Title: Proceedings of the Homicide Research Working Group Meeting,
1997 and 1998 (pages 58- 113).
Series: Research Forum
Author(s): NIJ
Published: National Institute of Justice, 1999
Subject: Homicide, domestice violence, juvenile violence, gun violence,
gangs, crime patterns and future trends, and statistics
58 pages
139,000 bytes

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WHAT WORKS? Using Firearm Tracing Information in Violence
Reduction Intervention Projects

June 11, 1997, 8:30-9:45 Session
Session Recorder: Steven Roth

Speakers: 

John Firman
Director of Research
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)

Paul Blackman
National Rifle Association
Institute for Legislative Action

Joseph Vince
Chief, Firearms Division
Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

Anthony Braga and David Kennedy
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

------------------------------

John Firman: A Work in Progress: The IACP Gun Trafficking Interdiction
Project 

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has been
conducting a firearm trafficking interdiction project. In essence, it is a
technical assistance project in which IACP personnel are sent to police
departments throughout the United States to help law enforcement
agencies track the source of guns recovered as part of criminal
investigations within their respective jurisdictions. In order to get at the
root of firearm homicide, information besides forensic evidence
concerning the gun and the body can be used. Namely, by determining the
trafficking routes and sources of firearms involved in homicides and other
violent crimes, illegal gun trafficking can be interdicted. If the sources of
illegal guns can be reduced, a decrease in homicides involving firearms
will result. 

Paul Blackman: The Limitations on BATF Firearm Tracing Data for
Policymaking and Homicide Research

Criminological research based on firearm tracing data conducted by the
Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is suspect
because ATF is asked to conduct traces on a small minority of firearms
used in crimes, including homicide. Also, the process by which law
enforcement requests ATF to perform traces is selective--focusing on guns
manufactured since 1990. It is not representative of all firearms recovered
by police.

Of the guns recovered by Project Lead (the ATF/NYPD task force that
seeks to determine the origin of firearms recovered by the NYPD), only
six percent of the recovered guns are traced to point of original sale.
Research by Glenn Pierce et al. has suggested that only two percent of
firearms dealers are accountable for 75 percent of all gun sales, as revealed
by ATF traces. In addition, ATF does not reported multiple sales. Because
of these data deficiencies, while ATF trace data may be useful for law
enforcement purposes, it is not useful for research purposes. While Project
Lead has indicated that Virginia is the major state of original purchase for
firearms recovered in New York City, only two percent of guns associated
with homicide in NYC were originally purchased in Virginia, though ATF
says this picture is changing . Lois Mock (NIJ) mentioned the NIJ study
on gun
trafficking in 17 U.S. cities that is based on 100 percent of the firearms
recovered in these cities.

Joseph Vince

Mr. Vince responded to Paul Blackman's commentary on the research
utility of using ATF trace data by saying "The proof is in the pudding." In
other words, firearms trace data has been used effectively to determine
sources of guns ultimately used in criminal acts. Since Project Lead started
in 1992, as a result law enforcement has interdicted thousands of illegal
firearms. There have been 78 prosecutions resulting from evidence
acquired through firearm traces. An enormous amount of data is being
collected on suspect gun dealers, purchasers and illegal trafficking
systems. However, there is a "learning curve" for efficient use of this
information. In order for the trace program to be optimally effective, state
and local law enforcement must utilize the system. ATF's reports will be
available through its webpage, thereby making the information more
accessible, and the program more well-known.

Anthony Braga and David Kennedy

Since January 1991, every gun recovered by the Boston Police Department
has been traced by ATF, resulting in 60 percent being successfully traced,
20 percent with obliterated serial numbers, and the remaining guns fitting
a "new" profile. Of those who carry illegal firearms, youth (21 and under)
are more likely to have semiautomatics, and to have guns with obliterated
serial numbers. For non-gang youth from whom firearms were recovered,
location of original purchase was as follows--Massachusetts: 35.5 percent;
southern states: 29.2 percent; and 15.1 percent New England plus New
York. This compares to location of original purchase for guns recovered
from youth gang members--Massachusetts: 28.3 percent; southern states:
40.9 percent; and New England plus New York: 15.1 percent.

Concerning newly manufactured (less than two years old, "fast") guns that
are easier to trace, of 426 firearms, the types of guns recovered and traced
were as follows--semiautomatics: 80.8 percent; shotguns: 7.7 percent;
revolvers: 7.0 percent; and rifles: 4.5 percent. One-quarter of both
traceable and semiautomatic firearms are "fast." Gang members
particularly like to possess semiautomatic weapons--with semiautomatics
comprising 87 percent of the firearms recovered from the people in the
gang pool, and 75 percent of all guns recovered from youth. Three quarters
of these were .380 caliber or 9 millimeter. Adults are more likely to
possess .22 caliber firearms and shotguns. Types of guns more likely to
have obliterated serial numbers are semiautos, and so-called "Ring of Fire"
guns including Loricin.

ATF is conducting a study of guns with obliterated serial numbers, and
new forensic techniques are being developed to raise defaced serial
numbers to legibility--effective about 50 percent of the time.

Gun trafficking organizations became apparent through tracing of guns
recovered from gang members. Most suppliers of gang guns went to
Georgia to purchase, brought them to Boston, and sold them on the
streets, the guns ending up in the hands of gang members. By examining
the gun tracing data, multiple purchasers of guns were identified, which
confirmed suspicions of problem gun dealers and purchasers.

As a result of the Boston gun tracing project, certain myths concerning
firearm trafficking were debunked. One prior perception shown to be
inaccurate is that the overwhelming percentage of guns recovered in
Boston were originally purchased from southern states. The study also
revealed that most guns involved in criminal investigations were
purchased, rather than being stolen as previously believed. A great deal of
transfers of firearms between gangs was evident.

One law enforcement strategy developed in response to the study's
identification of criminal gun purchasers was for the police to interview
firearm dealers, especially dealers who sold a disproportionately high
number of guns that ended up in criminal investigations). The police met
with dealers, and made it clear to the dealers that if they sold a firearm to a
particular (problem) person, law enforcement would make a thorough
examination of the dealer's business with an eye toward vigorous
prosecution. In this and other ways, the study's data is already being used
to target law enforcement efforts.

Joseph Vince concluded that the study's results shows the value of Project
Lead, and extended an offer of assistance (as did John Firman of IACP) to
anyone who might benefit from their assistance.

------------------------------

The Limitations on BATF Firearms Tracing Data for Policymaking and
Homicide Research

Paul H. Blackman, National Rifle Association, 11250 Waples Mill Road,
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

Abstract

BATF firearms traces are a tool for prosecution of individual crimes, with
potential benefits in using the tracing data for law enforcement. There are,
however, severe limitations on the utility of those data for criminological
analysis and public policymaking aimed at reducing homicides, including
the minimal number of trace attempts and successes, the rules for
excluding guns and efforts to trace them, the limited information on the
basis for gun traces. While gun policies have been influenced by tracing
information, scientists should recognize the limitations of BATF tracing
data for policymaking, even if encouraging improvements in collection
and reasonable uses for law enforcement, policy evaluation, and homicide
research.

Introduction

Soon after the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA'68) improved the
paperwork trail for so that possible crime guns could be traced, without
too much trouble, to their first retail sale, criminologists attempted to
study statistical summaries of those traces with a view toward policy
recommendations, even though such tracing "was not designed to collect
statistics." (Bea, 1992, p. 65) To some extent, the trail had existed since
1938, when the Federal Firearms Act required inexpensive federal licenses
for persons selling guns interstate, but it was not used. When
Massachusetts' Commissioner of Public Safety, for example, testified on
the need for additional federal legislation, his assertion that 87% of the
state's crime guns came from elsewhere was based not on tracing them to
other states but on failing to find them in Massachusetts' records. (U.S.
Senate, 1965, pp. 345-46) Similarly, the staff report of the National
Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence relied on permit
applications, rather than tracing data, to determine if a gun originated
where it was misused. (Newton and Zimring, 1969, ch. 8)

Some of those early efforts, particularly by Frank Zimring, simultaneously
attempted analyses while recognizing the limitations of the criminological
use of BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms)[1] tracing data,
limitations also emphasized by the Police Foundation in its study, Firearm
Abuse. (Zimring, 1975, p. 183; Brill, 1977) For example, while using
BATF tracing data to support the theory that relatively new guns are
disproportionately used in crime, Zimring noted "the possibility that police
and federal agency sampling procedures had produced a nonrepresentative
sample of guns from New York...the bedeviling problem of sample
selection...." (Zimring, 1976, p. 96) He noted that older guns were more
difficult to trace; some data were not crime-specific with possessory
offenses predominating, something Zimring was reluctant to find a
sufficient reason for labeling something a "crime gun"; prescreening
prevented even tracing attempts for some firearms, and various other
limitations on basing analyses on tracing data. (Zimring, 1976, pp. 97-98,
101, 104-l06)

For its part, for the first two decades of GCA'68, as BATF sought to assist
law enforcement, it produced annual summaries of tracing efforts,
including the number of traces officially attempted and successfully
completed, with anecdotal references to a major crimes solved with tracing
and/or the speed of tracing guns involved in prominent shootings. For
example, BATF proudly noted that tracing a gun from an armored-car
robbery "led to the arrest and prosecution of the neo-Nazi cult known as
The Order" and that the gun used in the attempted assassination of Ronald
Reagan was traced to John Hinckley in 16 minutes.[2] (King, 1988)
Nonetheless, as BATF would acknowledge, its tracing is primarily for the
purpose of aiding law enforcement in identifying suspects, establishing
whether guns were stolen, and proving ownership (Pierce, Briggs and
Carlson, 1996, p.5), rather than for the systematic analysis of crime guns
or other policy- or research-related purposes.[3]

Limitations Related to State and Local Law Enforcement

Most guns involved in violent crimes are not traced, and those which are
represent not merely a small but an unrepresentative sample. (Bea, 1992,
p. 65) Some of this is unavoidable in a country with a relatively low
clearance rate for violent crimes. Nonetheless, even most guns seized as a
result of violent-crime investigations are not traced, and those traced are
unrepresentative of firearms used, leading some scholars to suggest that
confiscated firearms, while still flawed as a sample, provide a better
sample of "crime guns" than traced guns. (Brill, 1977, pp. 26, 42)

As Gregore J. Sambor, then Philadelphia Police Commissioner, noted,
"tracing a gun by use of serial number and proofmarks from a
manufacturer, through the wholesaler, to the retailer and then the
purchaser, and eventually the user, is not always necessary to prove the
facts of the case or the elements of the crime....[And] when a local agency
has adequate information and their own means available, they can
sometimes produce their own results quicker and with less chance of
error." He went on to cite a police killing where the Philadelphia police
found it more expeditious to telephone the German manufacturer, and
thence the Virginia dealer, leading them to the brother of the person
convicted. (Sambor, 1985) 

Tracing data may be unrepresentative because of the nature of criminal
investigations. If state or local requirements provide more thorough
recordkeeping than provided by federal law, there is no incentive to have
BATF trace guns; tracing through BATF could be considered both
superfluous and less efficient. For example, a Justice Department study
based on surveys of police departments, reported that some jurisdictions,
such as California, began with their own files on guns, and went on to note
that such files existed, too, for New York, New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland, in
addition to several cities, including Philadelphia and Miami.
(Weber-Burdin et al., 1981, ch. 4, p. 9) If jurisdictions with more records
first use them (Roth and Koper, 1997, p. 83) and only then turn to BATF
for firearms not found, while less restrictive jurisdictions start with BATF,
one result of BATF tracing would be to exaggerate the out-of-state sources
of "crime guns" in restrictive jurisdictions vis-a-vis less restrictive
jurisdictions.

Even without such records, tracing might provide no particular benefit--
aside from the sometimes useful one of excluding other suspects or other
charges. Tracing is least needed where local resources are sufficient, or the
basis for access to the gun irrelevant, as with violent gun-related crimes.
Tracing should prove most useful where local resources are insufficient
and tracing information is likely to be available and useful, as with out-of-
jurisdiction guns not used in serious felonies--particularly if the trace
might suggest the possibility of a less obvious serious crime, federal or
state, such as gun and narcotics offenses. (For example, had tracing
provided evidence that John Hinckley had broken the law in his
acquisition of handguns, such tracing might have allowed prosecution for
a GCA'68 violation, but tracing provided no information necessary for his
prosecution for the violent crime of attempted presidential assassination.)

