Peers and Gun Use Among Urban Adolescent Males

• DOI: 10.1177/1043986208328449
• Published date: 01 February 2009
• Date: 01 February 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

20

Journal of Contemporary

Criminal Justice

Volume25 Number 1

February 2009 20-44

© 2009 Sage Publications

10.1177/1043986208328449

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Peers and Gun Use Among

Urban Adolescent Males

An Examination of

Social Embeddedness

Deanna L. Wilkinson

Marquette S. McBryde

Brice Williams

Shelly Bloom

Kerryn Bell

The Ohio State University, Columbus

Youth gun violence is most often a group phenomenon yet most empirical examina-

tions ignore this fact. Using interview data with 416 violent male offenders from two

disadvantaged New York City neighborhoods, this paper examines the roles that the

peer contexts play in explaining the nuanced patterns of respondent gun-related

behaviors. Wehypothesize that respondents who are comparatively more embedded in

networks of peers who carry and use guns will also report greater involvement in seri-

ous gun violence. We found that guns were equated with self-protection and the most

prevalent reason given for possession and carrying behaviors of peers. Belonging to a

group of associates was also perceived to have protectivevalue. Guns and armed peers

played a role in heightened risk for lethal conflict. Peers are involved as co-offenders

in the majority of gun events reported. We discuss the implications of our findings for

violence intervention policy and future research.

Keywords: guns; cooffending; group processes; gun crime; third party roles; self-

protection; violence

Gun violence has been part of the collective psyche ofAmericans for the past sev-

eral decades with the impact being felt most severely among AfricanAmerican,

urban youth. Homicide has been the leading cause of death for African Americans

aged 15 to 24 since 1981 and either the leading or second leading cause of death for

African Americans aged 25 to 34 from 1981 to 2005 (CDC Wonder, 2006). Whether

in urban centers or more recently in the nation’s rural heartlands, guns have been

central to the character of youth violence for nearly 30 years (Wilkinson & Fagan,

Wilkinson et al. / Peers and Gun Use Among UrbanAdolescent Males 21

2001; Zimring, 1999). Guns have played a significant role in shaping the develop-

mental trajectories and behaviors of many inner-city youths, and through the

extended reach of media reports, youth in suburban and rural areas have also grown

up affected by the images of gun violence. Although violence has been a recurrent

theme for decades in contributing to urban delinquency, youth gun violence has

become more prevalent and more concentrated spatially and socially during the

eighties and nineties (Cook & Laub, 1998; Fagan & Wilkinson, 1998a).

In this essay, we summarize recent studies on the trends in youth violence specif-

ically related to firearms violence. Next, we present empirical findings on the gun-

related behaviors among the peers of violent male youthful offenders. Third, we

explore the qualitative ways in which the peer context shapes gun-related behaviors.

Fourth, we examine patterns of cooffending versus solo offending in gun events.

Finally, we discuss the policy implications from our findings.

Theoretical Framework

Dating back to early studies by Sutherland (1927), Shaw and McKay (1931),

Short and Nye (1958), and Wolfgang (1958), scholars have consistently found that

delinquency often occurs in the context of groups. Despite this empirical fact, most

studies of youth delinquency, particularly violent delinquency, have not focused on

its group nature (see Conway & McCord, 2002; McCord & Conway, 2005;

McGloin, Sullivan, Piquero, & Bacon, 2008; Warr, 1996, 2002 for exceptions). Gang

studies would be another exception but even gang studies have generally failed to

examine the relational contexts of peer influence with regard to particular cooffend-

ing in violent events. The issue over whether violence perpetrated by a group of

youth constitutes gang violence is, in part, a definitional one (Klein & Maxson,

2006). Youth may engage in collective violence, but they may not actually be gang

members. Most criminological theories overlook the group character of delinquent

and criminal behavior (see Reiss, 1986; Warr, 2002 for exceptions). Urban male gun

violence in particular is likely to be characterized as a group-on-group phenomenon,

which may have features of group threat as well as individual conflict at its core.

Authors’Note: The New York CityYouth ViolenceStudy was supported by grants from the Harry Frank

Guggenheim Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Justice, and

the National Science Foundation. This article was supported through funds from the National Institute of

Justice XIJ-2006-0-04 and support from The Ohio State University.The opinions are solely those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies. Special thanks are due to the authors’

field research staff and research assistants including Anjali Chavan,Lorianna Brigli, and Chanel Moore.

The authors also thank Rachel Awkward, Anita Parker, and Chauncey Beaty for engagingin discussions

with them about the data and findings. Please address correspondence to Deanna L. Wilkinson, PhD,

College of Education and Human Ecology, Department of Human Developmentand Family Science, The

Ohio State University, 135 Campbell Hall, Columbus,OH 43210; e-mail: Wilkinson.110@osu.edu.