Introduction
This Bulletin is part of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Youth Development Series, which presents findings from the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency. Teams at the University at Albany, State University of New York; the University of Colorado; and the University of Pittsburgh collaborated extensively in designing the studies. At study sites in Rochester, New York; Denver, Colorado; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three research teams have interviewed 4,000 participants at regular intervals for a decade, recording their lives in detail. Findings to date indicate that preventing delinquency requires accurate identification of the risk factors that increase the likelihood of delinquent behavior and the protective factors that enhance positive adolescent development.Much concern has been expressed recently, in both the popular press and the social science literature, about the use of firearms by adolescents—in American society in general and urban areas in particular. In a 1997 national survey of more than 16,000 students in grades 9–12, 18 percent said they had carried a weapon outside the home in the previous 30-day period (Kann et al., 1998). The problem is more severe in inner-city neighborhoods. One study involving 800 inner-city high school students reported that 22 percent of all students said they carried a weapon (Sheley and Wright, 1993).
Many adolescents own and use guns legally for sporting activity, but there is a perception that an increasing number of other adolescents own guns for protection and carry them on the street. In fact, one study of urban juvenile arrestees found that more than two-thirds of the juveniles said their primary reason for owning and carrying a weapon was self-protection; a smaller number also reported using their weapon for drug trafficking or other illegal activity (Decker, Pennel, and Caldwell, 1997; Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). It is illegal gun ownership and use among adolescents that constitute a problem of great concern. Researchers and policymakers have become increasingly interested in understanding patterns of gun ownership and use among adolescents so that programs can be developed to respond to this problem.
Prior research on gun ownership and use has focused mainly on adults and has characterized adults who own guns as either low risk or high risk, reflecting the extent to which they are likely to increase the risk of violent crime in the general population. Low-risk gun owners tend to be socialized by their families into gun ownership, to own guns legally (holding permits when required by their jurisdiction), and to own them for socially approved reasons (e.g., hunting). Because they do not tend to use their guns in criminal activities, they are unlikely to directly increase the risk of violent crime in the general population. High-risk owners, on the other hand, tend to be socialized on the street into gun ownership, to own guns illegally, and to be more likely to use guns in criminal activities. Because of their criminal use of guns, they do increase the risk of violent crime in the general population (Bordua and Lizotte, 1979; Harding, 1990; Harding and Blake, 1989; Lizotte, Bordua, and White, 1981; Wright and Rossi, 1986).
As noted, most studies of gun ownership and use have focused on adults; most of these studies have been cross-sectional (i.e., based on a sample of adults at a particular point). Such studies provide snapshots of gun ownership and use among adults but do not show how juveniles come to use guns illegally. Showing how illegal gun ownership and use unfold for juveniles requires a longitudinal analysis that follows a sample of juveniles over an extended period. This Bulletin provides such an analysis using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study. The Bulletin also summarizes current research and prevention efforts aimed at reducing juvenile gun violence.
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