In the 1970s, most law enforcement agencies, according to an NIJ-funded
study led by James Wright and Peter Rossi, made little use of BATF and
were dissatisfied with the results. (Wright and Rossi, 1981, p. 23)
Surveyed departments which used the National Crime Information Center
(NCIC) almost all used it for almost all firearms, but little more than a
quarter (with fewer agencies responding) of departments used BATF for
most or every
firearm implicated in a crime or found, confiscated, or recovered. (Weber-
Burdin et al., 1981, ch. 4, p. 13) The departments reporting some use (only
about three-fourths as many as reported use of NCIC) found the
experience much less useful than the NCIC, with over 30% reporting the
experience was seldom useful or was useless. Thus, almost twice as many
departments reported generally finding NCIC useful as similarly found
BATF generally useful. (Weber-Burdin et al., 1981, ch. 4, p. 16)

Although soon after that BATF began making serious efforts to improve
cooperation with local police (Vizzard, 1997, pp. 88-89), and there has
clearly been a great change in the willingness of local law enforcement to
use BATF's tracing services, some facts have remained constant over the
decades. There is no standardized procedure for ensuring consistent
definitions or terms for identifying the circumstances leading to a trace, if
identified at all. In addition, categorization may be done hastily, because
the investigation which would explain in full the reason a firearm was
obtained by police had not yet been completed, allowing such a 
determination to be made. (Bea, 1992, pp. 65, 70-71) And some dramatic
changes in classification figures would suggest a classification change. For
example, traced military-style semi-automatics went from being traced
generally for "miscellaneous" reasons (39%) in 1986 to just 1% for that
reason in 1990, with disproportionate increases both in violent crimes and
gun-law violations. (Bea, 1992, p. 72) 

And most guns seized by police and/or traced by BATF are not involved
in
violent crimes. Possessory offenses constitute the most common basis for
a
trace, with violent crimes only a minority of the reasons. Violent crimes
explained 15% of traces in 1977, and gun-law violations (federal or state)
about 45%, along with 20% unspecified "other" reasons than specific sorts
of crimes. (Letter and documents from Paul Mosny, BATF Disclosure
Branch, to Bob Dowlut, NRA, July 21, 1980) This despite the fact that,
during the 1980s, the crime codes were listed in order of BATF-perceived
severity, with only one crime code to be chosen. Nonetheless, property
crimes, drug investigations, and gun-law violations predominated, with
homicide investigations the most common violent crime investigation
associated with a trace, and "miscellaneous" and "other" explaining almost
as many traces as other violent crimes. (BATF tape analysis for 1989
supplied to the NRA, Feb. 9, 1990, based on coding tables, effective Oct.
1, 1986) There was not even a specific category for burglary. (Bea, 1992,
pp. 70-71) 

The 1990s' coding of the types of crimes associated with traces is much
more extensive, at nearly three dozen compared to ten or twelve in the
1980s (including transportation/possession of untaxpaid cigarettes), but
with property crimes, gun-law violations, drug offenses, and other
unspecified criminal investigations still predominating. (Letter from
BATF Director John W. Magaw, to Sen. Larry E. Craig, April 1, 1994) In
the largest recent study of BATF traces, roughly five-eighths were for
weapons offenses, and just over one-seventh for violent crimes. (Pierce,
Briggs and Carlson, 1996, Table 3) A study in Boston, where traces were
to be conducted wherever possible on all seized guns, showed only 18%
were connected to a substantive crimes rather than possessory offenses or
in police custody for some other reason (Kennedy, Piehl and Braga, 1996a,
Table 10) A Los Angeles area study of traced guns showed two-thirds for
possessory offenses and one-sixth for violent crimes. (Wachtel, 1996, p.
12)

And even traces of guns as a result of a violent-crime investigation do not
indicate the role of the firearm in the crime or the investigation. A firearm
from a homicide investigation may have been used in the homicide, found
at the scene, recovered from the body of the deceased--not likely to be
uncommon where many homicides involve disputes between persons with
criminal records (Kates, Schaffer, Lattimer, Murray and Cassem, 1995, pp.
579-84) where the loser is less likely than the winner to remove any of his
weapons from the scene of the crime--or recovered at the time of the
arrest. The most detailed statistical information from BATF simply
indicates the sort of investigation associated with the trace request.[4] A
firearm simply found, turned in, or otherwise recovered, might be traced to
indicate whether it might have been stolen, potentially making it a
property crime investigation, or the official reason given BATF for the
trace might be miscellaneous or other. Nothing in the coding, or in any
information collected by BATF and thus available to researchers or to
others, indicates which of the guns traced were used to commit which
crimes. As BATF has made clear with regard to the guns it traces, "ATF
does not track the incidence of specific use of each one of these firearms in
crimes....[T]races requested by police are not always for guns that are used
in crimes. Traces are sometimes submitted for firearms recovered by
police investigating crimes where the guns were found but were not
necessarily used to commit a crime....We do not establish the criteria as to
when State or local law enforcement agencies initiate a trace of a firearm."
(Letter from Daniel M. Hartnett [Deputy Director for Enforcement], for
the BATF Director, to Rep. Richard T. Schulze, March 31, 1992)

Traces of guns to other states would not necessarily represent gun
trafficking to avoid restrictive gun laws, especially with the average traced
gun about five years old (Pierce, Briggs and Carlson, 1996), and untraced
guns presumably still older, since age is a key reason for BATF not to
attempt a trace. As a mobile nation, where roughly one-fifth of the
populace moves each year, guns may be brought from another state simply
because persons previously lived in another state. Unsurprisingly, more
guns are apt to be bought where paperwork for firearms purchases make
the process not only less cumbersome but, in general, less expensive. The
large proportion of traces for possessory offenses would support
skepticism regarding the amount of trafficking suggested by traces, but, of
course, there is insufficient information on the reason for the trace for any
such inference to be well founded. And the willingness of youthful
offenders to discuss gun dealers but not drug dealers with police
(Kennedy, Piehl and Braga, 1996a, p. 80) suggests gun traffickers are
perceived by their customers to be less dangerous offenders.

Even when BATF is encouraging tracing, as with Project Lead in New
York City, relatively few firearms are traced. During the first nine months
of 1992, for example, of 13,382 firearms recovered by the New York
Police Department, only 1,231 (9%) were submitted for tracing, and 824
traced (6%). And there is no basis for believing that even that small
percentage is representative. At a time period when there were over one
thousand gun-related homicides in the city, three firearms were traced to
the alleged major crime-gun source, Virginia, as a result of homicide
investigations. (Memorandum from Project Lead to Special Agent in
Charge, New York Field Division, BATF, October 22, 1992) Regarding
1990, when a similar portion of New York City guns were selected for
tracing, BATF indicated that "[n]o information is available on why those
1,000 guns were selected out of the 17,000 for tracing." (Bea, 1992, p. 67)
During the first nine months of 1992, there were about 35,000 gun-related
violent crimes reported to the New York City police (Letter from Michael
A. Markman, NYPD Office of Management Analysis and Planning, to
Mark Overstreet, NRA, January 21, 1993); if violent crime involvement in
all the traces were similar to the portion traced to Virginia, and from
national BATF tracing data over the years, traces would have been
completed for approximately 0.4% of New York City's gun-related violent
crimes.

Nonetheless, although traces are much more apt to involve weapons
violations rather than violent crimes--roughly five-eighths of the traces
analyzed by Pierce, Briggs and Carlson (1996, Table 3)--among violent
crimes, homicide traces predominate, and they always have. A study based
on traces from the mid-1970s found that, among violent crime-related
traces, homicide investigations accounted for 45% of the traces.
Unfortunately, that study also found a greater disparity between what
confiscation and tracing data suggested about the types of guns used in
homicides than for other violent crimes. (Brill, 1977, pp. 61-62) A
computer analysis provided to the NRA by BATF for 1989 traces
suggested about one gun trace for every four gun-related homicides
reported to police, compared to one for every 125 gun-related assaults and
one for every 250 such robberies. (FBI, 1990) More recently, with more
extensive BATF efforts to persuade local authorities to use their NTC, the
figure has risen to one trace for every: two gun-related homicides, 50 gun-
related assaults, and 100 gun-related robberies. (Pierce, Briggs and
Carlson, 1996, Table 3; FBI, 1996) The numbers for homicides, at any
rate, are clearly reaching impressive size, even though the guns are not
necessarily murder weapons. The expanded tracing efforts, however,
because of BATF tracing practices, mean that for homicide there is now a
large and unrepresentative sample rather than a small unrepresentative
sample--with murder weapons differing from guns involved in non-lethal
assaults. (Brill, 1977, p. 71)

Limitations Due to BATF Tracing Practices

BATF recognizes the limitations local law enforcement practices place on
statistical analyses based on tracing data. The standard "data advisory"
BATF's NTC sends out with data requests notes than their data only reflect
trends relating to trace-requested guns, not to crime guns overall; that trace
requests involve "trace requests submitted on firearms used in crimes,
recovered from crime scenes, or suspected of being involved in crimes";
but BATF relies upon those federal, state, or local authorities submitting a
request to ensure that guns are related to crime investigations; not every
gun recovered is traced, and BATF does not know the extent to which
recovered guns are voluntarily submitted for traces. BATF's NTC notes
that the accuracy of their reports are dependent upon the accuracy of data
submitted. That advisory is well worth respecting, but it minimizes the
limitations of tracing data.

In addition to local law enforcement limitations on the representativeness
of traced guns, BATF imposes restrictions on tracing all but guaranteed to
make traced guns unrepresentative of crime guns--with changes in those
restrictions making temporal comparisons of tracing data problematic even
as they improve the efficiency and usefulness of tracing as a law-
enforcement tool--even when those restrictions are used without an eye for
policymaking or policy support. This is somewhat contrary to the BATF's
NTC's more limited advisory that the data "ONLY reflects trends relating
to those firearms for which a trace request is submitted and is only as
accurate as the information provided by trace requestors." 

At least some of BATF's restrictions on tracing, however, unlike the
unknown mechanisms by which local jurisdictions decide which guns to
trace, is systematic, even if changing. BATF does not like to attempt traces
where success is unlikely, either to enhance its abilities to report a higher
success rate--in the same way prosecutors pride themselves on conviction
percentages--or simply because the agency wishes the most cost-effective
use of its resources. It has thus long excluded older firearms (Brill, 1977,
pp. 94-95), as well as those whose serial numbers have apparently been
removed (Kennedy, Piehl and Braga, 1996a, p. 63), the technical efforts
needed to restore the number being deemed excessively costly. In order to
enhance the apparent success rate, local law enforcement is asked to
prescreen guns, and not ask for traces on those likely to be too old to be
traced. (Brill, 1977, pp. 57-58) The same cost-effective motivation means
rarely seeking to trace a firearm beyond its initial retail transfer.[5]

BATF's desire to make its tracing cost-effective severely limits its ability
to provide useful data for analysis. In the past, the records of
out-of-business dealers were less accessible than those of active
federally-licensed dealers, so such traces would be scotched as not worth
the effort (Brill, 1977, p.125), with such handguns underrepresented in
trace samples. (Zimring, 1976, p. 105) With computerization of those
records, now over half of traces use information from federal licensees
who have gone out of business (Pierce, Briggs and Carlson, 1996, p. 8), a
figure likely to rise at least some more as the number of dealers has
dropped over 60% during the Clinton administration. And tracing data
rarely give much in the way of sufficient detail for some analysis. For
example, the make, model, and serial number of a gun may allow a quick
trace, but specific information about the cosmetics of the gun may not be
on record (e.g., whether a particular semi-automatic rifle has a folding
stock); other information not determined by the manufacturer will also be
left out, such as the capacity of the magazine in the firearm as recovered;
and information which should be readily available may be reported
incorrectly or at least inconsistently. (Roth and Koper, 1997, p. 88)
Tracing data for 1988 list Colt's semi-automatic versions of its M16 at
least a dozen different ways--with variations on spacing, hyphenization,
names, letters, abbreviations, and others where the designation is unclear,
or the name or model are totally wrong--with even more for the Norinco
semi-automatic imitation of the AK-47. In addition, traces rarely go
beyond the simple information of who bought a gun where, to whether that
same purchaser acquired other firearms within a relatively short period of
time in the same or nearby stores. While some additional data could be
elicited from traces, that would involve expenditures of manpower
incompatible with BATF efforts to make tracing a more cost-effective law
enforcement tool.

Improvements in BATF recordkeeping and computerization--some lawful
and some apparently ultra vires--have enhanced its ability to conduct
traces, particularly of recent sales and of out-of-business dealers. And
BATF has made efforts to encourage more traces by law enforcement
agencies, particularly urban agencies, increasing the number of traces from
roughly 40,000 annually to closer to 100,000. That effort has been seen by
a friendly critic with decades of experience at BATF as partially politically
inspired and based on a misunderstanding of the firearms market and the
purposes of tracing, incorrectly emphasizing trafficking while most crime
guns move in individual transactions. (Vizzard, 1997, pp. 202, 210, 217-
18) Nonetheless, the increased numbers, combined with limitations on the
age of guns the Bureau is willing to attempt to trace, make earlier tracing
data chronologically incomparable to more recent data. The improvements
are geared toward enhancing the speed with which successful traces can be
conducted, and minimizing the need for labor intensive further delving by
BATF agents. Yet it is precisely the sorts of information which might be
elicited from such further investigation from which criminologists might
hope to learn more about criminals and their guns and gun sources. 

More recently, recognizing that tracing older firearms to their first retail
purchaser is not a cost-effective way to attempt to solve crimes, but that
tracing more recent guns may not only help solve crimes but provide
benefits in allocating law-enforcement resources toward particular dealers,
dealer types, or areas, BATF has more sharply limited its willingness to
attempt traces. It has gone this decade from rejecting most attempts at pre-
1985 guns to rejecting most attempts at pre-1990 guns. (Kennedy, Piehl
and Braga, 1996a, p. 58) With traced guns normally over five years old--
and six years for homicide-related traces--such a limitation undermines
any confidence that traced guns are representative of crime guns. (Pierce,
Briggs and Carlson, 1996, pp. 8-9 and Table 3) The emphasis on newer
guns automatically means an emphasis on semi-automatics compared to
revolvers, since they have come to dominate the newly-manufactured
handgun market, going from about one quarter to about four fifths of new
handguns between 1978 and 1993. (Thurman, 1994, pp. 102-103) To some
extent, such a new-gun emphasis would also emphasize the relatively
newer military-style semi-automatics and relatively inexpensive
semi-autos as well, roughly 0.33% of which are traced compared to 0.1%
of guns from the more traditional northeastern manufacturers. (Wintemute,
1994, p. 63)

In addition, trace attempts are frequently unsuccessful, even after
exclusions, with a figure fairly constant over time, but increasing as more
gun traces are attempted. In the 1970s, the estimate was that up to about
40% of traces were unsuccessful (Brill, 1977, pp. 84, 117; Weber-Burdin
et al., 1981, ch. 4, pp. 6-7), with a 45% failure rate with the massive
tracing the guns of "youth offenders" in Boston. (Kennedy, Piehl and
Braga, 1996a, Table 5) And, while the data were not presented particularly
clearly, it appears that a trace study by a BATF agent in the Los Angeles
area achieved only about a 42% success rate, supplementing California
state records checks with traditional BATF tracing procedures. (Wachtel,
1996, pp. 10-12) At the Homicide Research Working Group's Summer
1997 Seminar, Nunziato reported a 60% failure rate.

Investigations can, whether deliberately with a view toward influencing
policy, or by chance, affect what tracing may indicate. Pierce, Briggs and
Carlson (1996, p. 9) noted that a "sting" operation made Vermont data
stand out disproportionately but irrelevantly. Similarly, a serious
investigation had the same effect in evaluating Virginia as a source of
crime guns--and the end of the investigation could affect the evaluation of
Virginia's gun rationing law later. When it was reported that 41% of the
crime guns came from Virginia, it was variously reported that 27% of the
41% (10% of the total) (Goode, 1992), or "the vast majority" of the 41%
(Hynes, 1992) came from a single gun store, which BATF was
investigating in part with undercover purchases going to New York.
Whether BATF warned an uncooperative store of the problem of multiple
purchasers being gun traffickers, or the owners regularly telephoned
BATF regarding suspicious multiple purchases which might be headed for
New York, with BATF reassuring them that the guns should be sold, the
problem involved some guns carefully followed by BATF to New York
and then traced back, not guns which just by chance happened to be traced
to Virginia. (Affidavit of BATF Agent Irvin W. Moran, before U.S.
Magistrate Judge David G. Lowe, August 25, 1992; letter from BATF
Director John W. Magaw to Senator Olympia J. Snowe, February 23,
1996) A speedier crackdown on the offending gunshop would have
prevented the gun trafficking data from being so impressive, and Virginia
becomes as representative because of an investigation or sting or
entrapment-depending upon one's view of the investigation--as the
Vermont sting which Pierce, Briggs and Carlson note made Vermont data
artificially high for their study. 

