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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this article by Kennedy et al. was to describe the problem of youth violence in Boston and the strategy that they implemented to address it. This article includes the following: 1) a review of the literature, 2) findings from a review of the gun related cases in the Boston area, 3) the strategy developed and implemented based on the literature and research findings, and 4) a description of the evaluation plan for the project.
METHODOLOGY:
A non-experimental design was used. The project employed a problem solving strategy for: 1) understanding youth gun violence and trafficking, 2) developing an appropriate intervention, 3) implementing the intervention, and 4) evaluating the intervention. Members of the Boston Gun Project included the authors, the Boston Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol ,Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), the U.S. Attorney for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Suffolk County District Attorney, the Massachusetts Department of Parole, and the city of Boston school police.
First, the authors conducted a literature review to understand the illicit gun market. Unfortunately, most of the available research predated the youth gun violence problem and addressed the attainment of firearms by adult felons.
To gain a better understanding of the youth gun violence problem in high risk areas of Boston, the authors conducted a retrospective review of weapon related cases. The review included two samples of gun and knife related homicide victims and offenders. The first sample included 155 youth 21-years-old and under who had been victims of gun or knife homicide from 1990 to 1994. The other sample consisted of 125 same aged youth known to have committed a gun or knife homicide during the same period. Official records for both samples were collected for this part of the project. They offered no other methodological information.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The research on the illicit gun market revealed several important findings for developing an effective strategy for reducing the gun problem. First, for the most part, the illicit gun market consists of many small operations rather than large ones. The authors suggested that there were enough small operations or informal means of obtaining weapons illegally that large operations were not necessary. For the few large operations, the focus is to transport large quantities of guns from states with few gun restrictions to states with strict ones. Second, they estimated the number o available guns at 200 million to date. The authors argued that these guns as well as new guns sold at retail need to be considered when developing an effective strategy. This is especially important since some research suggests that many guns used in violent acts are generally not obtained through retail sales. Rather, they are obtained through theft, through friends, family, and through informal networks. Third, previous research suggested that a majority of youth gun violence was related to inner-city crack cocaine trafficking; now research has shown that urban youths who are not involved in the drug trade are obtaining guns as well. These youth are arming themselves for protection in the increasingly threatening urban environments. A study of high school students found that more than 40% of the students reported having been shot at or threatened with a gun. Thus, it seems as though the target population should not be limited to youth involved in drug trafficking, gang activity, and serious offenders. Another concern regarding the focus of the strategy was that limiting the availability and accessibility of handguns through market-based interventions may have unintended consequences. Researchers fear that gang members and youth involved in drug trafficking and serious violent offending may turn to sawed-off shot guns if other means of obtaining handguns are restricted or have been cut off. These limitations and concerns led to the beginning with the demand side of the youth gun problem as opposed to the supply side.
A description of Boston's youth violence problem provided insight into the demand side of the gun violence problem. The authors found that about a third of the homicides in Boston were attributable to those between the ages of 15 to 21. These homicides were mostly committed with firearms; that is, 72% of all homicide victims under the age of 21 between 1990 and 1994 were killed with firearms. Large portions of these homicides occurred in the cityís poor black neighborhoods, namely Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, and were committed mostly by 15- to 21-year-old Black males. Outside the high risk neighborhoods, the levels of gun homicides and injuries were lower. Additionally, the count of gun injuries to sharp instrument injuries was about equal for the high risk areas (Roxbury 129:118) and a lower gun to sharp instrument count for other areas (South Boston 2:14). The authors also found that, based on the perceptions of practitioners in the area, the gun violence problem was primarily a gang problem.
The study of the victim and offender samples revealed that both had a high level of criminal involvement. Official records from the victim sample revealed that 75% had been arraigned in Massachusetts courts prior to being homicide victims. The homicide offenders collectively had an average of 9.7 offenses each before committing homicide.
