Understanding Gun Violence

Through an Opportunity Framework

Charles Noble J.D., M.C.P. Legal Analyst

&Kwame Christian J.D., M.A.

Legal Analyst

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity

• Founded in 2003

• Intentionally designed as a multidisciplinary institution

• Engaged research institute

Our understanding of opportunity has shifted with time from a one-dimensional understanding, where one bar explains differential outcomes...

…to a multi-dimensional understanding.

Structural Inequality

–Example: a Bird in a cage. Examining one bar alone cannot explain why a bird cannot fly. But multiple bars, arranged in specific ways, reinforce each other and trap the bird.

Thesis

Gun violence does not exist in a vacuum. To address gun violence effectively, we must address the structures and systems which precipitate it.

Happy April Fools Day!

Scope of Gun Violence in America

Gun-related-violence has claimed 25,000 lives each year for the past decade.

Corollaries of Gun Violence

● Income inequality is a powerful predictor of firearm homicide and violent crime

Black Males & Gun Violence

Between now and 2025, gun violence is projected to claim the lives of approximately 68,600 black males.

Black Males & Gun Violence

Opportunity Mapping

Opportunity Maps show the distribution of neighborhood-based opportunities

Three opportunity domains:

1. Educational opportunity

2. Health and physical environment

3. Social and economic indicators

that are critical to opening and maintaining pathways to

African American Population

LatinoPopulation

Why do some neighborhoods produce more violence?

History and Policy

Our government has systematically invested in certain neighborhoods while divesting in others on the federal, state and local levels.

“Opportunity Rich”

“Opportunity Poor”

Place, Race and Opportunity Structures:Neighborhoods & Access to Opportunity

• Your environment has a profound impact on your access to opportunity and likelihood of success

• High poverty areas with poor employment, underperforming schools, distressed housing and public health/safety risks depress life outcomeso A system of disadvantageo Many manifestations

Urban, rural, suburban

• People of color are far more likely to live in opportunity deprived neighborhoods and communities

Psychological Effects of Gun Violence on Children

● Inner-city children are heavily exposed to a number of violent events in their daily lives.

● Effects similar to post traumatic stress disorder

● High levels of witnessing violence place youth at risk for psychological, social, academic, and physical difficulties, as well as for engaging in violent acts themselves.

“Fitzpatrick and Boldizar (1993), studying the relationship between chronic exposure to community violence and PTSD symptoms in a nonrandom sample of 221 low income, 7-18-year-old African American youth, found moderately high symptomatology, with 27.1% meeting all three DSM III-R diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Greater exposure, either as a victim or witness, was positively related to increased reporting of PTSD symptoms.”

Effects of Psychological Trauma

● Extreme levels of stress and trauma can cause alterations in brain development and destruction of brain cells, which inhibits the ability to learn

● Leads to behavior disorders

● Triggers fight or flight response, which leads to the release of stress hormones.

Gun ViolencePsychological

Trauma

Decreased Academic

Achievement

Decreased Earnings

Live in Low Opportunity Community

Firearm Violence Prevention

“For too long, white middle-class interventionists have developed interventions for white middle-class groups and have presumed that these programs are appropriate for other groups. Furthermore, they have attributed the lack of success of these programs when implemented with new cultural groups rather than the inappropriateness of the intervention.” Kenneth A. Dodge, M.D.

Firearm Violence Prevention

• Targeting unauthorized gun possession or use

• Individual risk and protective factors

• Addressing gun violence by increasing opportunity

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

SourcesPrevalence and impact of exposure to interpersonal violence among suburban and urban middle

school students. Carla Campbell & Donald Shorts. Pediatrics. 98.3 (Sept. 1996): p. 396.

Factors influencing gun carrying among young urban males over the adolescent-young adult life course. Lizotee et al. Criminology, Vol. 38.3 (2000) 811

Youth Exposure to Violence: Prevalence, Risks, and Consequences. Buka et al. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 71(3), July 2001.

The science of youth violence prevention: Progressing from developmental epidemiology to efficacy to effectiveness to public policy. Dodge, Kenneth A. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, (20)1, 2001.

First time gun carrying and the primary prevention of youth gun violence for African American youth living in extreme poverty. Spano, Richard. Aggression and Violent Behavior 17 (2012) 83-88.

Network exposure and homicide victimization in an African American community. Papachristos, Andrew V. American Journal of Public Health, January 2014, Vol. 104, No. 1.

Taking aim at gun violence. Bryant, Rhonda. CLASP, Rebuilding Community & Education Pathways, Apr. 2013.

National Research Council. Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013.