The 2017 National Academies of Sciences (NAS) Committee and Report on Proactive Policing highlighted what we know about the effects of proactive policing practices on crime prevention and police–community relations. However, the evaluation evidence reviewed by the NAS, which largely comes from case studies of carefully managed proactive initiatives, does not provide a basis for estimating how extensively these practices are used or whether they are used in the most effective ways. Accordingly, it is unclear whether police proactivity as practiced on an everyday basis reflects optimal strategies and implementation methods as recommended by the NAS. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing almost 2 million computer-aided dispatch records from four agencies and systematically observing 84 officers for more than 180 hours to better understand the empirical realities of police proactivity. The findings indicate a major difference between the types of proactive interventions supported by research and the practice of everyday police proactivity. Specifically, proactive policing practices are limited in scope and are often implemented in less than optimal ways. A large proportion of proactive activities are also not recorded, rewarded, or supervised, indicating that patrol commanders may have little control over, or awareness of, proactive deployment. From an evidence-based policing perspective, much more effort is needed to record and track proactivity to measure its impacts (both positive and negative) and align it with what we now know about effective proactive activity from research.

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Policies restricting semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines are intended to reduce gunshot victimizations by limiting the stock of semiautomatic firearms with large ammunition capacities and other military-style features conducive to criminal use. The federal government banned such weaponry from 1994 to 2004, and a few states currently impose similar restrictions. Recent debates concerning these weapons have highlighted their use in mass shootings, but there has been little examination of their use in gun crime more generally since the expiration of the federal ban. This study investigates current levels of criminal activity with assault weapons and other high-capacity semiautomatics in the USA using several local and national data sources including the following: (1) guns recovered by police in ten large cities, (2) guns reported by police to federal authorities for investigative tracing, (3) guns used in murders of police, and (4) guns used in mass murders. Results suggest assault weapons (primarily assault-type rifles) account for 2-12% of guns used in crime in general (most estimates suggest less than 7%) and 13-16% of guns used in murders of police. Assault weapons and other high-capacity semiautomatics together generally account for 22 to 36% of crime guns, with some estimates upwards of 40% for cases involving serious violence including murders of police. Assault weapons and other high-capacity semiautomatics appear to be used in a higher share of firearm mass murders (up to 57% in total), though data on this issue are very limited. Trend analyses also indicate that high-capacity semiautomatics have grown from 33 to 112% as a share of crime guns since the expiration of the federal ban-a trend that has coincided with recent growth in shootings nationwide. Further research seems warranted on how these weapons affect injuries and deaths from gun violence and how their regulation may impact public health.

The present study used data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) to investigate how multiple dimensions of childhood abuse and neglect predict romantic relationship functioning in adulthood. Several dimensions of abuse and neglect (any experience, type, chronicity, co-occurrence, and perpetrator) were rated prospectively from birth through age 17.5 years. Multimethod assessments of relational competence and violence in romantic relationships were conducted repeatedly from ages 20 to 32 years. As expected, experiencing childhood abuse and neglect was associated with lower romantic competence and more relational violence in adulthood. Follow-up analyses indicated that lower romantic competence was specifically associated with physical abuse, maternal perpetration, chronicity, and co-occurrence, whereas more relational violence was uniquely associated with nonparental perpetration. We discuss these novel prospective findings in the context of theory and research on antecedents of romantic relationship functioning.

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