In the Zone This Month: November 2009
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Lessons about Gun Violence from the New York City Youth Violence Study (NYCYVS) for School Settings and Beyond
by Deanna Wilkinson
Background: The New York City Youth Violence Study (NYCYVS) is an interview study of 416 male violent offenders and the transactional aspects of 780 near-violent and violent incidents.
Some key lessons:
- Among crime involved and criminal justice samples prevalence and exposure to guns and gun violence are considerably higher than reports by school students.
- Gun possession, acquisition, and gun use behaviors occur in a context of an ecology of danger.
- NYCYVS youth reported easy availability of handguns through family members, friends, local drug dealers who brought guns into NYC from other less restrictive states including Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
- Peer influences on gun carrying and possession are strong. Youth do what they think their peers are doing.
- Guns fascinate youth in the NYCYVS study for their symbolic and actual power and danger.
- Early gun firing experiences included firing guns into the air on holidays like the 4th of July, Halloween, or New Year’s Eve. Generally, they were noncriminal acts.
- Carrying habits were altered by increased police presence with shifts from frequent carrying to situational carrying.
- Carrying habits were influenced by gun newness and routine activities including drug selling, involvement in ongoing conflict, movement through other neighborhoods and level of police presence.
- Gun events were much less common in the school environment compared to other settings such as the neighborhood.
- There is a need to think about the school-community continuum in terms of how disputes that happen in one context can and will spill out into other contexts. For example, a verbal argument at school might escalate to a fist fight over school property. School students in the community also bring neighborhood disputes into the schools. Schools generally are much safer places because administrators can control access to weapons as well as controlling the movement of students to prevent violence from occurring.
- Offenders may think about a student coming out of school as a perfect “sitting duck” target because he or she won’t be prepared for a violent confrontation.
- Peer influences are central to setting standards, gaining and maintaining control of problematic students, and enforcing nonviolence norms.
- Gossip fuels status gains from violence, talking about what happened in a violent event in terms of feelings and empathy is suggested rather than focusing on the action drama that places the violent experiences in the entertainment category.
- Violence is attractive to people. It is powerful. Resolving conflict without violence is also powerful especially when the effort is supported by peers and adults and the environment feels safer.
- Administrators should think about ways of enhancing students interpersonal problem solving skills by integrating strategies into routines of the school day and use minor conflicts that arise but get resolved peaceful as exemplars for conduct.
- Interpersonal conflict is inevitable. We all face it. People have differences of opinion, biases, control issues, etc. that create opportunities for conflict. Mature people build up a repertoire of strategies to handle situations that help avoid violence. High levels of exposure to violence translate into repertoires of violent scripts.
- There are some issues that today’s youth face that need to be recognized, and strategies should be devised to help kids break away from pressure toward violent behaviors. For example, it is common in American culture for people to believe that individuals need to stand up for themselves or they could be targets of crime, teasing, manipulation, and stigma. Being passive and letting someone do harm you is perceived as weak. Weakness is stigmatized. Many youth grow up believing (and adults reinforce) the idea that some violence is necessary for survival in a dangerous world. Youth also fear that reporting threatening, intimidating, or violent behavior (also known as “snitching”) to an adult will result in further problems. In environments in which adults do not have control over safety concerns, youths’ perceptions grow even more skewed toward the functions of violence.
- Schools need to make active attempts to break violence myths that many students, teachers, and administrators hold. Violence is not evadible. Violence is not “boys being boys.” Violence is preventable!
Reference: Wilkinson, Deanna. L. (2009). Event Dynamics and the Role of Third Parties in Youth Violence. Final Report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. Grant#: 2006-IJ-CX-0004. Columbus, Ohio. May 28. 300+ pages.
Deanna L. Wilkinson, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, and founder of the OSU Youth Violence Prevention Advisory Board. Webpage: http://people.ehe.ohio-state.edu/dwilkinson/
