Weapons Offenses and Offenders

• NCJ Number: 155284
• Author(s): L A Greenfeld; M W Zawitz
• Date Published: November 1995
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Series: BJS Selected Findings
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

FBI data for 1983 indicate that State and local law enforcement agencies made 262,300 arrests in which a weapons offense was the most serious charge, a 54 percent increase since 1974.

Abstract

This report presents data on how the criminal and juvenile justice systems deal with weapons offenses (violations of statutes or regulations that control deadly weapons) and offenders from arrest through incarceration. The report uses data from many sources, including the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the National Center for Juvenile Justice Juvenile Court Statistics, the BJS Pretrial Reporting Program, the BJS National Judicial Reporting Program, the BJS Survey of Inmates of State Correctional Facilities, and the BJS Federal Case Processing Data. The data presented cover Federal, State, and local responses to weapons offenses. This report is the second on Firearms, Crime, and Criminal Justice; the first was Guns Used in Crime.