Is resisting crime good public policy?

Two recent events (an advisory opinion from West Virginia and legislation recently passed in Oklahoma) have sparked a discussion of whether resisting (violent) crime is good public policy, deserving of special legal protection, or not. I recalled seeing some statistics from the Department of Justice that implied "resistance with a firearm" was the course of action least likely to result in injury when faced with a crime of violence.

I was planning to dig up those statistics and make the point myself, but it seems someone else has decided to do the analysis for me, in the form of a study from the Florida State University Department of Criminology: Resistance is Not Futile; Rather It is Highly Effective. The study actually makes a number of points that I had considered, but not yet analyzed, including the potential for confusion between the sequence of self-protective actions and injury. In other words, a simple statistical analysis mind find that resistance and injury are correlated -- but it won't be able to tell you whether the victim was injured because they resisted, or resisted because they were injured.

The press release for the study makes it clear: injury followed self-protection only 10% of the time, and were usually minor.

Unfortunately, I only have the press release... not a copy of the whole thing.

Posted on 2005-06-13 01:58:51.0 by matthew@triggerfinger.org

Check the groups below and enter your email address to receive updates by email:

The trackback URL for this entry is: http://triggerfinger.org/weblog/servlet/trackback/6513

No trackbacks have been posted so far.

No comments have been posted so far.