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Abstract
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OBJECTIVES--To learn how, when, where, and why juvenile offenders acquire guns. DESIGN--Following acquisition of informed consent, we conducted semistructured interviews between June and November 1995 with a convenience sample of 63 juvenile offenders aged 13 through 18 years, each of whom was incarcerated at a detention center in metropolitan Atlanta, Ga. SETTING--Five detention centers in metropolitan Atlanta. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Frequency of handgun acquisition and use, age at and method of first handgun acquisition, feelings experienced when carrying guns, development of gun-carrying behavior, drug use, and gang membership. RESULTS--The mean age of respondents was 15.7 years. Forty-one male and 12 female respondents had owned a gun. Eighty-four percent of gun carriers acquired their first gun before the age of 15 years; more than half received their first gun passively, without any specific plan to do so. Adolescents who purposefully obtained their first handgun were more likely to become frequent or constant carriers. Forty percent felt safer and 40% said they felt more energized, excited, or powerful while carrying a gun. However, 34% reported increased anxiety about getting caught. Almost all stated that guns are readily available from a wide range of sources. CONCLUSION--Knowledge of the developmental patterns of gun carrying by delinquent adolescents could be useful in formulating effective strategies to reduce firearm violence.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The goal of this paper by Ash et al. was to investigate how, when, where, and why juvenile offenders acquire guns.
METHODOLOGY:
A quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study was employed, using a convenience sample of sixty-two juvenile offenders aged 13-18 incarcerated at one of five detention centers in Atlanta, Georgia. Forty-two males and twenty-one females with a median age of 15.7 were interviewed. 66% of the respondents were African American, while the rest were white. Offenses ranged from status offenses to murder.
Semistructured interview schedules were used to explore a range of issues including the following: previous experience with violence and victimization, age of first involvement with firearms, patterns and context of use, feelings experienced while carrying a gun, and knowledge of how peers acquired guns. Moreover, questions were adapted from the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children were included to make diagnoses of substance abuse and dependence.
Analysis included the use of percentages and means as well as exploring correlations using the nonparametric Spearman rank correlation.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
Overall, fifty-three respondents (forty-one boys and twelve girls) had owned handguns at some point in their lives. 84% had gotten their first handgun before they were 15. 89% of gun owners cited protection as the most important reason carrying a gun.
In regards to prior exposure to violence, all of the respondents knew at least one person who had been shot. 76% of the respondents had witnessed at least one shooting. Almost three-fourths of the respondents had been threatened by an armed offender. 48% had actually been shot at themselves.
In terms of acquiring their first gun, more than half of the respondents stated that they obtained their first firearm without any specific plan to do so. 42% were given their first gun by a peer, older youth, or relative. 5% found their first gun and 5% acquired it by chance during a burglary or robbery. 17% acquired their first gun by borrowing, 11% by buying, and 10% by stealing. 8% acquired their first firearm in response to some traumatic event.
The gun carrying activity appeared to fall into four discrete types. The first group (n=14) never carried a gun and all but four had never owned a gun. The second group (n=14) each owned one or more guns but did not carry them all the time. The third group (n=11) began carrying a gun part-time, but increased the frequency that they carried over time. The fourth group (n=24) were considered constant carriers. These respondents carried all of the time or most of the time since they had acquired their guns.
In terms of feelings about guns, the following feelings were expressed: 40% of the respondents expressed feelings of being safer when they carried, 34% expressed feeling anxious about being stopped by the police, and 40% expressed that they felt energized, excited, powerful, and dangerous.
When asked what advice they would give a friend who wanted to get a gun, the most common recommendation was to buy one on the street (57%). Stealing (19%), borrowing (9%), trading (6%), or buying from a gun store or pawnshop (4%) came next. Respondents recommended that to locate someone willing to sell a gun on the street, the person should "go where most of the drug dealing is going on" (p. 1757). Reported prices for guns varied widely.
Finally, 41% of the carriers stated they had pointed a gun at someone at least once, while twenty-nine male carriers and four female carriers claimed to have shot at another person. Gang membership was not associated with the subjects' gun-carrying pattern or the age at which the individual first obtained the handgun.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors recommended the following: education about the danger of guns should start in elementary school; programs that teach survival skills or enhance self-esteem should be started; increased enforcement should be implemented; efforts should be made to both decrease the demand and supply for illegal guns; and adults who illegally supply guns to juveniles should be identified and prosecuted. (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 - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Firearms Carrying
KW - Juvenile Firearms Ownership
KW - Juvenile Firearms Use
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Firearms Carrying Causes
KW - Firearms Use Causes
KW - Firearms Ownership Causes
KW - Firearms Violence
KW - Georgia
KW - Female Offender
KW - Male Offender
KW - Male Violence
KW - Female Violence
KW - Juvenile Female
KW - Juvenile Male
KW - Juvenile Inmate
KW - Female Inmate
KW - Male Inmate
KW - Incarcerated
KW - Inmate Studies
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - Late Adolescence |