From a Single Punch to Weapon Use: An Event Typology of Public Place Violence

Public place violence has been linked to the night-time economy and alcohol intoxicated male strangers, but it remains understudied whether other types of violence are also found in public settings. In addressing this gap, we apply latent class analysis to develop an inductive event typology of public place violence. We analyze a sample of 500 police reported public assaults from Copenhagen, Denmark, which have been systematically coded for a range of situational and individual properties. Five event-types of public violence are identified—in addition to the well-known night-time 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 how our findings may evaluate the generalizability of key micro-interactional theories of violence, and discuss the implications of our typology for crime prevention.