Policy-influenced Limitations on Tracing Data

Policy may, intentionally or unintentionally, contribute to the
unrepresentative nature of traces. With the rise of the military-style semi-
auto issue, special studies influenced the sort of firearm being traced, such
as one in Detroit, focusing specifically on "assault weapons," and BATF
made special efforts to check out purchasers of such arms, in projects
known as "forward traces" from the dealer to the first retail purchaser,
rather than the reverse direction. (Bea, 1992, pp. 67-68; personal
communication from gun dealers) In addition, rhetorical statements by
politicians and higher-ranking BATF employees that such guns were the
preferred choice of drug traffickers, organized crime, etc., could spur at
least some local authorities to make greater efforts to trace such guns on
the presupposed and circular-reasoning that the traces were more apt to
provide evidence of drug trafficking, organized crime, etc. Such an
investigative reason could be the basis for the trace request, even if the
ensuing investigation demonstrated that gun possession was the most
serious offense involved particular cases. "If...law enforcement offices in
certain regions have determined that certain types of firearms (such as
military-style semiautomatics that accept large capacity magazines) should
be traced because they are thought to be used by dangerous offenders, the
data in the tracing system will reflect those specific concerns." (Bea, 1992,
p. 68) 

Similarly, if certain persons are said to be more apt to be involved in
certain types of offenses--say, young black males and gangs--then guns
found with the arrest of those persons are more apt to be traced, with the
suspected characteristic the basis for the trace request. It then becomes of
self-fulfilling prophesy: If there is a greater tendency to trace certain types
of guns, or guns found in the course of the arrest of certain types of
persons, with narcotics, organized crime, or the like given as the type of
criminal investigation, then those guns or persons will be found, using
tracing data, to be disproportionately involved in the activity in question.
The trace request cites the type of investigation; nothing in BATF tracing
data indicates a negative investigative conclusion.

The unrepresentative effect of policy-related tracing was demonstrated
perhaps most dramatically with the Cox Newspapers analysis of BATF
traces. While BATF tracing data indicated that military-style semi-
automatic firearms ("assault weapons") constituted 19% of crime guns in
Los Angeles, the highest of any of the cities studied, LAPD data indicated
that such firearms constituted only 3% of crime guns seized in that city.
(Cox Newspapers, 1989, p. 4; letter from Edward C. Ezell, Curator,
National Firearms Collection, Smithsonian Institution, to Rep. John D.
Dingell, March 27, 1989) And their actual use, two years later, in famed
youthful drive-by shootings was all but non-existent, at one documented
incident in 677 shootings (Hutson, Anglin and Pratts, 1994, p.326), and
dismissed for their "minor role" in a study of the gang killings, for which
they were supposedly a preferred weapon, during that period. (Hutson et
al., 1995)

More recent efforts involve the goal of nationalizing the policy of limiting
handgun purchases to one per month, by showing that such legislation
curtailed Virginia's role as a gun-supplying state has been curtailed (Weil
and Knox)[6]--a goal easily achieved by determining on which states'
dealers to focus limited BATF investigatory efforts. Working with the
Atlanta office of BATF, New York City authorities arranged that an
"undercover officer in New York City would place an order for handguns
with the defendants, who would then travel to Georgia, use an accomplice
to make a seemingly lawful purchase of firearms from a local dealer, and
then immediately return to New York with the guns." Forty-eight firearms
were recovered in the course of the investigation and, presumably,
dutifully traced by BATF back to the place where New York authorities
had arranged for many of them to be purchased. (District Attorney, County
of New York, 1997) The New York authorities involved in the
investigation are also promoting gun rationing on a national level, which is
also the policy of the Clinton administration under which BATF operated.
Even if policy is not the only goal, the investigators themselves helped to
determine where guns would be traced to, and, in all likelihood, at least
some of the details (caliber, action type, and price, if not also makes and
models) of the sorts of guns which would be purchased and thus traced.

BATF Tracing Data Used in Policymaking and Evaluation

With some encouragement from BATF, tracing data analyses and studies
are being used to influence and evaluate policymaking. The federal ban on
so-called "assault weapons" called for an evaluation on the effects of the
legislation after three years. The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Section
was asked in advance if it knew "of any data which exist which would
provide a base for determining whether these firearms are used more, less,
or the same during the next three or four years, or are more of less
available to criminals?" The response was, "The UCR Section knows of no
existing data to provide a basis to address the question." (Letter from Paul
H. Blackman, NRA, to J. Harper Wilson, July 20, 1990; letter from J.
Harper Wilson, Chief, Uniform Crime Reporting Section, to Paul H.
Blackman, September 5, 1990)

The evaluation was assigned to the Urban Institute, which, absent other
sources of information, used BATF tracing data, recognizing some of its
limitations, including the nonrepresentative sampling suggesting only
about 10% of gun crimes and 2% of violent crimes result in BATF trace
requests. They further noted the lack of a comparison between traces of
"specific banned assault weapon models with trends for non-banned
models that are close substitutes." (Roth and Koper, 1997, pp. 8, 82) They
nonetheless defended the use as "the only such national sample" although
"BATF trace data should be interpreted cautiously." (Roth and Koper,
1997, p. 83) With no reliable data on pre- or post-legislative criminal
misuse of proscribed or similar guns, the caution is more advised than
nevertheless proceeding with the uncertain interpretation.

BATF tracing data were used in popular literature designed to support gun
rationing as a means to curb the politically-inspired attack gun trafficking-
with "Batman" becoming perhaps the first comic character successfully to
lobby for state legislation--and then in its evaluation. (Ostrander and
Giarrano, 1993; Sugarmann and Rand, 1994, p. 11; Weil and Knox, 1996;
Vizzard, 1997, pp. 217-18) No effort was made to determine whether any
of the guns involved in violent crime investigations, before or after the law
took effect, or involved multiple purchase, despite the fact that purchases
of more than one handgun in a business week are reported to BATF by the
dealer [18 U.S.C. 923(g)(3)], and investigations of dealers, such as that
which led to the prosecution of the largest alleged Virginia source of New
York crime guns, was spurred by such multiple purchase reports. (Hynes,
1992) Project CUE, at a time with similar out-of-state sources for New
York's traced guns, in its investigations, found "that the majority of the
firearm movement from States is occurring on an individual basis. That is
to say that an individual will acquire a firearm in another State through the
actual purchase by relative or friends and then transport that firearm back"
to his own metropolitan area, with self-protection the primary motive.
(BATF, 1977, p. 61) That view remains the conclusion of the historian of
BATF, who voices criticism of the new focus on trafficking. (Vizzard,
1997, p. 202) Project CUE went beyond simple tracing data, which
provide no particular reason to suggest any particular explanation as to
where New York City's violent criminals get their guns or whether gun 
rationing at the state or federal level is a rational response.

Potential Policymaking and Evaluative Uses of BATF Tracing Data and
Their Limitations

The improvements in tracing records, and, working with some
criminologists, their analysis should enhance law enforcement efforts,
particularly against illicit firearms traffickers, even if their role is
exaggerated partly for political reasons. (Vizzard, 1997, pp. 202, 218)
There are, however, thus far only two apparent policymaking uses for
those tracing data. An evaluation of which dealers are more apt to have
firearms traced to them, in addition to suggesting which dealers may be
breaking the law themselves, or insufficiently diligent, or simply in an area
where criminal misuse by customers is more popular, might suggest the
curtailment of which sorts of dealerships might disproportionately reduce
illicit firearms trafficking. 

Research by Pierce, Briggs and Carlson (1996, Table 5) for BATF suggest
that a tiny fraction of dealers are vastly disproportionately involved in
firearms traces. Ninety-two percent of dealers were involved with no
traces, and less than 2% of dealers accounted for over three-fourths of
traces. Those data could provide a basis for seeking more information
about those dealers which could suggest for whom federal firearms
licenses should be more difficult to obtain, or other regulations which
might be appropriate. For example, the administration, eventually with the
legislative approval of Congress, has drastically reduced the number of
dealers during the past few years. Data on dealer tracing could suggest
whether the sorts of dealers driven out of business constitute the sort of
dealer most or least apt to sell guns eventually traced to them. Those data
were not used to make the policy. And there has been no post facto
suggestion that the policy was warranted by the data.

And another study used tracing data to show, among other things, how
different guns turned in during amnesties were from guns used by
criminals, particularly younger criminals. So different were the guns
turned in that only about one-eighth could be traced, and an effort at
evaluation found that three-fourths of the guns were manufactured before
the enactment of GCA'68. (Kennedy, Piehl and Braga, 1996b, pp. 156-58)
The authors went on to conclude that, while tracing data gave no reason to
believe turn-in programs would have crime-control value, they might be
beneficial for symbolic values. (1996b, p. 165)

There would appear to be no other obvious area where policymaking
might benefit from an analysis of BATF firearms tracing data as currently
collected. And even in those situations, the traces alone would be
insufficient. For example, without additional information about the types
of dealerships--their conformity to local zoning and other regulations, and
the like--which would make traces more time-consuming and costly, it
would not be clear that the dealers whose guns are traced merit loss of
license. With more serious follow-up research, there would, however, be
other areas where cautious use of tracing data might provide the base for
more extensive research.

Similarly, if BATF traces were followed up by more extensive
investigation than the simple trace, the data could prove useful in learning
more about where criminals get their guns and what their preferences are.
For example, if, in addition to encouraging more local law enforcement
agencies to trace virtually all recovered firearms, data were collected on
the relation of the traced firearm to the criminal investigation (used in the
homicide, recovered at the scene, etc.) or follow-up information on the
criminal investigation (was the criminal investigation founded? was there
drug trafficking involved, or had the gun in fact been taken in a burglary,
etc.? how did the firearm come to be in the state where it was recovered?
what was the path of ownership and the means of transfer?), then the
potential would exist for learning more about the nature at least of
relatively new crime guns or criminal preferences in guns. 

Most efforts by BATF, however, have been to make tracing more cost-
effective, not expanding the information gathered with labor-intensive
follow-up inquiries. An inexpensive expansion involves collecting some
information on all guns seized in certain cities, including guns for which
no trace is attempted. (Personal communication from Gerald Nunziato,
BATF NTC) Thus, while the Congressional Research Service noted the
problems with the tracing system in terms of statistical analysis, it made it
clear that the limitations on the system should not necessarily be rectified:
"the system is designed to expedite requests from law enforcement
agencies on the history of firearm ownership, there would likely be little
benefit in placing additional restrictions or requirements on officers
submitting the trace request. The more important accomplishment of the
system design...is to minimize paperwork and administrative burdens on
the requesting agency." (Bea, 1992, pp. 65-66) And efforts to encourage
more detailed data collection by BATF and from local law enforcement is
apt to be even less successful than the current efforts at more thorough
data collection for the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Conclusion

Suggesting sharp limitations on the utility of BATF tracing for
criminological research in no way undermines either the benefits of tracing
as a law-enforcement tool in general, or the benefits of recent
improvements in BATF's tracing abilities. The traces were envisioned as a
law-enforcement tool, not a law-making tool, and retain utility for that
envisioned purpose. To the extent it might be argued that, however weak,
BATF tracing data are the only data available for certain criminological or
policymaking goals, that discouraging fact would simply mean there are
no data available; absence of other data does not make unrepresentative
data representative.

References

Adams, N.M. 1978. "The Tracing of Beretta A47469." Reader's Digest
204-34 (January).

BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms]. 1977. Concentrated
Urban Enforcement: An analysis of the initial year of operation CUE in
the cities of Washington D.C., Boston, Mass., Chicago, Ill.

BATF. 1978. Briefing Paper: Firearm Tracing. ATF news Release, FY 78-
26, April 1.

Bea, K. 1992. "Assault Weapons": Military-Style Semiautomatic
Firearms: Facts and Issues. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research
Service (May 13; Technical Revisions, June 4).

Brill, S. 1977. Firearm Abuse: A Research and Policy Report.
Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation.

Cox Newspapers. 1989. Firepower: Assault Weapons in America.
Washington, D.C.: Cox Newspapers.

District Attorney [Robert M. Morgenthau], County of New York
[Manhattan]. 1997. News Release, April 29.

FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. 1990. Crime in the United States,
1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

FBI. 1996. Crime in the United States, 1995. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office.

Goode, R. 1992. "Co-owners of gun shop plead guilty." Richmond Times-
Dispatch, September 2.

Hutson, H.R., D. Anglin and M.J. Pratts, Jr. 1994. "Adolescents and
Children Injured or Killed in Drive-By Shootings in Los Angeles." New
England Journal of Medicine 330:324-327.

Hutson, H.R., D. Anglin, D.N. Kyriacou, J. Hart and K. Spears. "The
Epidemic of Gang-Related Homicides in Los Angeles County From 1979
Through 1994." Journal of the American Medical Association 274:1031-
1036.

Hynes, P. 1992. Case Report, Case No. 63560-92-4031 S, Eastern Judicial
District of Virginia [re: defendants Virginia Police Equipment Co., Donald
Edward Weiss, and Hildegard Francia Weiss], BATF, Nov. 23.

Kates, D.B., H.E. Schaffer, J.K. Lattimer, G.B. Murray and E.W. Cassem.
1995. "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence, or Pandemic of
Propaganda?" Tennessee Law Review 62:513-596.

Kennedy, D.M., A.M. Piehl and A.A. Braga. 1996a. Youth Gun Violence
in Boston: Gun Markets, Serious Youth Offenders, and a Use Reduction
Strategy. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Kennedy, D.M., A.M. Piehl and A.A. Braga. 1996b. "Gun Buy-Backs:
Where Do We Stand and Where Do We Go?" Pp. 141-171 in Under Fire:
Gun Buy-Backs, Exchanges and Amnesty Programs, M.R. Plotkin, ed.
Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum.

King, W. 1988. "A Bureau That Battled Bootleggers Is Tough Target for
Budget-Cutters." New York Times, February 1, p. A26.

Newton, G.D. and F.E. Zimring. 1969. Firearms and Violence in
American Life. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Office of the General Counsel. 1981. Management review on the
Performance of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in connection with
the March 30, 1981 Assassination Attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
Department of the Treasury, August.

Ostrander, J. and V. Giarrano. 1993. Batman: seduction of the gun. New
York: DC Comics.

