Here are 3 publications about Youth Guns in Chicago

• The first is a news article at “The Trace”
• The second link is to an article about social networking and firearms access in the Journal of Urban Health
• The final publication is a Gun Trace report by CPD

 

How and Why Chicago’s At-Risk Youth Carry Guns

Young people in the city’s violent neighborhoods arm themselves for protection, new research shows, knowing that few shooters are caught by the police.

Access the article HERE

 

Chicago Criminals Are ‘Handshakes’ Away From Illegal Guns, Study Finds

Chicago has heralded much-welcome reductions in gun violence this year, but the city is still regularly convulsed by shootings, with some 50 people injured or killed by gunfire in the first week of May alone. Just how easy it is for Chicago’s shooters to obtain their weapons came into sharper relief this month, thanks to innovative new research.

Closer to Guns: the Role of Street Gangs in Facilitating Access to Illegal Firearms.

Abstract

Criminal offenders often turn to social networks to gain access to firearms, yet we know little about how networks facilitate access to firearms. This study conducts a network analysis of a co-offending network for the City of Chicago to determine how close any offender may be to a firearm. We use arrest data to recreate the co-offending network of all individuals who were arrested with at least one other person over an eight-year period. We then use data on guns recovered by the police to measure potential network pathways of any individual to known firearms. We test the hypothesis that gangs facilitate access to firearms and the extent to which such access relates to gunshot injury among gang members. Findings reveal that gang membership reduces the potential network distance (how close someone is) to known firearms by 20% or more, and regression results indicate that the closer gang members are to guns, the greater their risk of gunshot victimization.

Link to JOURNAL

Gun Trace Report 2017 Chicago PD

Report HERE