An Examination of the Embeddedness of Gun Use among Violent Youths' Peers.

Data on gun use among adolescents in violent events is generally lacking. This is especially disconcerting among urban minority youth where at least half of such adolescents report they and their peers own guns (Huff, 1998; Slovak, 2002). Data for this project come from the New York City Youth Violence Study (NYCYVS). Interviews were conducted with 417 active violent male offenders from two disadvantaged New York City neighborhoods in the mid 1990s (see Wilkinson and Fagan, 1996, 2001; Wilkinson, 2003). This paper focuses on the peer section of the interview. Focal respondents were asked to report about nature, duration, and quality of their friendships and group associations, peers involvement in gun carrying, gun use in interpersonal disputes, gun use in crime, involvement in drug selling, involvement in others types of crime, and their involvement in prosocial activities such as work and education. Using this data we consider reports on peers'gun use and involvement in delinquency. We hypothesize that respondents who are comparatively more embedded in networks of peers who carry and use guns will also report greater involvement in serious gun violence. The analysis will focus on delineating the nuances of peer influences on specific criminal behaviors. Consistent with Wilkinson and Fagan's (2001) study of the respondents, we find that adolescents' believe having a gun is not good, yet most of their peers carry guns. As a result, the adolescents' peers are more likely to react to everyday situations using gun violence. Additional analyses will examine the nature of the respondents' relationships with their peers and provide context to our peer gun findings. We will further discuss how the results can be used to inform violence intervention policy and directions for future research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]