Evaluation of California's Armed and Prohibited Persons System

Violence Clinical Trial

— APPS  

Official title:

Prospective Evaluation of California's Armed and Prohibited Persons System

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02318732
• Other study ID #: 553213
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: February 2015
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2024

Study information

• Verified date: June 2023
• Source: University of California, Davis
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

This study evaluates exposure to California's Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS) and risk of future violence and other important outcome events among individuals who legally purchased firearms in the past but have since become prohibited from owning them. The main hypothesis is that APPS will be associated with a significant reduction in risk for future violence among individuals who are directly affected.

Description:

Violence remains an important public safety and public health problem. Prior research has shown that denying firearm purchases by individuals who are at high risk for committing violent crimes, thereby restricting their access to firearms, is an effective violence prevention strategy. The Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS) is a new violence prevention initiative undertaken by the California Department of Justice (CalDOJ). APPS is used by law enforcement to systematically identify persons who, having legally purchased firearms in the past, have become prohibited persons in the present-usually as the result of a criminal conviction. Such individuals are at increased risk for future violence.

APPS uses existing data to identify firearm owners among persons who have become prohibited from owning or possessing firearms under California or federal law. CalDOJ then uses this information to contact and attempt recovery of firearms in the possession of prohibited individuals.

This controlled prospective longitudinal evaluation of APPS relies principally on data collected by CalDOJ in the course of APPS operations or on data in the public domain, such as community characteristics published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

To maximize fairness during the implementation of APPS, approximately 1,000 California communities will be stratified by region, population, and violent crime rate and randomized into two groups that will be exposed to APPS at different times during the study period. Hierarchical analysis will examine outcomes for individuals clustered at the community level. The principal analysis will be on an intent to treat basis. A secondary per protocol analysis will also be conducted.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 20000
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2024
• Est. primary completion date: June 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults with records of firearms ownership who have experienced a prohibiting event. Prohibiting events are based in Federal and California state law. Among others, they include criminal convictions for felonies and selected violent misdemeanors; emergency hospitalization for dangerousness associated with severe mental illness, as specified in statute; and status as respondent to a domestic violence restraining order.

Exclusion Criteria:

• None.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Violence

Intervention

Behavioral:
• APPS intervention
Contact with and recovery of firearms from individuals who are prohibited from possessing them

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	UC Davis	Sacramento	California

Sponsors (4)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of California, Davis	Northeastern University, Rutgers University, Stanford University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (1)

Wintemute GJ, Beckett L, Kass PH, Tancredi D, Studdert D, Pierce G, Braga AA, Wright MA, Cerda M. Evaluation of California's Armed and Prohibited Persons System: study protocol for a cluster-randomised trial. Inj Prev. 2017 Oct;23(5):358. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2016-042194. Epub 2016 Oct 11. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Community level rates of violence	Community-level rates of violent and firearm-related crimes	Up to 3 years
Other	Cost benefit analysis	Assess benefits of APPS relative to costs.	Up to 3 years
Primary	Incidence of arrest for violent and firearm-related crimes	Arrests for violent and firearm-related crimes among persons eligible for the APPS intervention	Up to 3 years
Secondary	Incidence of arrest for non-violent, non firearms-related crimes	Arrests for crimes not involving violence or firearms among persons eligible for the APPS intervention	Up to 3 years
Secondary	Incidence of emergency mental health hospitalizations	Emergency mental health hospitalizations following a determination of dangerousness to self or others or grave disability among persons eligible for the APPS intervention	Up to 3 years
Secondary	Incidence of domestic violence restraining orders	Domestic violence restraining orders among persons eligible for the APPS intervention	Up to 3 years