A gang analysis of the high risk neighborhoods provided a profile of gang activity in those neighborhoods. The city had 61 gangs, with 1100 to 1300 members. Most gangs consist of a small number of members, only a few consist of 60 to 100 members. The authors estimated that the gang population represented about 3% of youth in those neighborhoods and about 1% of Boston's youth further research suggested that 60% of the homicides in the area could be attributable to the gangs and were mostly over personal hostile conflicts. The authors suggested that the conflicts may have started over drug or money related issues.
In sum, they found that most of Boston's homicide victims and offenders under the age of 21 were part of a gang, had high rates of criminality, were known to the justice system, and engaged in violence over personal vendettas. While gang members represented a large portion of the central players in the cityís youth gun problem, other populations, such as students who have increased their gun use, should not be excluded from strategies to reduce the gun violence problem.
The authors developed a strategy based on the information gathered on the youth gun violence problem. The strategy was based on tactics that had already been used and shown to be effective. A special interagency operation had been used previously when gang activity was characterized by extreme levels of gun homicides and assaults. Collaborations of Boston's Youth Violence Strike Force, probation officers and other agencies monitored area gangs to prevent public drug dealing and use and minor violations. Specifically, probation and parole officers targeted gang members and required them to abide by strict regulations as part of their terms and agreements. This type of suppression tactic served to prevent all gang related crime, while focusing specifically on violent crime. This "coerced use reduction" tactic necessarily involved heightened surveillance, appropriate interventions and sanctions, and made it clear to gang members that this tactic would continue until the violence calmed. Communicating the tactic was done through several venues: through probation officers and through semiformal meetings with authorities and gang members as a condition of probation. Since many gang members are on probation, this type of tactic was possible. In terms of the circumstances that would trigger this type of surveillance, they decided that the strategy would be responding to the areas in the city that were experiencing events or behavior that cause fear producing behavior. It was determined that high levels of gun homicide, firing guns, assaults, and knife homicides and assaults in an area would trigger increased surveillance in the area. Thus, the strategy involved heightened surveillance for shootings and other selected incidents and allowed for rapid identification of violence and violent groups. However, once a gang was suppressed or clamed other strategies would be needed. First, the surveillance in the area would need to continue after a gang had been suppressed because the suppression a gang makes those gang members vulnerable to rival gangs. A map of the gang rivalries becomes important. Through this, the strategy intends to interrupt the cycle of fear that they believe to be driving the youth gun violence problem in Boston. If they can prevent the violence for a meaningful period, the gang may adapt to a lower level of fear, violent behavior, and use of weapons. They called this the "firebreak" hypothesis, where a successful short term intervention would result in a disproportionate, sustainable long-term impact.
In trying to understand the supply side of the youth gun problem they found less consensus on the nature of the problem. Practitioners and agents from the BATF had different perceptions about the supply side of Boston's illicit gun market. Some believed that guns were being transported from southern states which have lax gun laws and were mostly run by large scale gun operations. They also suggested that the supply side was driven by the demand for new semiautomatics or guns that were only one or two steps away from retail sale. Others though that at least half of Boston's gun market was supplied by small "straw purchasers" who only dealt with one or two guns at a time and were rarely targets of enforcement. Still others believed that gang members shared guns among themselves.
Findings from interviews with youth on probation confirmed some beliefs. The youth reported that: 1) guns were readily available in Boston either through illegal sales or by borrowing from family and friends; 2) they admitted sharing guns, 3) they preferred new guns and they did not steal guns because they liked the newer semiautomatic guns and older guns were more likely available through burglary; and 4) stolen guns were more likely to have had a history of criminality associated with the gun and they did not want to charged with crimes they did not commit.