Pierce, G.L., L. Briggs and D.A. Carlson. 1996 [?]. The Identification of
Patterns in Firearms Trafficking: Implications for Focused Enforcement
Strategies. Washington, D.C: A Report to the United States Department of
Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, Office of Enforcement.

Roth, J.A. and C.S. Koper. 1997. Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety
and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994: Final Report.
Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute (March 13).

Sambor, G.J. 1985. "Tracing Firearms." Police Chief 52(3): 73-76
(March).

Sugarmann, J. and K. Rand. 1994. Cease Fire: A Comprehensive Strategy
to Reduce Firearms Violence. Washington, D.C.: Violence Policy Center.

Thurman, R. 1994. "Firearms Business Analysis." Shooting Industry
39(12):98-127 (December).

U.S. Senate. 1965. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate
Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary to Amend the
Federal Firearms Act, 89th Congress, First Session (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office).

Vizzard, W.J. 1997. In the Cross Fire: A Political History of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Boulder, Colo., and London: Lynne
Rienner.

Wachtel, J. 1996. "Sources of Crime Guns." Paper delivered at the annual
meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, March.

Weber-Burdin, E., P.H. Rossi, J.D. Wright and K. Daly. 1981. Weapons
Policies: A Survey of Police Department Practices Concerning Weapons
and Related Issues (Preliminary Draft). University of
Massachusetts/Amherst; U.S. Dept. of Justice, National Institute of
Justice. [Per NIJ's Lois Mock, no final draft was published, and pagination
is within each chapter.]

Weil, D.S. and R.C. Knox. 1996. "Effects of Limiting Handgun Purchases
on Interstate Transfer of Firearms." Journal of the American Medical
Association 275:1759-1761.

Wintemute, G.J. 1994. Ring of Fire: The Handgun Makers of Southern
California. Sacramento: Violence Prevention Research Program
(University of California, Davis).

Wright, J.D. and P.H. Rossi. 1981. Weapons, Crime, and Violence in
America: Executive Summary. U.S. Department of Justice, National
Institute of Justice, November.

Zimring, F.E. 1975. "Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of
1968." Journal of Legal Studies 4:133-198.

Zimring, F.E. 1976. "Street Crime and New Guns: Some Implications for
Firearms Control." Journal of Criminal Justice 4: 95-107.

NOTES:

1. Before becoming a bureau in 1972. It was the Alcohol. Tobacco &
Firearms Division of the Internal Revenue Service: for the past quarter
century, its name has been shortened to the letters BATF or ATF, the
former being more thoroughly descriptive, but both have been used
extensively both outside and inside government, including the Treasury
Department itself.

2. BATF offered its tracing capability to the US Secret Service at 2:40
p.m. on March 30, 1981, and the Secret Service had BATF begin the
tracing process at 3:20 p.m. following some confusion on the Secret
Service's part regarding the serial number. The trace was completed by
4:30 p.m. (Office of the General Counsel, 1981, pp. 78-79.) The General
Counsel found it noteworthy that the investigative activities were inititated
during normal working hours. And that the tracing capability "would
assume even more importance if a suspect had not been immediately
apprehended at the scene. (Office of the General Counsel. 1981, pp. III
and 81).

3. Many of the limitations noted in this paper replicate the introduction to
BATF's National Tracing Center (NTC) by its director. Gerald a.
Nunziato.

4. Categories may not be very revealing: "other", "miscellaneous,"
Weapons" or "GCA" or "Title 1" include offenses ranging from
typographical errors to gun-trafficking and violent offenses. (Bea, 1992,
p.71) A stolen weapon trace could involve the thief or a found gun turned
in to authorities. Some police-owned firearms are traced. (Brill. 1977,
pp.23-25) BATF's Project Lead traces in New York City included the
crimes of suicide and loitering. (Memorandum form Project Lead to
Special Agent in Change, New York Field Division, BATF, Octomber 22,
1992)

5. Such labor-intensive tracing may be attempted when essential to a case. 
The Beretta used in about half of the socalled Zebra slayings in San
Francisco in the 1970s was painstakingly traced by BATF and the San
Francisco police beyond the first retail sale through seven private
transfers. (Adams, 1978) In the past, traces were counted as successful
once traced to a dealer in the state of the requestor on the grounds it was
then no longer a matter of interstate commerce and, thus, a federal
responsibility. (BATF: 1978, p.2; Brill 1977, p.83)

6. In addition to problems in using tracing data, explaining changes based
on the gun rationing law would be undermined by two factors: First, the
same legislative session required proof of residency for driver's license
applicants (Virginia code 46.2-323). And the rationing, in fact,
rearely applies; during the first three years, applications for multiple
handgun purchase requests were denied to 3% of applicants, and another
2% withdrew their applications. (Personal communication form Captain R.
Lewis Vass, Department of State Police, August 30, 1996) Captain Vass
testified to a state crime commission that the law has "not significantly
affected...the number of multiple handgun purchases within the
Commonwealth." (August 29, 1995)

------------------------------

Gangs, Drugs and Youth Violence

Recorders Notes

Each presentation was followed by a brief question/answer discussion
period. What follows is a summary of these questions and answers. Every
attempt was made to extract the essence of the question and answer,
however, it was not possible to capture verbatim the wording of all
questions and answers. 

Gangs Race/Ethnicity and Houston Homicide in the 1990's

Q. What is the Asian and sub-ethnic mix of your data

A. Vietnamese is the largest proportion of the Asian population in
Houston. 

Q. Have look at the structure of police department? Have they added an
Asian gang unit?

A. The Houston police department has for some time had a Chicano
squad and now they have an Asian squad. Chicano squad has been in
existence since early 80s. The Chicano squad seems to be a political issue
so it has stayed around. 

Q. If your are recording location of homicide have you looked the spatial
relationship between victim address and offender address? 

A. Right now we have incident address. Adding the victim-offender
addresses will be the next task. George Tita looked at the spatial typology
of gang homicide and he will be discussing this shortly.

Q. Does the nature of gang activity differ by ethnicity?

A. Houston doesn't make a distinction by ethnic groups. 

Today's Music and Youth Violence

Q. What is the effect of Tu Pac and other gang-rappers on glorification?

A. It brings attention to the issues. What gang rap does is glorify violence,
puts the lifestyle out there as a viable lifestyle. Provides messages that
glorify dying and the culture. Provides something to emulate.

Q. Is there any chance that if rap music was different, less violent, that
kids would be into in such a way that it would make them less violent?

A. Gang rap is simplistic. The kids I see already start out with a
destructive core. The only course open to them is acting out. Kids who
have a challenge need to get out the violence. The literature is mixed. Kids
who don't have a recourse repeated experiences. It can have a desensitizing
result. For kids who are unhealthy this would.

Q What about the media response. The exposure of violence in the media
increases the sense of fear and vulnerability.

A. Yes. 

Q. What about the fantasy aspect--escapism of rap music.

A. White kids are buying this music, a lot of the kids I see are predisposed
to aggression and this music validates their aggression. The fantasy aspect
comes from the need for a frame of origin and a need to make sense of the
world. Kids who don't have a fantasy-- these kids are in the market for a
solution. 

The Gang-Drug-Gun Nexus: Evidence from Pittsburgh

Q. Your assumption is that gang motivated homicides are driving the
increase in homicides, however, it appears that gang motivated homicides
are a relatively small percent of all homicides?

A. About 30% of all targeted homicides are gang motivated homicides. 

Q. What about the data--how did you make the coding decision to define
gang motivated, and how has the quality of the data changed over time?

A. We came in with no clear idea--read each file and based our coding
decision on the eyewitness testimony in the homicide files. I guess the
coding was done by the eyewitness or the statements in the files. If they
indicated it was gang motivated we used that information. 

Q. Did you have a consistent set of criteria or was it based on each case?

A. Each case. Also some validation by various police departments.

Q. Define targeted. Who is included and not included in this group.

A. As far as our use of the term "Targeted" homicides we use it to
distinguish between type of homicides that we hypothesize that might be
driving the increase (and subsequent decrease) in the level of total
homicides being committed versus other more stable homicides (felonious,
arson, domestics, disputes.) We define a "Targeted" homicide as an event
that was:

1. gang involved: either the offender or the victim was a gang member

2. Drug involved: that the precipitating factors that lead to the incident
involved the use or marketing of narcotics including the robbery of drug
dealers.

3. "youth" involved: either the offender or the victim was less than 25
years of age AND a gun was involved.

------------------------------

GANGS, RACE/ETHNICITY AND HOUSTON HOMICIDE IN THE
1990S

Kelly Damphousse
Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019

Victoria E. Brewer
College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville,
TX 77340

Cary D. Atkinson
College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville,
TX 77340

Abstract

This paper uses police and newspaper data to examine the extent and
character of gang-related homicide in the early 1990s in Houston. Gang-
related homicides in Houston from 1990-1994 tended to much more
involve Hispanics and Asian compared to non-gang homicides. Gang
homicides were more likely to occur in the public domain while non-gang
homicides were predominately residential in nature. Finally, gang
homicides were more likely in school months and relatively rare during
non-school months.

Literature

This paper addresses gang-related homicide in Houston, Texas in the
1990s. Although estimations of the exact number of gangs, gang members,
and gang-related violent crimes vary widely (due to the lack of an
acceptable definition of "gangs" and official reporting inconsistencies) it is
generally accepted that gang activity has steadily increased in America
since the mid-1980s (Curry, Ball, and Decker 1996; Klein 1995; Spergel
1989). Spergel (1995) found that all 50 states exhibited some form of
youth gang activity and others have shown that gangs are present in nearly
all large U.S. cities (Miller 1982; Needle and Stapleton 1983). Studies of
large urban areas such as Los Angeles and Chicago suggest that gang-
related homicides have reached unprecedented levels compared to the
recent past. Klein (1995) estimated that by the middle of this decade, there
would be over 800,000 gang members in more than 9,000 gangs in the
country. Curry et al. (1996) suggest that there are already 16,000 gangs in
the country committing over half a million crimes per year.

This apparent increase in gang activity and gang-related crime has led to
public perceptions that gang-related violence constitutes a more serious
threat to society than non-gang violence. As a result, previous research
efforts have been based on the premise that distinct and substantial
differences exist between gang and non-gang violence with respect to a
variety of demographic and incident-based characteristics. Although a
variety of gang-related violent crimes have been studied, particular
emphasis has been placed on homicide. This is because it is arguably the
more serious criminal offense and because of its reliability as a measure of
the extent and seriousness of gang violence (Spergel 1995). 

Previous studies suggest that there is some justification for public
concerns regarding the threat of gang-related violence as compared to
non-gang violence. Research has shown significant differences between
gang and non-gang homicides with respect to participant characteristics
such as ethnicity, age, number of participants, and relationship between
participants (Spergel 1984; Maxson, Gordon, and Klein 1985; Rogers
1993). Gang members involved in homicide incidents were younger and
more likely to be minority males than their non-gang counterparts. Gang
homicides were also more likely to involve the use of automobiles and
firearms and to be committed in public areas than non-gang homicides.
Klein, Maxson, and Cunningham (1991) further validated these findings in
a study concerning the involvement of Los Angeles gangs in the
distribution of crack cocaine. 

In a study of all police-reported homicide incidents for California in 1989,
Bailey and Unnithan (1994) also found that suspect and victim age, the
number of suspects, lack of prior suspect/victim contact, public location,
and use of firearms were all significant in distinguishing between gang and
non-gang homicides. Gang-related homicides were more likely to involve
younger African-American and Hispanic suspects and victims, a greater
number of suspects, and the use of a firearm than non-gang homicides.
These incidents also typically occurred between individuals with little or
no previous social contact and were usually committed in public places.

In general, the majority of gang-related homicides have traditionally been
intra-racial. For example, 92 percent of gang-related homicides in L.A.
were either black on black or Hispanic-on-Hispanic (Klein 1995). This
trend, however, may be undergoing subtle, yet significant, changes.
Increasing levels of gang activity and greater race/ethnic heterogeneity
may be contributing to an increase in interracial gang-related violence
related to territorial disputes (Dellios 1994). Spergel (1995) and Short
(1990) contend that the territorial nature of street gangs is responsible for
many of the gang-related homicides in urban areas. They argue that
fluctuations in rates of gang-related homicide may be due to periodic acts
of retaliation for one gang encroaching into another gang's territory. It has
also been suggested that involvement in drug trafficking has resulted in
increased levels of gang-related violence, particularly homicide, as gangs
attempt to protect their economic interests by equipping themselves with
firearms (Moore and Kleinman, 1989). 

Data

To begin to assess the relationship between gangs and homicide in
Houston in the 1990s, we use data collected in two separate enterprises.
First, we rely on data by the Houston Police Department Homicide
Division (HPD). The police department provided us with their murder log
data from all the homicides that were investigated from 1984 (when the
homicide records first began to be computerized) to 1994 (N = 5,435).
These data include information on motive, relationship between victim
and offender, specific (street address) and general (type of premise)
location of offense, case status (e.g., cleared by arrest, open, etc.), date of
offense, type of weapon used, and name, race, gender, and age of the
victim and offender (when known). Beginning in 1989, the department
began to code "gang-related" homicides in the "motive" variable. Since
most of the available data on gang and non-gang homicide comes from
official police statistics, some concern has arisen as to the reliability and
validity of police reporting practices with respect to the designation of
homicide cases as being "gang-related" (Spergel, 1995). For example, as
Block and Block contend:

Since 1965, the Chicago Police Department has designated incidents,
including homicides, as street-gang related if investigation determines that
a gang-related motive was the reason for the offense. In contrast, the
definition of gang-related in Los Angeles depends on gang membership;
gang-related homicide is measured by checking victims and offenders
against a list of known street gang members (1991: 13).
 
To check validity issues, we collected over 7,000 stories printed in the
Houston Chronicle from March 1985 (when the Chronicle first began to
computerize its files) to March 1997. Staff members at the Chronicle
library using keyword searches of "Murders" and "Houston" conducted the
search. The most recent years (1989 to the present) have the most
complete coverage of homicides in Houston, providing stories on about 80
percent of the incidents reported by HPD. This database has been searched
by suspect and victim name, street address, and date to match up with
HPD data. The newspaper stories are used to complement the HPD data by
providing context for how gang membership impacts homicide.

Results

Preliminary content analysis of the newspaper articles associated with the
gang homicide data suggests that the HPD, similar to the LAPD, defines
"gang" relatedness in a rather conservative fashion. That is, for a homicide
to be labeled "gang-related," there has to be gang members involved,
although the question of "motivation" is not always addressed. The
Houston Police Department labeled 70 homicides as gang-related from
September 1989 to December 1994. 

