Prevention Partnerships And Data Sharing: Keys To Curbing Knife Violence

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Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 23 Jul 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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An editorial published in this week's BMJ calls for information sharing between hospital emergency departments and local crime reduction agencies in order to reduce the number of violent actions committed with knives.

Professor Jonathan Shepherd (Director of the Violence Research Group at Cardiff University) wants to identify and target violence "hotspots" by using data collected anonymously by all emergency departments - information including locations, times, and types of weapons used. The data could then be shared with partners in crime reduction.

Shepherd writes that, "Increasing the perceived likelihood of being caught is a more effective deterrent than severity of sentence." He also argues that there is evidence showing the effectiveness of police interventions that target "hotspots."

Though the frequency of violence in England and Wales has become smaller since 2000, injuries may have actually become more serious. Shepherd writes: "Hospital episode statistics show that rates of hospital admission in England after violence of all types increased (from 82.7 per 100,000 population in 2000-1 to 114.4 per 100,000 in 2006-7) at almost exactly the same rate as admissions after knife violence (from 8.5 per 100,000 to 11.3 per 100,000). In contrast, rates of treatment in emergency departments after violence of all types decreased from about 850 to 620 per 100,000 over the same time."

Often, serious violent incidents that require emergency department treatment remain unknown to police for several reasons, including fear of reprisal or lack of information about assailants. Therefore, Shepherd says, "It is not safe to assume that the most serious violence, including knife and gun violence, will have been reported."

Further, "UK legislation on violent crime in the past 10 years has done much to promote data sharing, including the introduction of more than 350 statutory Crime Reduction Partnerships (Community Safety Partnerships in Wales and Scotland) to which the NHS, local authorities, and the police must contribute. Evaluations provide evidence that this integrated approach significantly reduces violence compared with the police and local authorities working alone."

Shepherd recommends policies to reduce knife violence such as decreasing knife availability and information sharing agreements among hospitals and other agencies. The key, he concludes, is that emergency medicine personnel must be directly involved in partnership prevention work.

Tackling Knife Violence
Jonathan Shepherd, Iain Brennan
BMJ (2008). 337: a849.
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Written by: Peter M Crosta
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