Firearms Protocol
(UNFP), and the 2008 revised EU Directive. These tools themselves do not define the
illegal use of firearms, nor do they define GEC per se; they instead focus on defining
the mechanisms of controlling the legal acquisition and possession of firearms (see
Table 1). The issue of determining appropriate penalties for contravening the condi-
tions specified by the Directive was devolved down to each country’s judiciary, with
the result that each country could determine appropriate penalties in line with their
individual legal frameworks.
Full coherence, however, could not be established because imprecise terminology
was used regarding hunting weapons (Spapens, 2007). Moreover, the Directive did not
provide a universal definition of antique weapons, leaving loopholes that potentially
enable the illegal acquisition and trafficking of such firearms across EU member states
(Duquet and Van Alstein, 2015). The 2005 UNFP merely defined a firearm as ‘any port-
able barrelled weapon that expels, is designed to expel or may be readily converted to
expel a shot, bullet or projectile by the action of an explosive, excluding antique firearms
or their replicas’, and the 2008 Amendments to the EU Directive adopted this definition
and maintained the exception clauses identified previously. The 2005 UNFP identified
that antique firearms and their replicas should be defined in accordance with domestic
laws, but that any weapon manufactured in 1899 or earlier shall be identified as an
antique and therefore not as a firearm.
Allowing EU member states to impose stricter rules regarding firearm deactivation
standards further weakened the Directive. Finally, Directive 2008/51/EC failed to pro-
vide a universal approach to the trading of gas and alarm weapons despite their frequent
use by criminals, because they can be relatively easily converted into lethal firearms
(Duquet and Van Alstein, 2015). Since specific requirements for obtaining and using
firearms in EU member states have been discussed elsewhere (Levush, 2013), Table 2
outlines some of the major differences in firearms legislation with regard to access to
different types of firearms across the EU.
In their fight against GEC, researchers and policy makers alike have often commonly
used an economic model of gun crime, which highlights the ability of firearms to take or
protect human life, their use to threaten, intimidate or defend (see McDonald, 1999). In
this context, advocates of stricter regulation have reported a strong positive relationship
between gun availability and gun violence and emphasized the great financial and physi-
cal harm caused by gun violence (for example, Bangalore and Messerli, 2013; Kendall,
1996; Monuteaux et al., 2015; Palen, 2001). Opponents, in contrast, have documented a
negative relationship between gun availability and crime or no causation at all, stressing
that the social costs caused by gun violence would be even higher if potential victims
were not allowed to defend themselves (for example, Kleck, 2009; Moody and Marvell,
Hellenbach et al.
175
Table 1. Summary of firearms categories, descriptions and associated levels of control.
Category
Description
Control
A
• Fully automatic weapons and military weapons.
Prohibited
• Explosive military missiles and launchers.
•...
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