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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE--To assess the degree to which inner-city high school students are victimized by threat of or actual firearm attack. DESIGN--Cross-sectional survey. SETTING--Ten inner-city high schools in five cities in four states. PARTICIPANTS--A total of 1653 male and female inner-city high school students responding anonymously. SELECTION PROCEDURES--Volunteer, convenience sample. INTERVENTIONS--None. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS--Twenty-three percent of respondents were classified as victims. Major variables predicting victimization levels were gender, number of siblings, exposure to violence outside of school, and personal violence-related attributes. Only one in 10 victimizations appeared to be random (ie, not predicted by these variables). CONCLUSIONS--Violence in school is brought into, rather than generated by, the school. Victimized students have characteristics that put them at higher risk of victimization than other students. Given the large number of victimizations and the large number of respondents with risk characteristics, intervention at the individual level seems ineffective. Instead, alteration of community social structure and culture appears to be the appropriate, although difficult, avenue of change for gun-related victimization levels.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study by Sheley et al. was to discover the degree that inner-city high school students are victims of gun-related violence in order to guide policy-making seeking to reduce the risk of gun-related violence.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors did a quasi-experimental study utilizing a cross-sectional survey of a sample of 1653 inner city high school students. Students filled out the questionnaire on a voluntary basis. Gun related victimization was measured by using responses to survey items involving threats with guns and being shot at while in school or in transit to or from school in the past few years. Responses could range from never to many times. Each response to the survey item regarding gun-firing was doubled to weight it as the more serious. Demographic variables included in the study were race (black and non-black), living arrangement, gender, grade, number of siblings, and employment. Three items measured exposure to violence outside of school. Three items measured exposure to violence in school. Gun-related victimization, the dependent variable, was measured by combining responses to questionnaire items involving threats with guns and being shot at while in school or on the to or from school in the last few years.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The study found that 20% of the students had been threatened with a gun, and 12% had been shot at. Two times as many males as females were threatened with a gun. Thirty-nine percent of the respondents reported that males in their families habitually carried guns outside their homes. Twenty-three percent of the respondents said their neighborhoods were saturated with easily accessible guns. Thirty-eight percent of the students concurred that there was a lot of violence in their schools. Females were more likely to agree than males. Schoolmates who had carried guns to school during the last year were personally known by 16% of the respondents. Six percent of the respondents carried a gun to school at least "now and then." Outside of school 22% of students carried a gun. The authors found that there were significant relationships between gun-related victimization and gender, number of siblings, whether family members carried guns, whether students carried guns in and out of school, whether or not students used and sold drugs, and for those with none of these characteristics, whether they associated with others who carried guns to school. Eighty-nine percent of the victims in this study had at least one characteristic that put them at greater risk for gun-related victimization. Schools seem to be embedded in the violence that surrounds them, but do not generate violence themselves.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
On the basis of this research the authors recommend that change must not be directed toward the individual, but toward change in the family, community, and society. The authors emphasize the structural factors that have cultivated a culture of violence as the important factors that must be dealt with. The authors suggested a concerted effort to rebuild the social structure of inner cities.
(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 - Urban Youth
KW - Senior High School Student
KW - Late Adolescence
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - Student Victim
KW - Victimization Incidence and Prevalence
KW - Firearms Violence
KW - Violence Prevention
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Victim
KW - Violence Incidence and Prevalence
KW - Firearms In School |