Possession and Use of Illegal Guns Among Offenders in England and Wales 1 TREVOR BENNETTand KATY HOLLOWAY Trevor Bennett is Professor of Criminology and Director, Centre for Criminology, University of Glamorgan; Katy Holloway is Research Fellow, Centre for Criminology, University of Glamorgan Abstract: There is a growing concern about the extent of gun possession and use among criminals. Despite this concern, relatively little is known about gun ownership in the offender population. This article aims to help fill this gap by drawing on the results of interviews with arrestees conducted in 16 locations in England and Wales as part of the NEW-ADAM (New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring) programme. In order to monitor gun crime and to take effective action, it is important to increase current knowledge about the possession and use of guns among offenders. There is a growing concern about the extent of gun possession and use among criminals in the UK. This has been fuelled in part by the prominence given to this topic by the media. Widely publicised reports include the case of two young women killed in Birmingham who were believed to have been the victims of crossfire between rival gangs (Barker 2003). They also include a report of a ‘drive-by’ shooting in Harlesden in 2003 in which the police estimate that over a dozen shots were fired (Casciani 2003). However, these concerns are not confined to mass media sources. A report from the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) reported that criminal possession and use of firearms had increased between 2000 and 2002 and estimated that there could be anything from 200,000 to four million illegal firearms in circulation. The authors believe that there is concern among the police and the public about possession and use of firearms and note their own concern about the high cost of criminal firearm use for the judicial, prison, health and police services (NCIS 2002). The NCIS report argues that some of the variation in estimates of gun involvement among offenders is a result of the current lack of consistent data on firearms. There are some national data on the use of firearms in recorded crime and data on seizures relating to firearm offences and subsequent arrests. However, there are no national statistics on the number of illegal guns in circulation or the number of criminals who possess illegal The Howard Journal Vol 43 No 3. July 2004 ISSN 0265-5527, pp. 237–252 237 r Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA