From a single punch to weapon use: An event typology of public place violence

Abstract

Public place violence has been linked to nighttime economy settings and intoxicated male strangers but it remains understudied what other types of violence are also found in public. In addressing this gap, we apply latent class analysis to develop an inductive event typology of public place violence based on analysis of 500 police reported public assaults from Copenhagen, Denmark. Five event-types of public violence are identified. In addition to the well-known nighttime economy related type, we found classes characterized by excessively violent behaviors; revenge among familiar persons; weapon use and severe victim injuries; and disrespect encounters in everyday contexts. We consider the generalizability of our findings for theories of violence, and discuss implications of our typology for crime prevention.