The number of "punishment" shootings in Northern Ireland is up by more than 40 per cent this year compared to the same period last year.
According to RUC statistics a total of 73 "punishment" shootings have been carried out from January 1st to May 20th this year compared to 51 for the same period last year.
Loyalist paramilitaries have been blamed for 48 of the incidents, with republicans responsible for 25.
The total for the whole of last year was 136 gun attacks, which was the highest annual figure since 1975.
Figures for punishment beatings also increased, with 41 beatings in loyalist areas and 30 in republican areas from January 1st to May 30th this year. The figures compare with 33 loyalist beatings and 22 republican beatings for the same period last year.
The number of "punishment" shootings has risen steadily in recent years after falling to just three in 1995 (a total of 217 "punishment" beatings were carried out the same year).
Last week 16-year-old Eamonn O'Boyle was shot in both ankles in an attack in Newry, Co Down. It later emerged his family had moved to the town from Larne, Co Antrim, a year ago following sectarian attacks by loyalist paramilitaries.
Eight masked men shot the teenager with a low-calibre weapon in the ankles and hit him on the head with a hatchet.
Over the weekend loyalists were blamed for attacks in the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast and in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim. Both victims were shot once in the right leg.
The Ulster Unionist Party leader and First Minister, Mr David Trimble, called on the North's Human Right Commission to focus on the human rights abuses being perpetrated by the paramilitary groups on their own communities. He said the attacks "raise very serious doubts about the intentions and objectives of paramilitary organisations."
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, described the attacks as "the community responding in exasperation to the fact that there are elements who disregard any sort of acceptable norm and who simply prey upon other members of the community".
However, he added: "Any sort of physical punishment of those involved in criminal or anti-social activity does not work. If it worked the problem would be solved."
Mr Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force, said his party believed anti-social behaviour should be dealt with by the police not by "punishment attacks".