As shown in Figure 1, in the first full year of reporting (1990), they
observed 13 gang homicides and by 1993, this number had peaked at 21.
While the number dropped to 12 by 1994, there may have been as many as
16 gang-related homicides in 1996 (according to the Houston Chronicle
data). Figure 1 also shows the proportion of homicides that the HPD
linked to gang activity. It has averaged about 2.6 percent over the early
1990s, with a high of 4.6 percent in 1993. These figures suggest that
Houston may not have a major gang-homicide problem. By comparison,
about 29.5 percent of the homicides California during 1995 were classified
as gang-related (Lungren 1996). If the Chronicle numbers for 1996 are
valid, however, the proportion of homicides related to gang activity may
have grown to over 5 percent (Houston experienced less than 300
homicides in 1996).

In Table 1, we show the comparison of several variables of interest for
gang and non-gang homicides in Houston for the 1990s. Since the HPD
did not label any homicides as gang-related until late 1989, we only
compare gang homicide to non-gang homicides that occurred during the
same time frame (1990-1994, N = 2,642). As would be expected,
individuals suspected of gang-related homicides are considerably younger
on average than non-gang suspects (18.6 years compared to 28.2 years,
respectively). What is more surprising is that 40 percent of the gang
suspects are over the age of 18. This is still lower than for non-gang
homicides where 72 percent of the suspects are over age 18.

In the cases where gender of the suspect was known (N=56), all of the
gang suspects were males compared with 91 percent of the non-gang
suspects. Most of the non-gang homicides (43.4 percent) were committed
by African-American suspects (56 percent) followed by Hispanics (26
percent), Whites (16 percent), and Asians (1.7 percent). Hispanic suspects,
on the other hand, committed most of the gang homicides (64.2 percent).
This matches closely the findings for Chicago (Block 1991). The
proportion of gang homicides by Asian offenders (7.1 percent) is over 4
times higher than for non-gang homicides. The disproportionate
involvement of minorities in gang-related homicides is not surprising
when we consider that the majority of gangs consist of minority group
members (Klein 1995; Sanders 1994). Whites account for only about 10
percent of gang members nationwide, with Asians making up the third
largest and most rapidly growing groups of gang members, behind
African-Americans and Hispanics (Sheldon, Tracy, and Brown 1997).
Over 40 percent of Latino male murderers in Chicago were involved in a
gang (compared to 12 percent African-American and White murderers).
Two-thirds of Chicago's gang-related homicides involved Latino male
teenaged victims. In Los Angeles, decreasing rates of African-American
involvement in gang homicide was matched by increasing rates for Latino
gang homicides (Reiner 1992).

The average gang-related homicide victim is younger (21 years old) than
the non-gang victim (31 years) and male gang victims predominate.
Among the gang-related homicides, Hispanics (45.7 percent) and Asians
(10 percent) have much higher percentages than in non-gang homicides
(28.4 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively). Only about one quarter of the
gang victims are black compared to about one half of the non-gang
victims. These numbers parallel the suspect numbers and exhibit the
strong intra-racial component common in homicide studies. A striking
feature of our data is the experience of Asians. All of the Asians who were
killed in gang homicides were killed by Asians and all Asian gang
suspects killed other Asians. In the non-gang homicides, only one third of
the Asians were killed by other Asians. Thus, it appears that homicide
related to Asian gang activity in Houston was limited to conflicts between
rival gangs of the same race. The pattern is sustained for the other three
race/ethnic groups as well. 

The finding of high levels of intra-racial homicides among gangs is
supported by the relationship between offender and victim. While over
half of the gang homicides were committed by a stranger (when the
relationship was known) compared to 36 percent for non-gang homicides,
about the same amount of homicides for both gang and non-gang incidents
were committed by non-family acquaintances. Homicides committed by
acquaintances accounted for 38 percent of the gang homicides and 37
percent of the non-gang homicides. These findings highlight the notion
that gang-related homicides in Houston were often incidents involving
individuals who knew each other and were often of the same
race/ethnicity. 

Two other major differences between gang and non-gang homicides are
shown in Table 1: premise and peak activity. That there are differences in
the location of the homicides is not surprising. Forty percent of the gang
homicides occurred on a street, in a park or in a parking lot compared to
only 17 percent for non-gang homicides. One-fifth of the non-gang
homicides occurred in a residence while only 7 percent of gang homicides
were in a home. Some "residence" homicides for gang slayings may have
been drive-by shootings or robbery incidents, though some occurred
during a party at someone's house. 

One of the more intriguing findings is the time of year of the gang
homicides. There is no real pattern for the non-gang homicides as far as
peak killing month. Each month has about the same amount of homicides,
ranging from a low 6.9 percent in October to a high of 9.7 percent in July.
Over 27 percent of the non-gang homicides occurred in the summer. Gang
homicides, on the other hand, show a much more distinctive pattern. Over
31 percent of the gang homicides occurred in the months of October and
November while only 22.8 percent occurred in the summer. The "slowest"
months were March (1.4 percent) and December (4.3 percent), both
months highlighted by major school breaks. This finding suggests that
homicides associated with gang activity may be closely related to school,
although few gang-related homicides actually occurred at school. 
The following story of a homicide later determined to be gang-related by
HPD reflects the possible impact of school relationships in the
gang-homicide nexus:

Herbert Grant Jr., 18, and an Alief Hastings High School student
fought after a pushing incident at a party Friday for about 75 students of
Stratford High School, which Grant formerly attended. Homicide Sgt.
James Yarbrough said Hastings and Alief Elsik high school students
arrived at the party, causing friction. The party was held after Friday
night's football game in which Hastings defeated Stratford 40-14. Grant
played defensive tackle for Stratford last year. "The people involved in the
incident wanted it to be a fair fight," Yarbrough said. "They only wanted
Grant and the other student to fight, but it didn't end that way." Witnesses
said William Silva, a Hastings dropout, pulled a gun during the fight and
shot at the ground, then shot Grant once in the head (Perry 1990: C-11).
 
Another story three years later shows the extent to which school officials
were concerned about gang violence.

As threats echoed between two westside gangs in the wake of a weekend
killing, police and residents were preparing for the worst and hoping it was
all just talk Monday. Joseph Cedric "C-Dog" Paddio Jr., a 16-year-old
Elsik High School student, was beaten and shot to death Saturday night as
he attended an unsupervised Halloween party. Paddio has been identified
as a member of the Rolling 60s, a small gang of African-Americans.
Paddio's alleged killer has been identified as a member of the Lords of
Alief, a large Hispanic gang active in the same area. The Rolling 60s,
saying they want revenge for Paddio's murder, have launched a campaign
of threats. Callers identifying themselves as members of the Lords of Alief
gang told the Houston Chronicle Monday their gang outnumbers the
Rolling 60s by 100-to-1. One professed gang member said if the Rolling
60s retaliate, the Lords of Alief "won't just pay back, we'll exterminate
them." Security at Elsik and Hastings high schools, where members of
both gangs attend classes, was heavy Monday. Alief Independent School
District spokeswoman Ann Spears said, with the exception of a couple of
"staredowns" in the Elsik cafeteria at lunch, both campuses remained
relatively calm. The beefed-up security included school district officers
and extra patrols by the Houston Police Department, continued as classes
were dismissed Monday afternoon (Bardwell and Milling 1993: A-11)
 
The shooting described above so heightened tensions among gang
members at the high schools that officials rescheduled a football game
between the two schools. The game, originally scheduled for a Friday
night game, was played under increased security Saturday afternoon.
Stories such as these help to explain the increased levels of gang
homicides in October and November compared to the non-gang
homicides.

Finally, the clearance rates for the two types of homicide are different.
Only 20 of the gang homicides were still open or inactive compared to 28
percent for non-gang homicides. There are three possible explanations for
increased clearance rates for gang homicides. First, 84 percent of the gang
homicides involved the use of some type of firearm compared to 71
percent for non-gang incidents. Cases involving firearm usage usually
have higher clearance rates. Second, over half of the gang victims were
under 18 years of age. Increased diligence on the part of police as a result
of public uproar may result in greater effectiveness. Third, most gang
homicides, by definition, involve a large number of witnesses
(acquaintances of the victim and the suspect). The availability of witnesses
increases greatly the likelihood that an arrest will be made. 

While the HPD only began reporting gang activity as a motive in late
1989, there is certainly evidence in the Houston Chronicle data that
suggests that gangs were active in Houston before the 1990s. Many gang
homicide stories in the 1980s referred to prison gangs like the Mexican
Mafia and the Texas Syndicate, both of which were actively involved in
increases in prison homicide (Crouch and Marquart 1989). There were
other isolated homicides, which appeared to be related to gang activity. In
1986, a group of young Asian men called the "Ghost Shadows" killed a
man; in 1988, a man was killed when a group of 30 Hispanic youths
fought near the convention center. In both instances, police denied that
these were gang-related. 

If we use the HPD definition of the beginning of gang homicides as 1989,
however, we can create a "pre-gang" and "post-gang" comparison base to
examine Houston homicide. Figure 2, for example, shows the percent of
Houston homicides, which were inter-racial from 1984 to 1994 (based on
incidents where the race of both the victim and the suspect are known).
Clearly, inter-racial homicide fluctuated between 15 percent and 18
percent in the "pre-gang" era and then rose to around 25 percent in the
"post-gang" period. Thus, increased gang activity may be related to
increased violence between racial/ethnic groups.

The use of firearms as weapons in homicides is shown in Figure 3. There
is a slight increase in the proportion of homicides involving firearms in
general and handguns in particular from the "pre-gang" to the "post-gang"
period. In 1992, 79 percent of all homicides in Houston involved the use
of firearms, up from around 67 percent in the late 1980s. The pattern is the
same for handguns. Gang homicide is often portrayed as involving the use
of automatic weapons. Our data show that automatic weapons were used
in 26 percent of the gang homicides involving firearms. Prior to 1989, all
homicides involving handguns were coded "pistol." Following that time,
HPD provided more specific data, listing the type of firearm used. We
show the proportion of homicides which involved the use of .45s, 9mms,
automatic and semi-automatic rifles, and Uzis in Figure 3. The proportion
rose quickly from 5 percent in 1989 to 15 percent in 1992 before leveling
off. We do not know the extent to which this is an artifact of slowly
changing reporting procedures or true increases, so these results should be
interpreted cautiously.

Figure 4 shows the proportion of homicides involving juvenile suspects
(between 12 and 17) and juvenile victims (under 18). The percent of
suspects whose age was known increased rapidly in the "post-gang"
period, from around 6 percent in the mid-1980s to about 14 percent in the
early 1990s. The proportion appears to make its ascent around 1987,
which might be the true beginning of gang involvement in homicide. Since
gang members often kill people much like themselves, the juvenile victim
rate follows the pattern of the suspect rate. The proportion of victims
under 18 that were murdered in the late 1980s averaged less than 4
percent. By 1992, the proportion had doubled to about 8 percent. 

Discussion

Fear of gang violence seems to do little to deter involvement of young
people. The attraction of gang involvement for students may be best
observed in the following excerpt following a gang slaying.

Several students gathered outside the school Monday afternoon stopped
short of condemning gang involvement. If you are a gang member "you're
protected no matter what," Gomez said. "You know if you're killed, you
won't be humiliated. They're going to get them back like two for one." As
he began walking across the schoolyard, Gomez said: "Hell, you're going
to die sooner or later anyway." (Bardwell and Milling 1993: A-11)
  
As gangs become more a part of life in the city, they impact every facet of
our existence. The fear of violence they engender is highlighted by the
homicides we see portrayed on the nightly news and morning paper. This
paper has shown how gang activity has changed the nature of homicide in
Houston since the mid-1980s. Houston's gang homicide problem is not as
great as that witnessed in California in the past two decades but it appears
to be increasing. This relatively low percentage is surprising given
Houston's past record of high homicide rates (Brewer and Damphousse
1997). Like other studies, we found that most gang homicides involve
public incidents, with young males and Hispanics (far more than for non-
gang homicides) and that most gang homicides are intra-racial. An
exception to this finding is the increasing level of inter-racial homicides
over the same period that gang behavior is thought to have flourished. This
increase may reflect greater racial tension in increasingly heterogeneous
neighborhoods. Perhaps the most striking findings are those of
"relationship" and "time-of-year." It seems clear that gang homicides often
involved individuals who knew one another and the homicide pattern
followed the school calendar (peaking in the late Fall and declining during
Winter and Spring breaks). 

References

Bailey, G. W., and Unnithan, N. P. 1994. Gang homicides in California: A
discriminant analysis. Journal of Criminal Justice 22(3):267-75.

Bardwell, S.K. and T.J. Milling. 1993. "Fears of gang revenge
simmer/Teen's death has Alief on edge." Houston Chronicle, October 5:A-
11.

Block, C. R. 1991. Lethal Violence in the Chicago Latin Community.
Statistical Analysis Center. Illinois Criminal Justice Authority.

Block, C. R., and Block R. 1991. Beginning with Wolfgang: An Agenda
for Homicide Research. Paper presented at the 1991 Annual Meetings of
the American Society of Criminology.

Brewer, Victoria E. and Kelly R. Damphousse. 1997. "The Intersection of
Race, Ethnicity, and Homicide in Houston During the 20th Century." Pp.
xx-xx in Interpersonal Violence: The Ethnicity, Race, and Class Nexus,
edited by Darnell F. Hawkins. New York: Oxford University Press.

Crouch, Ben and James Marquart. 1989. An Appeal to Justice. Austin,
TX: University of Texas Press.

Curry, G. D., Ball, R. A., and Decker, S. H. 1996. "Estimating the national
scope of gang crime from law enforcement data." Pp. 21-36 in Gangs in
America, C. R. Huff, ed.. California: Sage.

Dellios, H. 1994. "Black-Latino rivalry accentuates L. A. change."
Chicago Tribune, Sec. 1, pp. 19, 24.

Klein, M. W., Maxson, C. L., and Cunningham, L. 1991. "Crack, street
gangs, and violence." Criminology 29:623-50.

Klein, M. W. 1995. The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence,
and Control. New York: Oxford.

Lungren, Daniel. 1996. Homicide in California, 1995. Sacramento, CA:
California Department of Justice.

Maxson, C. L., Gordon, M., and Klein, M. W. 1985. "Differences between
gang and non-gang homicides." Criminology 23:209-22.

