Gun violence is on the rise in the Montreal metropolitan area, but also throughout Quebec (Larin 2022), and cold weapon violence is still common. However, several tragic events involving firearms have compelled the Quebec government to invest in the fight against this type of violence.
This review of literature and practice is part of these efforts to better understand the phenomenon of armed violence. It also seeks to share knowledge and experiences from measures put in place around the world to curb violence. However, armed violence is a complex phenomenon that involves more than one issue. Therefore, it is important to adopt the appropriate prevention strategies depending on the context in which armed violence is addressed in order to intervene in a comprehensive and targeted manner.
This report presents four issues that may result in weapon-related acts:
- Suicide and self-inflicted violence;
- Armed violence among delinquent or criminalized youth groups;
- Intimate partner violence;
- Incidents related to violent extremism.
This report provides insight and understanding of crime data collected under the Quebec Department of Public Safety's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR 2.2) rules from 2015 to 2020.