Can Science Predict, Prevent Gang Killings? MSU Study Says 'Yes'
DETROIT (WWJ) - Can science actually predict gang killings, to the point of ultimately preventing them? A study by Michigan State University says all signs seem to be pointing toward "yes."
In what is being called a groundbreaking study on gang-related murders, MSU researchers say gang killings move in a systematic pattern over time, spreading from one vulnerable area to the next like a disease.
"We had been interested in whether the infectious disease model could be applied to homicide -- whether homicides spread through cities in a similar pattern to infectious diseases," April Zeoli, associate professor of criminal justice and lead investigator on the study, told WWJ's Jason Scott.
Zeoli said researchers looked at a single city -- Newark, New Jersey -- dissecting the types of killings from 1997 though 2007.
"So, we broke down homicides by motive type -- gang motivated, drug related, revenge homicide, intimate partner homicide, robbery homicide, escalating dispute homicide -- and we tested each of these types of homicide to see whether they clustered and moved through Newark," she said. "And the gang-motivated homicide was the only type of homicide to show a pattern of systematic movement throughout Newark."
Specifically, there were four contiguous clusters of gang-related homicides that started in central Newark and moved roughly clockwise from July 2002 through December 2005. Revenge and drug-motivated homicides unrelated to gang activity did not spread out, but they did cluster. Interestingly, they clustered in the same general area as the gang murders.
"So while drug and revenge homicides weren't moving in the same way that gang-motivated homicides were, they were inhabiting much of the same place and time -- which suggests that there's something in those geographic areas in that time that's giving rise to larger homicide problems," said Zeoli. "It may be that when gang homicides come into areas, things just get more violent."
Zeoli said the findings could help pave the way for communities to one day anticipate and ultimately prevent gang-related homicides and other violent crimes.
"By knowing that gang homicides move in this systematic way, we can further study the susceptible conditions under which it moves," she said. "I mentioned with the infectious disease model, you need a population that's susceptible to the infections. So we want to investigate further what makes people in these places susceptible to having these gang-related homicides moving in. By finding out what those conditions are, we can try to move toward predicting homicides in other cities with similar conditions."
Zeoli said 2,363 gang-related killings took place in the United States in 2012, the highest number in at least six years. Gang membership also increased to 850,000 in 2012 from 788,000 in 2007.
"Certainly there are facilitated factors, like firearms, that might be more prevalent in the area that would facilitate homicide. But there also might be subcultural issues going on that make people more willing to use lethal violence," she said.
The study's findings are published online in the American Journal of Public Health.