Maxson, C. L., and Klein, M. W. 1990. "Street gang violence: Twice as
great or half as great." Pp. 3-20 in Gangs in America, C. R. Huff, ed.
California: Sage.

Miller, W. B. 1982. Crime by Youth Gangs and Groups in the United
States. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Justice.

Moore, M., and Kleinman, M. 1989. "The police and drugs." Perspectives
on Policing 11. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Justice.

Needle, J. A., and Stapleton, W. V. 1983. Police Handling of Youth
Gangs. Washington, DC: American Justice Institute.

Perry, Earnest. 1990. "Columbian native charged in killing of former
Stratford football player." Houston Chronicle, October 31:C-11.

Reiner, I. 1992. Gangs, Crime and Violence in Los Angeles. California:
Office of the District Attorney of the County of Los Angeles.

Rogers, C. 1993. "Gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County."
Journal of Forensic Sciences 38(4):831-34.

Sanders, W. G. 1994. Gangbangs and Drive-bys: Grounded Culture and
Juvenile Gang Violence. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Sheldon, R. G., Tracy, S. K., and Brown, W. B. 1997. Youth Gangs in
American Society. California: Wadsworth.

Short, J. F. 1990. "Gangs, neighborhoods, and youth crime." Criminal
Justice Research Bulletin 5:4. Texas: Criminal Justice Center, Sam
Houston State University.

Spergel, I. A. 1984. "Violent gangs in Chicago: In search of social policy."
Social Science Review 58:199-226.

Spergel, I. A. 1989. "Youth gangs: Continuity and change." Crime and
Justice: Review Research 12:171-275.

Spergel, I. A. 1995. The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach.
New York: Oxford.

------------------------------

Today's Music And Youth Violence

Kathleen M. Heide, Ph.D.
University of South Florida

"Gangsta rap" music has been criticized for its glorification of graphic
violence, misogynic messages, and hate-filled ideology. Fear has been
expressed that these lyrics incite youths to engage in violent acts. "Gangsta
rap" needs to be examined in the context of a society that has become
increasingly saturated with violence. Several cases in which violent music
lyrics appeared to provide the additional impetus needed for unbonded
youths to engage in violent acts are highlighted. Proposals for censorship
ignore the real factors underlying why millions of youths listen to this
music. Fromm's theory of malignant aggression is presented as a
framework to understand the fascination of some individuals and cultures
with acts of cruelty and destructiveness. 

A Society Saturated With Violence

"Destroy all girls." That's what the slogan advised. It was carefully placed
on the laundry-instructions inside thousands of pants, boxer shorts, T-
shirts, and sweat shirts marketed to young male teenagers. One mother
who was washing her son's T-shirt did not like it and complained to the
sporting goods store where she had purchased it. Her actions produced
dramatic results. The store discontinued the clothing line and a national
debate ensued. 

What's all the fuss about? The manufacturers defended the practice as a
sales gimmick to attract aggressive young male adolescent buyers. The
company had considered the slogan "Kill your parents," but apparently
decided that "Destroy all girls" would generate more sales. One company
spokesperson dismissed the possibility of the slogan leading to acts of
violence against girls as "a bit too ridiculous" ("Retailer pulls apparel with
offensive slogan," 1997).

The slogan in context

Is this issue worth worrying about? Do violent words incite youths to
engage in violent behavior? Proponents of free speech argue that the
slogan, in and of itself, is harmless. The slogan, however, does not exist in
and of itself; it appears in the context of a society that has become
saturated with violence in recent years (Heide, 1997b). Films and
television shows, including the evening news, have become increasingly
violent over the last two decades (Levin and Fox, 1985; Prothrow-Stith
and Weissman, 1991; Fox and Levin, 1994). Experts estimate that, on the
average, youths in the United States watch 45 violent acts on television
every day, with most of them committed with handguns (Myers, 1992).
An American Psychological Association study confirmed that children
who view two to four hours of television violence daily will see 8,000
murders and 100,000 other acts of violence before finishing elementary
school (Wheeler, 1993). If the viewing period is extended to the late teens,
these youths will have observed about 200,000 violent acts. These figures
may be even higher for youths who watch cable programs and R-rated
movies on home VCRs (Sleek, 1994).

Research spanning more than 30 years indicates that exposure to television
violence is related to violent behavior (Wheeler, 1993). For example,
studies have found that aggressive children who have difficulty in school
and in relating to peers tend to watch more television (Sleek, 1994). In
addition, adolescent deviance and decreased inhibitions to violence have
been correlated to witnessing violence (Prothrow-Stith and Weissman,
1991). 

Perhaps, even more alarming than the thousands of children watching
violent programs are the large numbers of youths who witness violence
first hand in their neighborhoods, schools, and homes. The exposure to
violence among inner-city youths is especially astounding (Jenkins and
Bell, 1994). In a 1992 study, 203 African-American students in a public
high school in an inner city Chicago community were surveyed. The area
in which the school was located had a long-established reputation as a
poor and violent area. It had ranked third in homicides during the year the
study was conducted. Among these youths, 80 percent of whom qualified
for some type of public assistance, 43 percent reported that they had seen a
killing, and 59 percent reported that someone close to them had been
killed. The percentages of adolescents who reported exposure to shootings
were even higher: 66 percent knew someone close to them who been shot,
61 percent had witnessed a shooting, and 48 percent had been shot-at
themselves (Bell, 1994).

To many of today's young people, the world is a violent place. This image
is particularly glamorized in the music known as "gangsta rap." Rappers,
such as Ice T, Tu Pac, Spice One, MC8, Eightball and MJG, and Geto
Boys sing about robbing, raping, and killing which they claim is part of
everyday life in "the hood" for low-income members of society,
particularly African-Americans. The lyrics in "gangsta rap" music, similar
to the scenes in televised violence, would seem likely to have a
disinhibiting and desensitizing effect on individuals who listen to them
repeatedly. Although the correlation between "gangsta rap" music and
violence has not been established, recent research has provided some
empirical evidence that misogynous (hate-filled) rap music was related to
sexually aggressive behavior by men against women (Barongan and Hall,
1995). 

Unbonded Youths And Gangsta Rap

When I was growing up, my friends and I chanted, "Sticks and stones will
break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Unfortunately, these lyrics
are not true for many young Americans in the 1990s. In today's society
words can and do provide the springboard for some youths to kill. In
several of my recent cases, violent music lyrics appeared to provide the
additional impetus needed for unbonded youths to kill (Heide, 1997a).[7]

The case of Donnell

Donnell, a handsome 17-year-old African-American youth, was charged
with three armed robberies of convenience stores and two homicides in
connection with them. In all three of these incidents, the youth allegedly
fired shots from his handgun. In the last two incidents, Donnell reportedly
fired directly at a store clerk in each of the stores, killing both of them.
The State indicted the adolescent as an adult with multiple charges,
including two counts of first degree murder, and announced its intention to
seek the death penalty. Prior to trial, a plea agreement was reached,
wherein Donnell avoided a possible death sentence by agreeing to plead
guilty to two counts of second degree murder and one count of armed
robbery.

Prior to the sentencing hearing, defense counsel contacted me for
assistance in gaining understanding of their client and his involvement in
these crimes. Defense counsel related that Donnell had been raised for
most of his life in a Christian home by his grandparents, who were known
to be stable and good-valued people. His grandfather was a hardworking
man, who provided well for his family. My evaluation verified that
Donnell had his own room at his grandparents' home and was essentially
raised as an only child by grandparents who loved and doted on him. He
lived a middle-to-upper-middle-class life. The family lived in a beautiful
home on about five acres of land with a pool, tennis court, and basketball
court. A boy who had a college fund set up for him and a family business
to go into was robbing and killing people. The obvious question was
"why"?

Thorough assessment in the case of Donnell revealed a confluence of
factors that contributed to his violent behavior. Donnell's personality
development was low. He had not reached the level of personality
development where he could see that he was accountable for his behavior
and that he had choices. Rather, he thought and acted like a much younger
child (Heide, 1992, 1997a). 

Donnell's restricted personality development was partly due to the chaotic
nature of his first few years of life. Donnell experienced early
abandonment by both his biological parents and repeated breaks in the
bonding process. It is questionable whether he ever bonded to anyone,
including the grandparents who loved him dearly. There was evidence to
suggest that during the short time that he lived with his mother, Donnell
might have been neglected and possibly abused. 

As a young adolescent, Donnell lived in several households with different
ways of relating and standards for behavior, and did not learn responsible
behavior. He spent a short stay with his mother when he was about 14.
During the two-to-three years preceding his arrest for the
robbery/homicides, Donnell was living with his father, who was abusing
cocaine. While staying with his father, Donnell rarely went to school. He
associated increasingly with delinquent youths who lived in low income
neighborhoods known to be violent and was arrested for delinquent
behavior on a few occasions. Although it was clear to the family, to the
school, and to the juvenile justice system that Donnell needed help, no
meaningful intervention occurred. 

In addition to the low personality development and unfavorable influences
in his early childhood and adolescence, psychological testing revealed that
Donnell was of dull-normal intelligence. Donnell also had some brain
damage, which appeared to have been present from birth. 

During his middle adolescence, Donnell also became heavily involved in
listening to "gangsta rap" music. The messages in the songs clearly
influenced him. When I listened to several recordings after speaking with
Donnell, I discovered that some of the responses that he gave to my
questions were lyrics from the songs. For example, when I asked Donnell
how come he shot the clerk immediately upon entering the store, he
replied that he had gotten "trigga happy," one of the recordings sung by
the rapper known as Spice One.

The case of Tommy

I was retained by defense counsel to evaluate 14-year-old Tommy, the
younger of two white brothers charged with killing their parents, prior to
the Court's ruling on the State's motion to transfer this boy to adult court.
Tommy, similar to Donnell, appeared to have been an unbonded and low
maturity youth, who idealized his older brother Bill. Psychological testing
revealed no apparent pathology. 

My evaluation and extensive corroborative data strongly suggested that
Bill had pressured Tommy into participating in the double homicide.
Tommy related that he listened to "mainly hard core rap music" after Bill
introduced him to it. When asked, he named Spice One, Lynch Mob, Ice
Cube, ODB, Method Man, Cypress Hill, Wu Tang, and 2 Pac as groups to
which they listened. 

I was unable to evaluate Bill due to the apparent conflict of interest.
Several of Bill's friends told police that Bill had become increasingly
preoccupied with guns, gangs, and killings in the months preceding the
murders. They related that Bill was heavily absorbed in "gangsta rap" and
was "a wigger." He had a fascination with guns and drive-by shootings,
and was trying to join a gang. He allegedly bragged he could get a gun if
he wanted one. Bill reportedly said on several occasions that prison was
the way to go and that he expected to wind up in jail. Bill told one friend
that if he killed his parents "it would be for the money." Tommy indicated
that Bill emptied his parents' safe, which contained several hundred dollars
during the homicidal incident.

The case of Dwight

Dwight, a 17-year-old boy was referred for a competency and sanity
evaluation. He had allegedly kidnapped a small child, beaten her severely,
and attempted to rape her. He stopped the vicious attack upon the victim
when he heard voices approaching and fled. Dwight was another low
maturity, unbonded youth. Consultation with his parents revealed a
significant medical history. Dwight was deprived of oxygen at birth, was
diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactive disorder, was dyslexic,
and had a history of epilepsy. 

In addition to medical trauma, clinical interviews with Dwight and his
parents indicated that both parents emotionally neglected Dwight.
Dwight's father did not have much interaction with his son when he was a
child. Dwight's mother was emotionally unavailable to Dwight for the first
seven years of his life because of her mental illness.

Dwight was a victim of emotional incest. He was expected to take on a
parent-type role in the sense of caretaking for his mother, who had a
serious medical condition, as well as a significant mental health history.
Dwight, as a young child, witnessed extreme forms of violence initiated by
his mother. These acts undermined his sense of safety and trust in his
environment. 

Dwight had few accomplishments of which he could be proud. He had
difficulty maintaining passing grades in his special education classes and
dropped out. His abilities at sports were noticeably compromised by his
neurological problems. He had difficulty making friends and never had a
girlfriend. He had some familiarity with gangs, more as "a wannabe" than
as a gang member. 

There was one area where Dwight had gained some proficiency. He did
have extensive knowledge of "gangsta rap" music and was pleased by his
ability to remember these songs and to sing them. He acknowledged that
he had a good memory for auditory learning. 

Dwight listened to Tu Paq, Snoop Doggy Dog, Coolio, 69 Boys and 12
Gauge. Dwight played the cassette called "Doggy Style" by Snoop Doggy
Dog often at home. He described the eleven songs on the album and was
able to provide the words to them. His favorite song was a song called
"Gin and Juice," which was interesting because the only hard liquor that
he reported liking was gin and he drank it with juice. Dwight was able to
sing this song for me. He knew the words, the beat, and the harmony. He
said in this song Snoop was telling people how to live life. The ladies in
the song were portrayed like "bitches, like trash." Snoop would have sex
with them and throw them away. 

Dwight indicated he got into gangster rap late in the seventh grade when
he was about thirteen. Prior to this time he had been into "heavy metal"
music during the fifth and sixth grades. His favorite song was "Runaway
Train" by Soul Asylum, which was dedicated to kids who ran away or
were kidnapped. 

Theoretical And Policy Implications

Clinical case studies such as those above are essential in generating
hypotheses about the causes of and solutions to particular problems and,
on occasion, in providing disconfirming evidence for a prevailing
hypothesis (Rosenhan and Seligman 1989). They also serve to enhance
understanding of particular individuals (See e.g., Wertham 1941;
Reinhardt 1970; Gardiner 1985; Leyton 1990; Heide 1992). Causation
cannot be determined with the case study method, however, because this
method investigates only individuals who have a particular problem or fall
into a particular category -- in this case, adolescents arrested for serious
violent crimes -- and does not focus on those who do not (Rosenhan and
Seligman 1989). 

It is important to note that millions of youths are exposed to the words of
"gangsta rap" every day. Of this large number, some will become absorbed
in the messages and the lifestyle. The number who are propelled by these
words into violent behavior is unknown.

The case studies of Donnell, Tommy, and Dwight suggest that youths who
are most likely to be influenced to take action by violent words are those
who believe that they have little or nothing left to lose. Children and teens
who would appear to be at higher risk of being negatively effected by
"gangsta rap" are the kids who are angry, frequently in pain, and too often
unattached due to experiences in their home and neighborhood
environments. Despite their often cool veneer, they lack self esteem and
often the inner and outer resources to improve their lives. They do not
hold conventional values or dreams. Often chronically bored, they
frequently use drugs and alcohol to anesthetize themselves and commit
crimes impulsively. They live in the moment. To them, thrills -- and lives
-- are cheap. 

