Trent Markland

3/10/17

POLS – 415 Senior Seminar

Professor Haq

Chicago Caught The In Crossfire: The Contagious and Socialized Spread of Violence Among Competing Criminal Communities

Urban areas in America, like Chicago, are still facing problems revolving around gun violence. The reason why gun violence is prevalent throughout urban areas and how rates of gun violence escalated over the years has been a major area of study of recent scholars. It is also of particular interests in the lives of numerous everyday citizens, who are at risk for being subjected to gun violence. President Donald Trump made a tweet about the sad reality that faces Chicago, IL and many other urban areas.[1]The entire nation of America faced an epidemic of gun violence in large urban areas in the 1980s, but the rate of violence decreased shortly after the 1990’s.[2] An article posted by FiveThirtyEight this year mentions how Chicago’s went up from previous years, in 2016. However, it is still not where it was at the peak of the gun violence epidemic of the 1990’s.[3] This harsh reality has motivated scholars to find of the causes of gun violence, and effective ways to lower them.

This paper will look at the environment and factors needed to spread violence at an universal level. It will then look at Chicago in particular, but applying the ideas to similar situations in present and historical contexts it appears that gun violence in urban areas is the result of disruptions in the systemic order of criminal activity that create instability. This instability gives gangs and cartels the ability to challenge the order, resulting in a spread of violence. This is the theory of contagion, and is explained as certain “hot spots” of crime and violence create outbreaks of future conflicts.[4] The idea of contagion is a leading theory in the spread of violence, but it is also true that violence can be socialized and taught.[5]JefferyFagan andDeanna Wilkinson have coined the phrase “ecology of danger”, and this shows that the neighborhoods that have large amounts of gang violence create hostility that results in everyday people buying guns.[6]This is one example of how socialized gun carrying has become as a method of defense.

This research on the contagion and socialized spread of violence has been focused on extensive background research on the two theories on the spread of violence, and how they relate to Chicagoand areas exhibiting high gun violence in general. Numerous scholar journal entries and newspaper articles were used as reference. The history of the gun violence epidemic in America,characteristics of urban areas displaying high rates of gun violence and how they are symptoms of these theories of violence, and a discussion on the applicability and plausibility of these theories to Chicago and other geographic areas will be explained.

Anthony A. Braga, Andrew V. Papachristos, and David M.Hureau co-wrote an article titled The Concentration and Stability of Gun Violence at Micro Places in Boston 1980-2008. This article presents the narrative of in the late seventies and early eighties that troubled communities experienced an epidemic of crack cocaine.[7] They were not the only scholars to see this pattern. Alfred Blumstein and Daniel Cork mentioned how the crack cocaine epidemic was nationwide in 1983, and criminal organizations were eager to respond to it. [8]The creation of this market and other ones like it are the source of conflict between many gangs and cartels.

Gangs try and operate like legitimate businesses, even though their activities are predominately illegal. This means that gangs are unable to use legitimate force to protect their enterprises, and must resort to self-defense. As Papachristos stated it in an earlier article from 2009 titled, Murder By Structure: Dominance and the Social Structure of Gang Homicide there is a Hobbesian nature surrounding inter-gang relations.[9] Due to the competitive nature and self-defensive nature of the illegal drug trade gangs see each other as perpetual rivals. This pits gangs against each other for economic resources like territory and clientele. In each city there is a systemic structure of how all gangs and branches of gangs relate.

This uneasy relationship between rival gangs required protection from one another, and this create the demand for firearms. Guns have been increasingly desirable as a means of self-defense. Richard Corlin points out the obvious reasons why guns have become the weapon of choice for many, “These changes make guns better suited for crime, because they are easy to carry and more likely to kill or maim whether they are used intentionally or unintentionally.”[10] He continues on by listing a “pocket rocket” as the most popular type of handgun due to its small size and lethal capacity.[11] Guns like the one Corlin describes is indicative of the gun market also being part of the problem.

