The motivations of offenders who carry and use acid and other corrosives in criminal acts.

This report presents the findings of a study that explored the motivations of offenders who carry and/or use acid and other corrosive substances. This fulfils an action within the Government’s Serious Violence Strategy (Home Office, 2018) and the Acid Attacks Action Plan to undertake research due to the growing concerns over the increased use of acid and corrosive substances in crime. The project was conducted in three phases. 1.To provide an understanding of the contexts in which corrosive substance attacks occurand the characteristics of these cases, police case file data from 648 recorded offencesinvolving corrosive substances, across eight police force areas, were collected.2.Interviews were conducted with 25 offenders convicted of offences where a corrosivesubstance had been used. The key aim of these interviews was to gain a betterunderstanding of the main motivations for carrying and using corrosive substances incrime events.3.Consultations took place with 29 experts working in the criminal justice sector or withinother agencies that have an interest in corrosive substance crime. The main purpose ofthese consultations was to gain a better understanding about what kinds of preventativestrategies could be developed to reduce the number of crimes involving corrosivesubstances.