In recent years, politicians from both the Democratic and Republican
parties have expressed concern over the violent themes reflected in the
record and movie industries. Political figures have called for more
societally responsible programming with the threat of censorship looming
on the horizon if the warning goes unheeded. Censorship alone ignores the
real factors underlying why some young listeners turn to violent behavior.
It is a quick fix solution that avoids significant societal examination and
change.

Fromm's theory of malignant aggression

Erich Fromm (1973) took a comprehensive look at the phenomena of
violent behavior approximately 25 years ago. He identified a type of
aggression that is specifically a human phenomenon. He called this unique
type of destructiveness "malignant aggression" because it is biologically
non-adaptive. Fromm theorized that some individuals and cultures seem to
be driven by a "passion" rooted within their individual and collective
"characters" to destroy members of their own species when there exists no
rational gain, either biological or economic, to be accrued from such
destructive behavior. 

Fromm's theory of malignant aggression provides a theoretical framework
in which to view acts of cruelty and destructiveness. It can be used to
investigate research questions and to formulate policy decisions. Although
"gangsta rap" did not exist when Fromm was conceptualizing his theory,
the attraction that it holds for many youths today is easily explained by
Fromm's work.

Fromm maintained that human beings have existential needs, as well as
physiological needs. He specifically identified five existential needs:
frame of orientation and an object of devotion, rootedness, unity,
effectiveness, and excitation and stimulation. He argued persuasively that
one of the possible answers to the existential needs is destructiveness.
Fromm's theory of malignant aggression is concerned with the
identification of various "passions" within an individual's character that
are associated with constructive and destructive responses to these
existential needs. Discussion of these needs suggests that certain
individuals are more likely to be influenced by the violent and
misogynistic messages in "gangsta rap" than others.

According to Fromm, every human being needs a map of the world and a
focal point. Individuals who have a frame of orientation are able to act
purposely and consistently. Those who do not have this blueprint feel
confused and unsettled. The need for a frame of orientation is so intense
that people who lack this map can be highly suggestible and succumb to
irrational doctrines. These individuals are at increased risk of joining cults
and following the precepts and behavior without discernment. 

An object of devotion is closely related to one's frame of orientation. It is
the goal to which an individual's strives. A constructive frame of
orientation could be making a positive difference in this world, being all
that one can be, or approaching life as a series of lessons to learn and
master. Objects of devotion consistent with making a positive difference in
this world could be selected from one's work, family, or community
involvement. For example, a youth could decide to become a physician
and aspire to discover a cure for AIDS; another could desire to raise his or
her children as good valued, contributing members of society; and still
another could choose to get politically involved to work towards
eradicating discrimination and helping the poor (Fromm, 1973).

Youths who embrace the messages in "gangsta rap" are at greater risk of
adopting a destructive frame of orientation and a related object of
devotion. Youths who habitually listen to "gangsta rap" are likely to view
the world as a dangerous place, to see women in a disparaging way, and to
perceive extensive alcohol and illicit drug use as desirable. As in the case
of Donnell, they may actively choose to become a gangster and to engage
in violent behavior, such as robbing and killing other people.

Fromm maintained that human beings have an intense need to feel a sense
of rootedness. They desire to undo the feeling of separateness that
originates with separation from mother's womb at birth. Individuals who
are independent and productive are capable of truly loving other people.
Fromm argued that those who lack the foundation to forge healthy
alliances are more likely to be involved in symbiotic, narcissistic, or
destructive relationships (Fromm, 1973). "Gangsta rap" music extols these
types of unhealthy relationships. This type of rap music encourages
symbiotic relationships by portraying males as controlling females in
sadistic-masochistic patterns. The lyrics reinforce narcissism by
proclaiming that what the gangster wants is his to take. Many songs
openly promote destructiveness through words that relate that the gangster
destroys others, particularly women, who have no further use to him or
who get in his way.

Fromm explained that people also have a need to feel a sense of unity with
themselves, with others, and with the environment. One can achieve this
sense of peace in a constructive way by developing human reason and
loving others. Fromm identified several negative ways that individuals can
attain this sense of unity. They can anesthetize their consciousness with
alcohol and drugs and compulsive involvement in some activities, such as
sex. They can become over-identified with one's social role to the point
that they simply react and no longer think or feel about what they are
doing. They can subordinate all their energies to one all-consuming
passion, such as the passion for destructiveness, power, or fame (Fromm,
1973). "Gangsta rap" encourages these types of behaviors by extolling
substance abuse and sexual excess. It entices youth to lose themselves by
adopting the glorified life of a gangster. The role of the gangster is
glamorized in a way that could lead adolescents to develop a craving for
the gangster's perceived power, his notoriety, and his thirst for
destructiveness.

Human beings also have a need to effect; they need to feel that they can
impact on other people and on the environment. Fromm explained that
individuals can effect others through love or through fear and suffering.
Similarly, they can relate to things in a constructive or destructive way.
According to Fromm, the feeling that one is ineffective as a human being
is a very painful and difficult experience. "Man will do almost anything to
overcome it, from drug and work addiction, to cruelty and murder" (p.
265). Youths who are most likely to embrace the messages of "gangsta
rap" are those who lack accomplishments in more constructive arenas.
Youths who are doing poorly in school, are uninvolved in sports or other
extracurricular activities, are unemployed, and do not have a steady mate
are at greater risk of succumbing to these messages than youths who are
doing well in school and in their communities.

Fromm stated that people have a need for excitation and stimulation. He
explained that there are two types of stimuli: simple and activating. Simple
stimuli are neurophysiologically-based and almost reflex-like. The
individual "reacts" to them rather than consciously deliberating. He runs
away, attacks, or becomes sexually excited. After repeated exposure to
simple stimuli, people become habituated to them and stop reacting.
Accordingly, human beings will no longer react to these stimuli when they
are repeated beyond a certain threshold unless intensified or changed in
content. When habituation occurs to a violent stimulus, for example, more
intense violent behaviors are needed for the viewers' bodies to react and to
register physiological indicators of distress (Fromm, 1973; Donnerstein,
1984; Donnerstein, Linz, and Penrod 1987; Solomon, Schmidt, and
Ardragna, 1990).

Activating stimuli require more involvement from the person. A poem, a
musical composition, a written report, an architectural design or a
landscaping project, for example, require more of a response from an
individual. Stimuli of this type invite the person to become active and to
put forth an effort. Activating stimuli are always changing because human
beings are acting upon them. People who are striving for a goal are
responding to activating stimuli; those who are driven to respond to some
event are responding to simple stimuli.

Fromm maintained that modern society was overwrought with simple
stimuli and that the media was largely responsible. His words, published
close to 25 years ago, are even more true today. "Contemporary life in
industrial society operates almost entirely with such simple stimuli. What
is stimulated are such drives as sexual desire, greed, sadism,
destructiveness, narcissism; these stimuli are mediated through movies,
TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the commodity market" (p. 270). 

Fromm hypothesized that human beings' need for stimulation and
excitation is one of the primary factors responsible for acts of
destructiveness and cruelty. He argued that it is much easier for people to
get excited by anger, rage, cruelty, and the urge to destroy than by
constructive interest and love. In contrast to constructive behaviors,
Fromm pointed out that one does not need patience, discipline, critical
thinking, concentration, and frustration tolerance to engage in acts of
cruelty and destructiveness (Fromm, 1973). Opportunities to vent negative
emotions and to behave destructively are immediately available in the
United States, with its easy access to handguns and more sophisticated
weapons of destruction. 

Boredom and chronic depression are closely related to stimulation. Fromm
explained that there are three types of persons. The first type is capable of
responding to activating stimuli and is rarely bored. The second type is
chronically bored, but is able to compensate for his boredom by availing
himself of frequently changing simple stimuli, such as drinking, doing
drugs, having sex, watching TV, and going to parties. The third type, also
chronically bored, is unable to obtain excitement by normal stimulation
and is most likely to turn to acts of cruelty and destructiveness. 

Fromm related that genuine acts of malignant aggression can take two
forms. Spontaneous acts, such as those that occur in wartime or in
vengeance, are less of concern than character-rooted acts of malignant
aggression. Spontaneous acts of malignant aggression are typically
isolated and infrequent acts that occur under extreme conditions unlikely
to be repeated. Character-rooted acts of malignant aggression are more
pernicious because, as the name suggests, they are rooted in an individual's
personality.

Fromm identified two character structures that threaten human health and
survival: the sadistic and necrophilous. The sadistic character engages in
acts of cruelty to demonstrate power and control. The necrophilous
character is further along the continuum of destructiveness. A person with
this character structure is excited by death and destructiveness. Fromm
used the term necrophilia in the broad sense of destructiveness; sexual
necrophilia would be among the most extreme perversions that might be
committed by someone with this character structure (Fromm, 1973).

The messages in "gangsta rap" are of the simple stimuli variety. As
discussed above, they advocate substance abuse, partying, and compulsive
sex. Power and control are recurring themes. Avenues to achieve power
and control include acts of human cruelty and destructiveness. Some of the
"gangstas" portrayed in these songs could easily fit Fromm's sadistic
character; others, his necrophilous category.

About 10 percent of the 90 juvenile murderers whom I have evaluated
truly seemed to enjoy telling me about their murderous activities. Their
acts of destructiveness seemed to be characterological. These adolescents
laughed heartily as they recounted the homicidal events and related that
they experienced the victim's dying gestures as "funny." 

My clinical experiences with homicidal youths have indicated that the best
source of data in uncovering this destructive pattern, however, was not
typically the adolescents' description of their homicidal activities. Many
youths were understandably guarded in their accounts of the murders. Due
to the depth of my clinical interviews and the broad array of topics
explored, unguarded remarks made about seemingly "innocuous" material
provided invaluable data regarding sadistic and destructive character traits.
These content areas include music and movie preferences, as well as
girlfriends, pets, activities, and careers.

Youths with these destructive traits would often become animated as they
related incidents when they scared others by catching them off-guard,
intimidated others by their persona, beat others badly, and destroyed other
living things, such as dogs, cats, and lizards. Along these lines, one of the
youths above related that he would like to be a mortician when he got
older because he finds death "funny sometimes and just interesting." When
probed, this youth recalled really enjoying a movie where people died
from doing "stupid things," such as bungee jumping. The idea of being a
mortician was appealing to this boy because he explained that they make a
lot of money, that people are always dying, and that he has always been
fascinated by death. 

In summary, "gangsta rap" is likely to fill a void for some youths today.
For those youths who are drifting aimlessly, the life of a gangster can
provide a way to live (a frame of orientation) and a goal of "being
somebody" (object of devotion). The music tells youths how to relate to
others in symbiotic and destructive ways (rootedness) and how to
anesthetize consciousness through drugs, alcohol, sex, partying (unity). It
provides reinforcement for engaging in fun, exciting and destructive
activities that require little effort (simple stimuli) as a way to impact on
society (need to effect). It advocates sadistic and destructive acts as viable
ways to achieve power and control in human relationships in today's
world. 

Banning "gangsta rap" is not going to stem the tide of adolescent
destructiveness, which has increased dramatically since the mid 1980s. A
society responding to the challenges faced by today's youths is needed.
"Gangsta rap" appears to provide a way for some youths to meet the five
existential needs identified by Fromm. Parents, the educational system,
communities, government leaders, medical and mental health
professionals, the media, and individuals must join together to find
meaningful and effective ways for adolescents in the 1990s to fulfill their
existential needs (Heide, 1996, 1997b). 

As we rapidly approach the millennium, several questions need to be
answered in this regard: Why do millions of kids listen to this music? How
come fantasies of cruelty and destructiveness are attractive to youths from
the mainstream of society as well as from its margins? Do these violent
lyrics, perhaps, fill some cathartic need for some of these youths? For
example, does listening to "gangsta rap" drain off stress for some well-
positioned and committed youths who embrace the core culture and feel
pressured to succeed? And most importantly, what direction and guidance
can we as adults provide to increase the likelihood that kids today will
choose constructive blueprints for life, positive goals, healthy
relationships, and moral ways to effect others and to live their lives? 

References

Barongan, C. and Hall, G.C.N. (1995). The influence of misogynous rap
music on sexual aggression against women. Psychology of Women
Quarterly, 19(2), 195-207.

Bell, C.C. (1994, November 29). Statement of Carl C. Bell, M.D. and
Ester Jenkins, Ph.D., Before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the
Senate Committee on Juvenile Crime: Breaking the Cycles of Violence,
November 29, 1994, presented by Dr. Bell, Community Mental Health
Council.

Donnerstein, E. (1984). Pornography: Its effect on violence against
women. In N.M. Malamuth and E. Donnerstein (eds), Pornography and
sexual aggression (pp. 53-81). Orlando, FL.: Academic Press, Inc.

Donnerstein, E., Linz, D., and Penrod, S. (1987). The question of
pornography: Research findings and policy implications. New York: The
Free Press.

Fox, J.A. and Levin, J. (1994). Overkill: Mass murder and serial killing
exposed. New York: Plenum Press.

Fromm, E. (1973). The anatomy of human destructiveness. Greenwich,
CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc.

Gardiner, M. (1985). The deadly innocents: Portraits of children who kill.
New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press. 

Heide, K.M. (1997a). "Associate editor's editorial: Killing words."
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology
4(1), 3-8.

Heide, K.M. (1997b). "Juvenile homicide in America: How can we stop
the killing." Behavioral Sciences and the Law, Special Issue on Juvenile
Violence. 

Heide, K.M. (1996). Why kids keep killing: The correlates, causes, and
challenge of Juvenile Homicide. Stanford Law and Policy Review, 7(1),
43-49.

Heide, K.M. (1992). Why kids kill parents: Child abuse and adolescent
homicide. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press (Cloth); (1995)
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (paper).

Levin, J. and Fox, J. (1985). Mass murder: America's growing menace.
New York: Plenum.

Leyton, E. (1990). Sole survivor: Children who murder their parents. New
York: Pocket Bks. .

Myers, W.C. (1992). What treatments do we have for children and
adolescents who have killed? Bulletin of the American Academy of
Psychiatry and the Law, 20(1), 47-58.

Prothrow-Stith, D. and Weissman, M. (1991). Deadly consequences. New
York: Harper Collins.

Reinhardt, J.M. (1970). Nothing left but murder. Lincoln, Nebr.: Johnsenn
Publishing.

Retailer pulls apparel with offensive slogan. (1997, May 27). Tampa
Tribune, Business, p.6.

