Linking criminal contexts to injury outcomes: findings and lessons from a national study of robbery in South Africa

Brett Bowman (), Sherianne Kramer, Sulaiman Salau, Ella Kotze and Richard Matzopoulos
Additional contact information
Brett Bowman: University of the Witwatersrand
Sherianne Kramer: University of the Witwatersrand
Sulaiman Salau: University of the Witwatersrand
Ella Kotze: University of the Witwatersrand
Richard Matzopoulos: South African Medical Research Council

International Journal of Public Health, 2018, vol. 63, issue 8, No 12, 977-985

Abstract: Abstract Objectives South Africa has high rates of violence. The country has benefitted enormously from the use of injury surveillance data from the health sector, but there is a need to explore other avenues of routine data to advance violence prevention. We demonstrate the value of using routinely collected police data for enhancing our understanding of robbery as an important situational context for violence in South Africa. Methods We analysed 1,841,253 cases reported to the police between 2003 and 2014 to describe the distribution and predictors of robbery violence in South Africa. Results Robbery is prevalent in South Africa, but the use of violence beyond the threat of force is rare. After adjusting for confounding factors, the probability of co-occurring violence increases when robbery occurs at night, on weekends, involves cash and where the victims are black, young and female. Conclusions Using routinely collected police data is valuable for investigating the situational dimensions of violence, thereby enhancing our understanding of contexts that shape violence and its injury outcomes. Such an approach can advance contextually sensitive violence prevention strategies.

Keywords: Robbery violence; Public health; Criminal justice; South Africa; Data sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00038-018-1129-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ijphth:v:63:y:2018:i:8:d:10.1007_s00038-018-1129-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/00038

DOI: 10.1007/s00038-018-1129-z

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Thomas Kohlmann, Nino Künzli and Andrea Madarasova Geckova

More articles in International Journal of Public Health from Springer, Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().