The legislation around the sale of guns is primarily decentralized. There are varying laws at the state level that depend on the state’s preference toward gun availability.[12] Just like gangs and other criminal organizations gathered around the drug market, a market also opened around selling drugs underground for large mark ups. Brian Knight looks at guns passing from states with low regulation to states with higher regulation, and what this does to the price.[13] An example of guns crossing from Virginia a low regulation state to New York a state with higher regulation can increase the price of a gun by about $300-400$.[14] This profit is the motive behind the illegal gun trade, and these practices are undermining the laws, and allow criminals to have firearms available to them. Due to the deregulated nature of the gun market it is observed that cities near states with lower regulations import large amounts of guns.[15]

Phillip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig, SudhirVenkatesh, and Anthony Braga looked at the underground gun market in Chicago. Through surveying local Chicago youth they find the trend of gun sharing amongst friends.[16] They attribute this trend to the fact that non-gang affiliated youth lack the connections to guns like their affiliated peers.[17]

In an attempt to satisfy the growing market and gain crucial numbers to build a strong organization drug cartels started the recruitment of youth.[18]The recruitment of youth had drastic effects on younger demographic. Findings from Blumfield and Cork highlight that the arrest rate for juveniles doubled between 1983 and 1995, while the homicide arrest rates of adults leveled off.[19] A second chilling effect of youth recruitment was the death rate of 15-22 year olds also more than doubled between the years of 1985 to 1994.[20] These findings support the theory of socialized violence.

When a young person joins a gang, they will have to understand the workings of the system it is confined in. The young new recruit will have to accept and embrace the new identity and ideals of the organization. This means learning how to defend yourself and territory, then what the inability to do so as a gang means. Masculinity and honor are two ideologies that intersect with gun violence and gang members according to Amy Shuffleton.[21] Her article “Consider Your Man Card Reissued: Masculine Honor and Gun Violence” mentions how masculinity is not something that is a permanent part of identity, and is a characteristic that needs to constantly be “re-issued”.[22]Shuffleton explains this assessment of masculinity has to be done by someone who is in a position to judge if the individual is worthy of the respect they think they deserve.[23]

Even certain guns themselves can demonstrate the specific degrees of masculinity the carrier has. Cook, Ludwig, Venkatesh, and Braga surveyed a wide varied of gang and non-gang affiliated youth in Chicago neighborhoods.[24] Their findings report that older and more discerning gang members are able to judge inexperienced gun carriers by the caliber and other characteristics of their weapons.[25]Gun ownership is also important to an individual’s self-worth as well. One gang member interviewed commenting on what having an absence of a gun would mean, “Who [is] going to fear me? Who [is] going to take me seriously? Nobody.” This quote shows that criminals have learned that the only way to be respected it to have a firearm, and that power and prestige comes from the ability to be taken seriously and ability to use force when threatened.

This plays into the politics of inter-gang relations. If a branch of the infamous Los Angeles gang The Crips were to think their rival neighbor, a branch of another Los Angeles gang The Bloods, was less masculine or able to fend off an attack from them, then this could start a deadly conflict overcontrol of territory that would test masculinity. If The Crips were to win, then the result of this deadly skirmish isn’t just the loss of territory, but also masculinity. Yxta Maya Murray in their article, “The Pedagogy of Violence” explains how stimulus like this makes gun violence a socialized behavior.

Murray argues, “Youths learn these scripts, street codes, and modes of retaliation early in their lives at home, school, and also as a result of playing in the street and seeing violent confrontations.”[26] They also explain that guns are used as tools to reinforce the concept of “toughness” and “masculinity”. [27] This is because it appears guns have become synonymous with self-defense for young adults. Sally Black and Alice Hausman learned though talking with youth in neighborhoods with high areas of violence that the youth in the area learned to associate guns with money and levels of respect.[28] Thus making guns not only a logical choice for self-defense due to its lethal nature and hostile environment, but youth finding owning a gun is desirable.

Robert M. Bond and Brad J. Bushman agree that exposure to violence is more likely to make young adults twice as likely to use gun violence themselves.[29]Richard Corlin in a speech he delivered in 2001 stated, “Like young lungs and tar and nicotine --- young minds are especially responsive to the deadliness of gun violence.”[30] He continues by explaining the danger of videogames by highlighting, “We do let them trained to be shooters at an age where they have not yet developed their impulse control and have none of the maturity and discipline to use a gun.” This observation on videogames and increased violence is not unfounded, a study by Nicholas L. Carnagey, Craig A. Anderson, and Bruce D. Barthlow titled, “Media Violence and Social Neuroscience: New Questions and New Opportunities” found that the social scripts of children are still “malleable” and are likely to be susceptible to the images presented in TV and video games.[31] However, they do mention that there is not a overwhelming amount of empirical data on the matter.[32] There is however previous experiments that have proven this socialized violence.

Ross Bandura’s “Bobo Doll Experiment” looked into how children internalized and replicate the behaviors they observe.[33] They were separated into three groups, one where the children were exposed two an aggressive interaction with the inflatable clown doll, one where they were exposed to a non-aggressive model with the clown doll, and there was also a control group with no previous exposure.[34] The findings were that the children who were exposed the aggressive stimulus displayed higher amounts of violent behavior that the non-aggressive and control model, but the behaviors displayed were also imitative of the stimulus they saw.[35] This shows a correlation between exposure to violent behavior and violent behavior in future interactions.

