The Gun Epidemic Reconsidered: Creating a Foundation to Reduce Firearm Violence Among Urban Youth

The proposed research will examine the acquisition, possession and use of firearms among a sample of high-risk youth (ages 16-24),2 drawn from five distinct New York City neighborhoods that are historically characterized by high rates of gun violence. The overarching goal of the project is to provide an evidence-based foundation for prevention programs and policies to address gun usage among youth nationally. We work from the premise that our New York City findings will be generalizable to similar urban environments and populations nationwide, given the previously documented similarities in youth gun violence epidemics in cities across the country (Blumstein, 2002; Beckett, 2015). A mixed-methods design will be implemented to achieve our goal. Specifically, respondent-driven sampling (RDS) will be employed to identify a representative sample of no fewer than 500 youth (ages 16-24) in New York City who have currently or recently been involved with guns and/or violence. Interview findings will be contextualized by a quantitative analysis of neighborhood characteristics in the selected sites, including at minimum the following characteristics which are theoretically relevant to gun violence: concentrated disadvantage, racial composition, housing characteristics and violent crime rates. ca/ncf