Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T01:26:58.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reassessment of the D.C. Gun Law: Some Cautionary Notes on the Use of Interrupted Time Series Designs for Policy Impact Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Chester L. Britt ,
Gary Kleck  and
David J. Bordua
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Interrupted time series designs are commonly used to assess the impact of gun control legislation, as well as other legal and policy changes. Three common problems in the use of these designs—(1) selection of an appropriate control series, (2) specification of the intervention model, and (3) specification of the time series studied—raise questions about the validity of the conclusions reached in research on the impact of gun control. We illustrate these problems with a critical reassessment of Loftin et al.'s (1991) evaluation of the 1976 District of Columbia Gun Law. We then use monthly homicide data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Center for Health Statistics to illustrate how careful consideration of these three design issues results in a significantly different conclusion about the effectiveness of the District of Columbia Gun Law.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , 1996 , pp. 361 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by The Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We would like to thank Michael Gottfredson, Richard McCleary, and David McDowall for their input on earlier versions. A fuller version of this paper was presented at the 1993 Annual Meetings for the American Society of Criminology, Phoenix, AZ, and can be obtained from Gary Kleck (Kleck, Britt, & Bordua 1993); write to him at School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306.

References

Box, George E. P., & M.Jenkins, Gwilym (1976) Time-Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control. San Francisco: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
Box, G. E. P., & Tiao, G. C. (1965) “A Change in Level of Nonstationary Time Series,” 52 Biometrika 181.Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald T., & Stanley, Julian C. (1966) Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Cantor, David, & Cohen, Lawrence E. (1980) “Comparing Measures of Homicide Trends,” 9 Social Science Research 121.Google Scholar
Cochran, John K., Chamlin, Mitchell B., & Seth, Mark (1994) “Deterrence or Brutalization? An Impact Assessment of Oklahoma's Return to Capital Punishment,” 32 Criminology 107.Google Scholar
Cook, Thomas D., & Campbell, Donald T. (1979) Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Deutsch, Stephen Jay, & Alt, Francis B. (1977) “The Effect of Massachusetts' Gun Control Law on Gun-related Crimes in the City of Boston,” 1 Evaluation Q. 543.Google Scholar
Federal Bureau of Investigation (1961–91) Uniform Crime Reports. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
Fife, Daniel, & Abrams, William R. (1989) “Firearms' Decreased Role in New Jersey Homicides after a Mandatory Sentencing Law,” 29 J. of Trauma 1548.Google Scholar
Hay, Richard, & McCleary, Richard (1979) “Box-Tiao Time Series Models for Impact Assessment,” 3 Evaluation Q. 277.Google Scholar
Holmes, Malcolm D., Daudistel, Howard C., & Taggart, William A. (1992) “Plea Bargaining Policy and State District Court Caseloads: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis,” 26 Law & Society Rev. 139.Google Scholar
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) (1991) Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data. Study 9028, Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1975–1989. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR.Google Scholar
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) (1985) Mortality Detail File: External Cause Extract, 1968–1980. Study 8224. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR.Google Scholar
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) (1993) Mortality Detail Files, 1981–1989. Study 7632. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR.Google Scholar
Jones, Edward D. III (1981) “The District of Columbia's ‘Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975‘: The Toughest Handgun Control Law in the United States—Or Is It?” 455 Annals 138.Google Scholar
Jones, Edward D. III, & Ray, Marla Wilson (1980) “Handgun Control: Strategies, Enforcement and Effectiveness.” Unpub. report. Washington: U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Kleck, Gary (1979) “Capital Punishment, Gun Ownership, and Homicide,” 84 American J. of Sociology 882.Google Scholar
Kleck, Gary (1991) Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kleck, Gary, Britt, Chester L., & Bordua, David J. (1993) “The Emperor Has No Clothes: Using Interrupted Time Series Designs to Evaluate Social Policy Impact.” Presented at American Society of Criminology Annual Meetings, 30 Oct. 1993.Google Scholar
Loftin, Colin, Heumann, Milton, & McDowall, David (1983) “Mandatory Sentencing and Firearms Violence: Evaluating an Alternative to Gun Control,” 17 Law & Society Rev. 287.Google Scholar
Loftin, Colin, & McDowall, David (1984) “The Deterrent Effects of the Florida Felony Firearm Law,” 75 J. of Criminal Law & Criminology 250.Google Scholar
Loftin, Colin, McDowall, David, Wiersema, Brian, & Cottey, Talbert J. (1991) “Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia,” 325 New England J. of Medicine 1615.Google Scholar
Lucas, Charles E., & Ledgerwood, Anna M. (1978) “Mandatory Incarceration for Convicted Armed Felons,” 18 J. of Trauma 291.Google Scholar
McCain, Leslie J., & McCleary, Richard (1979) “The Statistical Analysis of the Simple Interrupted Time-Series Quasi-Experiment,” in Cook & Campbell 1979.Google Scholar
McCleary, Richard, & Hay, Richard A. Jr., with Meidinger, Errol E. & McDowall, David (1980) Applied Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
McDowall, David, McCleary, Richard, Meidinger, Errol E., & Hay, Richard A. Jr. (1980) Interrupted Time Series Analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowall, David, Loftin, Colin, & Wiersema, Brian (1992) “A Comparative Study of the Preventive Effects of Mandatory Sentencing Law for Handgun Crimes,” 83 J. of Criminal Law & Criminology 378.Google Scholar
McPheters, Lee R., Mann, Robert, & Schlagenhauf, Don (1984) “Economic Response to a Crime Deterrence Program,” 22 Economic Inquiry 550.Google Scholar
O'Carroll, Patrick W., Loftin, Colin, Waller, John B., McDowall, David, Bukoff, Allen, Scott, Richard O., Mercy, James A., & Wiersema, Brian (1991) “Preventing Homicide: An Evaluation of the Efficacy of a Detroit Gun Ordinance,” 81 American J. of Public Health 576.Google Scholar
Pierce, Glenn L., & Bowers, William J. (1981) “The Bartley-Fox Gun Law's Short-Term Impact on Crime in Boston,” 455 Annals 120.Google Scholar
Ross, H. Laurence, McCleary, Richard, & LaFree, Gary (1990) “Can Mandatory Jail Laws Deter Drunk Driving? The Arizona Case,” 81 J. of Criminal Law & Criminology 156.Google Scholar
Tennenbaum, Dr. Abraham N. (1994) “The Influence of the Garner Decision on Police Use of Deadly Force,” 85 J. of Criminal Law & Criminology 241.Google Scholar
U.S. Conference of Mayors (1980) “The Analysis of the Firearms Control Act of 1975: Handgun Control in the District of Columbia.” Washington: U.S. Conference of Mayors.Google Scholar
U.S. News & World Report (1988) “Even the NRA Can Have a Bad Day (Handgun Control Law Passed),” U.S. News & World Report, p. 15 (25 April).Google Scholar
Wei, William W. S. (1990) Time Series Analysis. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Zimring, Franklin E. (1975) “Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968,” 4 J. of Legal Studies 133.Google Scholar