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NCJ Number:
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NCJ 194120
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Title:
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Situational Contexts of Gun Use by Young Males in Inner Cities, Final Report
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Author(s):
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Deanna Wilkinson Ph.D. ; Jeffrey Fagan Ph.D.
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Date Published:
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2000 |
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Page Count:
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217 |
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Sponsoring Agency:
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Grant Number:
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96-IJ-CX-0013; R49/CCR211614; SBR-9515327 |
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Sale Source:
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National Institute of Justice/NCJRS
Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849
United States
NCJRS Photocopy Services
Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
United States |
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Document:
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PDF |
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Agency Summary:
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Agency Summary |
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Type:
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Studies/research reports |
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Language:
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English |
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Country:
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United States |
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Annotation:
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This report of a 4-year study of gun violence among inner-city
youths (The Columbia Youth Violence Study) reviews the lessons of
the epidemic of youth gun violence in the late 1980's and early
1990's in terms of its impact on adolescent development and the
role of aggression in everyday life. |
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Abstract:
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The research applied the framework of "situated transactions" to
explain the occurrence and outcomes of violent events that
involve guns. Situational or transactional approaches view
violent events as interactions that involve the confluence of
motivations, perceptions, technology (weapons), the social
control attributes of the immediate setting, and the ascribed
meaning and status attached to the violent act. The preliminary
phase of the research involved a pilot study of 125 young males
from two New York City neighborhoods: East New York and the South Bronx. These neighborhoods were selected for their high rates of gun violence and their differences in the social and ethnic composition. This pilot study developed and refined the methods of recruitment, interviewing, and data analysis. In the full study, interviews were completed with 377 active gun offenders aged 16-24 from the same two neighborhoods. Data collection for the pilot study began in June 1994 and for the full project in
September 1995. Data collection was completed in August 1998. The
study concluded that adolescents in cities were possessing and
carrying guns on a large scale. This is historically unique in
the United States, with significant impacts on an entire
generation of adolescents. The impacts were most seriously felt
among African-American youths in the Nation's inner cities. Among
youth in the inner cities, guns have become symbols of respect,
power, and manhood in an emerging youth culture that has
sustained a continuing demand for and supply of weapons,
reciprocally increasing the overall level of gun possession and
the desire to use guns. Beyond the direct increase in adolescent
mortality, guns have an indirect influence on adolescent violence
through their effects on socialization and development. The
prevalence of violence in the immediate social contexts
objectifies and symbolizes their perceptions of risk and danger
in the most common activities of daily life. Because the epidemic
of violence is actually a gun homicide epidemic, the case for
gun-oriented policing strategies is much stronger than police
practices based on the more diffuse and unsupported theory of
disorder control and order-maintenance strategies. In addition to
targeted law enforcement, the decline in gun homicides can also
be attributed to the convergence of cyclical variation and social
trends in risk and exposure. The strength and content of social
norms are critical. The spread of social norms occurs through the
daily interactions of individuals within networks that are
structurally equivalent and closely packed. A focused strategy of
dealing with problematic youth while reinforcing informal social
control by institutions in local communities constitutes a
balanced strategy for addressing youth gun violence. 166
references and extensive tabular data |
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Main Term(s):
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Juvenile gun ownership |
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Index Term(s):
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Juvenile delinquency factors ; Social conditions ; Urban area studies ; Fear of crime ; Youth development ; Violent juvenile offenders ; Peer influences on behavior ; Urban criminality ; Informal social control ; Violence causes ; Firearm-crime relationships ; Problem oriented policing ; Violence prevention ; Firearms deaths ; NIJ final report ; New York |
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Note:
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Dataset may be archived by the NIJ Data Resources Program at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data |
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To cite this abstract, use the following link:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=194120
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* A link to the full-text document is provided whenever possible. For documents
not available online, a link to the publisher's web site is provided.
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