Gun Crime in Global Contexts

Peter Squires

jun 2014 · Routledge

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Every year around three-quarters of a million people die (directly or indirectly) as a result of gun violence, with most deaths occurring in the poorest, yet also most highly weaponized parts of the world. Firearm proliferation -- 875 million global firearms -- is a direct contributor to both regional conflicts and to crime. This book attempts to understand the inter-related dynamics of supply and demand which are weaponizing the world.

Now over ten years after Peter Squires’s Gun Culture or Gun Control?, the issues pertaining to gun violence and gun control have developed dramatically. With Gun Crime in Global Contexts, Peter Squires offers a cutting-edge account of contemporary developments in the politics of gun crime and the social and theoretical issues that surround the problem. This book contains:

• an innovative political analysis of neo-liberal globalization and weapon proliferation;
• an overview of recent gun control debates and gang strategies in the UK;
• an updated analysis of US gun politics: self-defence, race and the ‘culture war’;
• a critical analysis of US school and rampage shootings, how they have impacted the gun debate and how different societies have responded to mass shootings;
• an examination of the UN's development of an Arms Trade Treaty (2001--13);
• a discussion of weapon trafficking;
• discussions about youth gangs around the world, including those in Brazil, Kenya, West Africa, Mexico and South Africa.

With its interdisciplinary perspective and global reach, this book will be important reading for academics and students interested in youth and gang crime, violent crime and comparative criminal justice, as well as peace and security studies and international relations.

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Peter Squires has been a Professor of Criminology and Public Policy at the University of Brighton since 2005, having worked at the Univesity of Brighton since 1986. He has published ten books (single or jointly authored, or edited), and has made numerous contributions to journals and other media. Professor Squires has a significant media profile, contributing regularly to TV, radio and news media debates on crime and criminal justice, and was profiled in The Guardian’s ‘leading academic experts’ series in 2007 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/oct/16/academicexperts.society]. His teaching and research interests extend across many sub-divisions of contemporary criminology, but specifically gun crime and gun control, gangs and youth crime. Professor Squires recently joined the ACPO Police National Independent Advisory Group on Criminal Use of Firearms.