Further information on the supply side was gleaned though the new system of gun tracing. Since 1991 the Boston Police Department and BATF have traced every gun collected by the police. The database contains 3,543 records of guns where the age of the corresponding suspect is known and 1,550 records for guns with suspects under the age of 21. Findings from the analysis refereed to records of those who were 21 and under. They found that for most of the cases the recovery of the gun was associated with simple possession and for only 17% non-possession crimes had occurred. For traceable guns that did not have obliterated serial numbers, most guns had been picked up in the same neighborhood. Other important findings of traceable guns included: 1) most guns recovered from youth were handguns, mostly semiautomatic pistols; 2) most guns were traceable to retailers in Massachusetts followed by 8% in Georgia and then other southern states; and 3) the recovery time varied where about a quarter of the guns were recovered within two years of being sold and third were ten years or older. Almost 20% of all guns in the dataset were non-traceable guns due to obliterated serial numbers. Nearly 75% of theses guns were semiautomatics suggesting that they were newer and non-stolen guns since semiautomatics are recent additions among the civilian population and since they are less likely to be acquired through burglary. In terms of findings between substantive crimes and crimes of possession, substantive crimes were less likely to be associated with semiautomatic pistols or revolvers, shot guns tend to be used; the weapons tend be slightly older, stolen and acquired in state. Differences between adults and youth indicate that adults tend to use long guns, especially in the case of substantive crimes. About 66% of adult substantive crime offenders had guns from Massachusetts, adults had lower rates of obliterated serial numbers and for both possession and substantive crime the time to crime for traceable guns was slower than both categories for youth.
The findings suggested that law enforcement possibilities are better for targeting the illicit market that supplies guns to youth, since the time to crime is quicker, new guns are preferred, and since the guns that youth acquire in Boston do not appear to be stolen. It was also important to note that theses findings were not consistent with the work of Sheley and Wright; they attributed the differences to differences in the sampleís age, area, and the types of questions asked.
Based on all the information collected, they identified several steps to interfere with Bostonís illicit gun market. The steps developed by the working group had an underlying goal of altering the common perception that engaging in the illicit gun market is risk-free, particularly among gang members, rather than try to completely shut down the illicit gun market. One step was to trace the guns that had the fastest time to crime. The Boston Police Department and the BATF intend to have an active investigation for every trace that has a time to crime of less than 30 months, with higher priority given to traces showing more popular gun types, traces obtained from guns with restored obliterated serial numbers, guns from high risk neighborhoods, and gang affiliated guns. The slower time to crime portion of the gun market would be addressed using the traditional policing and investigative practices. Another step involved using the trace dataset to determine whether there are any patterns involving federal firearm licensees (FFLs) and first purchasers. A step that is currently being conducted was to examine the link between historical information and investigative activities of gangs and the trace dataset. This involves looking back through the five year trace dataset and identifying which gun possessors were gang members, mapping the location of recovered firearms, and using these results to link them to the FFLs and first purchasers. Interestingly, another step involved those charged with serious non-gun related offenses. Since getting gun market information from those facing gun related charges has been limited, they began trying to elicit gun market information from those facing serious non-gun charges and have reported good success. Other possibilities included reverse stings, probation officers communicating with high risk youth that the judicial system will be trading in gun information and that there would be undercover investigators and "gun dealers" in the city. While they anticipate a change in the demand (from newer to older guns) and other tactics to get around these steps by trying to acquire guns for illegal behavior, they argued that even a temporary disruption would have an effect on interrupting the illicit gun market.
The Boston Project also included an evaluation component. The evaluation of this strategy departs from traditional designs, where the levels of crime in the treatment areas are compared to control group areas within the city. They provided several reasons for this departure. First, control group areas or gang control groups within the city are not available since they are employing the strategy throughout the city. Second, the strategy involves the communication of the projectsí strategies to the gang members with the hope that they will communicate them to others who have not been directly subjected to the heightened surveillance. The authors suggested that the effectiveness of this deterrence strategy could not be measured since they also wanted to reach and affect the behavior of those who are not directly subjected to enforcement attention. Thus, the evaluation will compare changes in the overall rates of youth violence in Boston to changes youth violence in other like cities for the same time period. Additionally, the authors will assess the effect of intermediated goals through surveys, and ethnographic research, comparing pre- and post-intervention differences in Boston to other cities if possible. The intermediated goals included: disrupting illicit gun markets, reducing youth gang violence, and reducing levels of fear among youth. Lastly, a process history will include information from regular site visits, participant interviews, as well as activity and statistical data from police reports and activity logs that will be collected by the participating institutions.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Massachusetts
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Firearms Violence
KW - Firearms Ownership
KW - Firearms Intervention
KW - Violence Intervention |