Rosenhan, D.L. and Seligman, M.E.P. (1989). Abnormal psychology, 2nd
ed. New York: W.M. Norton and Company.

Sleek, S. (1994, January). APA works to reduce violence in media. The
Monitor, pp. 6-7.

Solomon, E., Schmidt, R., and Ardragna, P. (1990). Human anatomy and
physiology. Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing.

Wertham, F. (1941). Dark legend: A study in murder. New York: Duell,
Sloan, and Pearce, 1941.

Wheeler, J.L. (1993). Remote controlled: How TV affects you and your
family. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association.

NOTE

7. The cases of Donnell and Tommy originally appeared in a 1997
editorial entitled "Killing Words" written by the author and published in
the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative
Criminology, 4,(1): 3-8.

------------------------------

Area Research on Homicide: Discussion Notes 

Lin Huff-Corzine, University of Central Florida

In this final session of our 1997 Homicide Research Working Group
workshop, there were three papers presented. As one might expect, fewer
people were in attendance at this session. Nonetheless, the presentations
were excellent and the discussion lively. Darrell Cheatwood, organizer,
allowed questions following each paper rather than wait until the end of
the time period.

"Comparing Apples to Oranges to Lemons: Reconciling Historical
Homicide Data" by Vance McLaughlin examines recorded homicides in
Savannah for 1896-1903 and 1986-1993. As part of his opening,
McLaughlin made two statements many of us may be able to relate to and
which I feel compelled to include here: "WILL WORK FOR DATA" and
"LET THE STREETS RUN RED WITH BLOOD, I'M DOING
RESEARCH." Anybody need a new office door sign?

His presentation focused on the inconsistencies among his data sources
and the difficulties researchers often face when trying to verify homicide
events. In addition, some comments were made about specific findings.

Questions and comments from the audience arose primarily in relationship
to specific findings. Dick Block pointed out that in historical studies of
Omaha and other western towns, the same pattern of police killings were
found as in McLaughlin's examination of Savannah. If a police officer is
killed, it most likely happens within one year of joining the force and in
the more dangerous parts of town, near brothels, on wharfs, etc. According
to McLaughlin, likely assignments for newer officers are located in the
less desirable enforcement areas. One could argue as well that these newer
hires also have the least experience and are therefore more likely to make
deadly mistakes. Roland Chilton followed with a question about the race
of offenders and victims. McLaughlin asserted that there was a one-third
decrease in the rate of killing among whites between the earlier and later
time periods. Among blacks, the number of both offenders and victims
increased, but once "drug homicides" are controlled for, there is no
significant difference between the two time periods.

Next, Anne Lee presented "Marital Status and Homicide." A true
demographer, Lee offered the audience more numbers relating homicide to
marital status than we could even begin to digest in the few minutes of
discussion allotted for this purpose. Specifically, Lee pointed out that
compared to earlier demographic studies (1939-41 and 1959-61), homicide
and other mortality data by marital status allowed researchers to examine
race, sex, and age of victims beginning in 1981. Thus, her presentation
focused on these differences. In this report, I will include questions,
interpretations and insights that are most closely linked to improving data
or that may stimulate further research. 

Consistent with other research, it appears that women who live with men
have a higher rate of homicide. Marital status, which includes "never
married," "married," "separated," and "divorced," however, does not
provide a complete picture of marital-like relationships. To examine this in
more depth, we need to know about co-habitating partners and common-
law marriages as well. As Roland Chilton pointed out women were more
"sheltered" by fathers, brothers and other male relatives even if they never
married in 1949-51. Research focusing on the victim-offender relationship
might shed new light on why women are killed by comparing the older
and newer data used in Lee's paper. We also need some operationalization
of "independence" or "autonomy," perhaps using economic measures to
help us better understand the differences between homicide rates for
women reported in the earlier and more recent data sets. Certainly, as our
discussion indicated, women of the 1990s are more likely to have better
incomes and more independence than they were 40 or more years ago and
they are more likely to divorce. But there are some nuances that we did not
debate. For example, we are assuming that women feel more independent
now and that they divorce for that reason. But just because women now
make more money does not mean it directly influences their perceptions of
autonomy or independence. In addition, we did not discuss the influence
of how long people were married. Even 40 years ago, people did not live
as long so life-long marriage commitments may have involved fewer years
which could reduce the chance of divorce irrespective of other factors like
religion, spousal roles in the family or women's perceptions of
independence. Dick Block may have been trying to get at the length (or
one's expectations about the length) of marriages when he questioned the
possible influence of maternal mortality on women's homicide rates.
Could it be that death related to childbirth could mask women's risk of
homicide in the earlier data sets, 1939-41 and 1959-61? 

A final question that could lead to further research was raised by Becky
Block. As she noted, if someone a person is close to and live with dies,
risk of death for that person increases. Often, this finding has been
explained away by asserting that the survivor loses their will to live. But
true to her spatial interests, Block asks if it could indicate the general risk
of the area in which they live. Research examining homicide among the
elderly may lend support to this argument in that most find the elderly are
more likely to be killed in their own homes and by strangers. Examining
the marital status of elderly homicide victims and the spatial distribution
of these events could shed even more light on this intriguing question.

The final paper, "Homicide in Australia," was presented by Peter
Grabosky. Fortunate for those living in Australia, the homicide rate is
much lower there than in the U.S., but this could also be fortunate for
studies of homicide as well. In Australia, they have begun collecting data
on 47 variables which could be related to the homicide event so our
discussion, just as the possible research which could be done using such a
vast array of data, became detective-like in our search for causes of
homicide. 

Knowing that Australia has strict gun control laws, Jay Corzine asked
about the type of weapons used in homicides. Over the last half century or
so, it seems that only about 3% of homicides are committed with
handguns compared to over 50% in the U.S. Lois Mock asked about if
percent of all homicides that are women has been significantly increasing
since 1989 or if this is due to increasing homicide rates in general. The
former seems to be the case with women representing 40% of Australia's
homicide victims, but there are no clear answers why at this time. Finally,
Dick Block asked about the urban/rural distribution of homicides in
Australia. Grabosky said that homicide is much more of a rural than urban
phenomenon and believed this may be explained by a variety of factors
including the reluctance of some jurisdictions to restrict access to guns as
completely as others and the profound social disadvantages of certain
groups, especially those of Aboriginal ancestry, who are concentrated in
rural areas.

------------------------------

Appendix A
Agenda

HRWG 1997 Intensive Workshop
Theme: The Policy/Practice/Research Connection
May 27, 1997

June 8

6:30-9:00 p.m.
Reception and Discussion Led by David Kennedy--What Works

June 9

7-8 
Breakfast in the Dining Room

8-8:15 
Hello

8:15-10:50 
Theme Session 1: Building Bridges Between Research and Practice,
Youth
Violence Prevention

This session, features four collaborations between theory/ research and
policy/practice in youth violence. What unique perspectives and skills are
required of researchers and practitioners in bridging the gaps and building
linages, what are the barriers to establishing these linkages, and how can
they be surmounted? Meeting participants will have a chance to "kick the
tires" of four collaborations, asking them how they did it, the problems
and how they overcame them, the results of their interventions, and what
steps can or should be take to disseminate these prevention models and
integrate them into public policy.

Organized and moderated by Lois Mock (NIJ), Linda Dahlberg (CID), and
Bob Flewelling (RTI).

Collaborators
Rich Rosenfeld and Troy Miles, Americorp, from a high risk youth
mentoring program in St. Louis

Anthony Braga or David Kennedy and Lt. Gary French from the Boston
collaborative youth violence prevention project

Don Faggiani and Colleen McLaughlin, who report on a brief intervention
model being applied to youthful violent injury patients

Peter Greenwood will wear two hats in his discussion of the California
Wellness Foundation

10:50-11:00 
Break

11-12:30
Violent Offenders-Motives and History

Moderator- James Trudeau

Garen Wintemute- Prior Criminal History and Other Determinants of
Later Criminal Activity among Authorized Purchasers of Handguns

Everett Lee- Infanticides Related to Characteristics of Parents

Range Hustson, Diedre Anglin, Sgt John Yarbrough, Jared Strote, Michael
Canter, Kimberly Hardaway- "Law Enforcement Forced Assisted Suicide
or Suicide by Cop" LA data on situations in which a suicidal person
provokes the police into killing him.

Henry Brownstein- "Prior Experience with Drugs and Violence of Young
People Under Custody for Homicide" Preliminary findings from two
studies involving interviews with boys and girls under custody for
homicide.

12:30-1:45
Lunch and Business Session

1:45-2:50 
The Rewarding and Painful Process of Collaboration to Prevent Domestic
Violence

Jackie Campbell, Carolyn Rebecca Block, Deborah Spungen and Linda
Langford

This workshop is focused on the advantages, disadvantages, problems, and
opportunities of collaborative intimate violence research. It brings together
four projects in which collaboration between research and practitioners,
academics and policy makers, public health and public safety agencies,
and/or community-level and federal or state entities is a central
component.

2:50-3:00
Break

3:00-5:00
Demo/Poster/Literature Session

Joel Garner Session Coordinator

Presenters so far:
John Firman, IACP; The Two Richmonds: An Implementation of the
Recommendations of Murder in America Summit Report

Skip Sigmon- How to use NCJRS
Kaye Marz: How to use Nat. Archive of CJ Data

Victoria Brewer, Kelly R. Damphousse, and Derek Paulsen 
A Comparison of U.S. and Canadian Findings on Uxoricide Risk for
Women and Children Sired by Previous Partners

Orest Fedorowicz, Statistics Canada- The Canadian Homicide Data Set

Pamela Lattimore- NIJ Update: Homicide Changes in Eight Cities

Jiafang Chen: Weapons Used in Homicide 1920-1991: Changing Patterns
by Ethnicity, Sex, Age, and Region

Richard Block: Firearms Ownership and Firearms Victimization: A
Comparison of Nine Western Industrialized Societies in the International
Crime Victim Survey-1996

6-9:00
Dinner and Round Table Discussions

Dinner Roundtables: At dinner on Monday. For those of you who were
asking form more person-to-person discussion time, this is a chance to
hold a nitty-gritty focused discussion with a few (5-10) other interested
people over dinner. It is not a presentation session. (But one person can get
the discussion ball rolling).

Topics:

Linda Langford: Issues in Homicide Case Definition from a Study of
Domestic Homicide

June 10

7:30-8:30 a.m.
Breakfast in the Dining Room

8:30-10:15 
The Brady Act: Evaluation Consideration and Where to Go From Here

This session will explore the efficacy of the Brady Act in reducing gun
crime (especially violent gun crime), methodological concerns with such
an evaluation, legal versus illegal methods of acquiring firearms that may
confound findings, and recommendations to better assess the impact of
Brady and improve its enforcement potential.

Moderator: Steven Roth, New York State Division of Criminal Justice
Services

Joseph Vince, Chief of Firearms Division, ATF: "Provisions and Intent of
the Brady Act" , and Wallace Nelson, Head of Regulatory Bureau, ATF:
"How Brady Was Performed--indicators of "success" (Joe and Wally will
collaboratively present in tandem)

Daniel Webster, John Hopkins University: "Methodological Consideration
in Evaluating the Effects of the Brady Act"

Dean Rojek, University of Georgia: " Illegal Methods of Acquiring
Firearms and their Impact on the Effectiveness of the Brady Act"

Gary Kleck, Florida State University: "Methods to Improve Evaluation of
Brady, with Positive Potential for Law Enforcement"

10:00-10:15 
Break

10:15-10:45 
Linking Data Sources to Understand Firearms Related Deaths

Barbara Pearce, Ralph Tanz, Childrens Memorial Hospital, "Issues in
Linking Confidential Pediatric Firearm-Related Deaths"

Judith Lovely, Damir Kukek, Department of Justice Canada, "Firearms
Deaths: A Prospective Study in Selected Provinces"

10:45-12:15
Comparing and Coordinating Information on Lethal Violence

Epidemiology and Lethal Violence: Allan Abrahamse (organizer,
moderator).

A few short presentations about different techniques followed by a
vigorous discussion that might lead, some day, to a partial consensus on
what we ought to expect from somebody who claims to know what the
future holds. It might also inspire some of us to agree to try a couple of
common approaches to datasets with the idea of a session in 1998
contrasting the results.

Al Blumstein, Jacqueline Chohen, John Engberg, George Tita. "Spatial
Dependence of Retaliatory Homicides"

Chris Rasche. Open discussion session on the "Tipping Point." Is this a
real epidemiological phenomena and could it apply to homicide? The
application of public health ideas to Criminal Justice.

Roland Chilton. "Race, Class, April 9, 1998 and Homicide: A Proposal of
Work for other HRWG Members"

Allan Abrahamse: Relating Demographic Trends to Lethal Violence

12:15-1:15
Lunch

1:30-4:45 
Tour of the ATF Training Center

Reception at Joel Garner's House 5:30-6:45

7:00-9:30
Dinner

The speaker is still not confirmed

June 11

7:30-8:30 
Breakfast

8:30-9:45 
What Works? Using Firearm Tracing Information in Violence Reduction
Intervention Projects

John Firman- A Work in Progress: The IACP Gun Trafficking Interdiction
Project

Paul Blackman- "The Limitations on BATF Tracing Data for
Policymaking and Criminological Research"

Joe Vince or other TF expert Anthony Braga and David Kennedy-
"Information Foundations for Violence Reduction Projects: Firearm
Tracing Data"

9:45-10:00 
Break

10-12:00 
Gangs, Drugs, and Youth Violence

Moderator Ron Farrell

Kelly Damphouse, Victoria Brewer, Cary Adkinson: Gangs,
Race/Ethnicity and Houston Homicide in the 1990's

Kathleen Heide: Today's Music and Youth Violence

George Tita, Al Blumstein, Jackie Chohen- The Gang-Drug-Gun Nexus
Evidence from Pittsburgh

Buddy Howell, Cheryl Maxson, David Curry: A Comparison of
Responses to the National Youth Gang Survey and UCR Data

12-1:30
Lunch and Business Session

1:30-2:30 
Area Research on Homicide

Moderator Derral Cheatwood

Vance McLaughlin. "Homicide in Savannah: 186-1903; 1986-1993"
Citizen versus citizen homicide, homicides done by the government,
research methods for analyzing homicides from the last century

Cheryl Maxson "New Data on Juvenile Homicide in Los Angeles"

Abb Lee: Marital Status and Homicide

Peter Grabosky: Homicide in Australia

3-6 
Tour of Antietam Battlefield
(Vans will be provided)

7:15 
Dinner at the South Mountain Inn
(at your expense)