Even popular television shows capture this socialized concept of masculinity, and subject adolescents to violence during formative years. Breaking Bad a is TV show about a chemistry teacher who develops lung cancer, and starts to sell meth amphetamines as a way to finance his chemotherapy treatment but also shows his dissent into a criminal underworld that slowly changes him. This show has been able to produce many scenarios that demonstrate the environment of hostility in which illegal drug vendors operate. An episode titled ,“A-No Rough Stuff Type Deal” there are a few scenes that capture the intensity of the illegal drug trade.

The two scenes about to be described have the same five people. Located in a scrap yard there is Tuco Salamanca and his two assistants on one side of the conflict. The other is the two main protagonists Jesse Pinkman and Walter White. The first scene has Walter and Jesse fail to live up to the promise of being able to deliver two pounds of meth to Tuco, and he insults their masculinity, and leaves them with a threat of violence if they fail to produce again. In the second scene Walter and Jesse deliver four pounds of meth to Tuco, a drug lord, who is backed by two of his henchmen. One of Tuco’s underlings makes the statement of, “Don’t forget who you are working for.” Tuco is upset and quickly becomes enraged at his worker. Interpreting his actions as undermining his authority and power, Tuco believes the necessary response to show he is the one that does the talking is to ferociously beat his offender until he is unconscious.[36]

It appears Tuco believes that his worker speaking up for him, was a form of emasculation, and he reclaimed his weakness by exerting his power, trying to show he was a threat. While this exact scenario may not be as likely to occur in reality as it would be on TV the themes present are reminiscent of the environment of reality. In a larger scale this relates to the fact that there is clear exposure from television to people about violence. This show along with many others could be the reason many adolescents who do not play video games are exposed and desensitized to violent situations. It is also possible that from sources like this that they learn that violence is an answer to conflict. While this might not be the largest contributing factor it supports the notion that violence is broadcasted and learned.

Another form of media that creates exposure to violent stimulus is the music played on the radio. Gwen Hunnicut and Kristy Humble Andrews comment that rap music has been a very popular among a large amount of youth audiences over the last few decades.[37]

These make the very compelling case that violence is a much socialized concept. This learned code of masculinity and need for firearms supports the idea that violence is a socialized concept, and is the explanation of why violence spreads like a disease. This socialized behavior then creates the tense nature of gang relations. This mindset creates the behaviors of the realist perspective.Hunnicutt and Andrews’s explain that the graphic nature and content of rap music portray many images of violence and homicide more than any other genre.[38] An example comes from the song “Warning” by the Notorious B.I.G has these lyrics, “Touch my cheddar, feel my Beretta, Buck with what I had you withyou motherfuckers betta duckI bring pain, blood stains on what remains Of his jacket, he had a gun he should've packed it Cocked it, extra clips in my pocket so I can reload and explode down yarassholeI fuck around and get hardcore.”[39] These lyrics are only one example of numerous cases of violent imagery in rap music. The

In the realist perspective believes that power, and the amount one party has in relation to another dictates how individuals act.[40] There are many historical examples of this. Looking at World War I, the unification of Germany is believed to be one key reason that the systemic structure changed.[41] Much like this global war in each geographic area gangs have a systemic structure, and changes within it prompt responses through the entire sphere of influence. There are rival explanations that also explain why violence spreads on a global and local scale.

Unlike disputes between legitimate powers, like sovereign nations, there is no resolution with diplomacy. The liberal perspective’s viewpoint on violent conflict like World War I is that breakdowns in effective diplomacy create the Hobbesian environments between two sovereign parties. The absence of legitimacy pits the rivals against each other, as there is no way to stop the security dilemma they face. There is no third party enforcement to uphold negotiations. This means there is no opportunity to build relationships. There is also a severe lack of motivation to work things out and make peace. As previously stated drug cartels and gangs are economic rivals who see their wellbeing as a zero-sum game. While it is possible in some cases co-operation may be beneficial to both parties it is unlikely that the opposing groups will be willing to work together.

One of the main problems of bringing together of two different groups, who identify along harsh sociological or ideological divisions is that the convergence of governance will be difficult. This takes the conflict from a systemic to a domestic level. This has the group worried about which individual will be in power, and there will be fears about how the individual will wield it. This rise of internal chaos could be seen as a sign of weakness by another party, and both sides could be lost out to a more powerful enemy.