The Rochester Youth Development Study

The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) is a longitudinal study investigating the development of delinquent behavior, drug use, and related behaviors among a group of urban adolescents. RYDS sample members and the adults primarily responsible for their care (usually mothers) have been interviewed periodically since the 1987–88 school year, when the youth were in the seventh or eighth grade. For more information on RYDS and the methodology used to measure gun ownership and crimes, see Rochester Study Methodology.

The following analysis is based on data for boys only. Girls are omitted because the girls in the Rochester sample rarely owned or used guns. The sample size (n) varies slightly, depending on which waves of data are used in each part of the analysis.

Gun Ownership and Gun Crime

Table 1 shows the percentage of boys involved in different types of delinquent behavior, according to their gun ownership status: those who did not currently own guns, those who owned guns for sport, and those who owned guns for protection.¹ Overall, boys who owned guns for sport look more like those who didn’t own guns at all than those who owned guns for protection. Compared with boys who did not own guns at all, those who owned guns for sport did have significantly elevated levels of gun carrying, gun crime, and drug selling. (For street crime and gang membership, the differences were not statistically significant from zero.) However, boys who owned guns for protection were significantly and substantially more likely to be involved in delinquent behavior than either those who did not own guns or those who owned guns for sport. For example, 70 percent of protection owners carried their guns, whereas only 11.1 percent of sport owners did so, and only 3.2 percent of those who did not own a gun had carried a gun in the past 6 months.² In other words, a protection owner was six times more likely than a sport owner to carry a gun. Further, protection owners were eight times more likely than sport owners to commit a gun crime, 3.5 times more likely to commit a street crime, nearly five times more likely to be in a gang, and 4.5 times more likely to sell drugs—all statistically significant differences.

One should not necessarily infer from this analysis that owning a gun for protection leads to criminal activity. The opposite may be true: involvement in criminal activity may lead to the need to own a gun for protection. For example, a drug dealer may obtain a gun to ply his trade, rather than ply his trade because he happens to have a gun. However, one thing is certain: boys who own guns for protection have adapted to the dangerous associations and circumstances that surround criminal activity.

Socialization Into Gun Ownership—Peers and Gangs

As mentioned earlier, boys may be socialized into legal gun ownership by parents or illegal ownership by delinquent peers and gang members.³ This appears to be the case for the boys in the Rochester study. Having a parent who owned a gun for sport increased the odds more than fivefold that a boy owned a gun for sport, but parental gun ownership had no impact on the likelihood that a boy owned a gun for protection. Conversely, having peers who owned guns for protection increased the odds more than sixfold that a boy owned a gun for protection. It appears that family socialization into gun use increases the likelihood of owning a gun for sport but has no impact on the likelihood of owning a gun for protection.

Gangs and Guns

Media reports leave the impression that illegal gun ownership and use by gang members have become more and more commonplace and are now a standard feature of gangs. Implicit in these reports is the assumption that gangs provide illegal guns and training in their use. However, it is equally plausible that gangs recruit boys who already own guns and are well versed in their use. Table 1 shows that gang membership was more common for boys who owned guns for protection than for those who owned them for sport and those who did not own them. Do gangs recruit youth who are already involved with guns, or does gang membership lead to gun ownership? Past research has usually indicated that gangs and guns go hand in hand. Strodtbeck and Short (1964) describe a gun diffusion process that operates in gangs. Members fear that sudden violence may be perpetrated against them. Since most gang activity takes place outside the realm of police protection, gang members see a need to protect themselves from others who are just like them. As members of one gang arm, members of opposing gangs arm for the same reason. These observations have been confirmed by many researchers. Horowitz (1983) reported that gang members go armed because their rivals have guns. Similarly, Miller (1992), Block and Block (1993), Sheley and Wright (1993 and 1994), Bjerregaard and Lizotte (1995), and Decker and Van Winkle (1996) all found a strong connection between illegal gun use and gang membership.

A longitudinal data set such as that from the Rochester study offers the unique advantage of allowing researchers to determine whether gun ownership (for sport or protection) occurs prior to, during, or after gang participation. To examine this relationship, researchers used three measures of gang membership and compared gang members with nonmembers, at interview waves 7, 8, and 9. Future gang members are boys who were not in a gang in a preceding wave (7 or 8) but who joined a gang in a subsequent wave (8 or 9). Current gang members are boys who reported being in a gang during the current wave (7, 8, or 9). Past gang members are boys who were in a gang in a preceding wave (7 or 8) but were not currently in a gang.⁴ Nonmembers are boys who said they were never in a gang. Table 2 shows the percentage of nonmembers and future, current, and past members who reported owning guns for sport and protection, carrying guns, and having peers who owned guns for protection.⁵

There were no statistically significant differences by gang status in the percentage of boys owning guns for sport. That is, gang membership neither enhanced nor diminished the likelihood of owning a gun for sport. However, gang membership did enhance the likelihood of owning a gun for protection. Future gang members were somewhat more likely than nonmembers to own guns for protection (23.1 percent versus 14.2 percent), but current gang members were clearly more likely than nonmembers to own guns for protection (30.9 percent versus 14.2 percent).

The rate of owning illegal guns was not significantly higher for future gang members than for those who did not join gangs. This finding suggests that gangs are not particularly likely to recruit boys who already own and carry guns for protection. Furthermore, among boys who had left gangs, the rate of gun ownership for protection dropped to a level similar to that of boys who had never belonged to a gang (13.2 percent for past members versus 14.2 percent for nonmembers). A similar pattern was found for carrying guns on the street. These findings suggest that boys who do not want to participate in the violence and gun carrying associated with gangs leave the gangs. The findings might also suggest that when youth leave gangs, they feel less need to carry guns because they are no longer in a climate of conflict and violence. Statistically, past gang members look like nonmembers in terms of owning guns for protection and carrying guns on the street. Thus, it appears that gangs cause new members to obtain and then carry guns, but they do not recruit boys who already carry guns.

Table 2 also shows that joining a gang made it more likely that a boy would have peers who owned guns for protection. The likelihood of peer gun ownership for future gang members was similar to that for nonmembers (53.8 percent versus 55.1 percent). However, peer gun ownership increased significantly (to nearly 78 percent) for current members. For past mem-bers, peer ownership dropped down to a rate comparable to that for nonmembers (52.8 percent versus 55.1 percent), suggesting that gang members were the peer owners.

These results indicate that gangs do not recruit youth who already own and carry guns for protection. However, gangs do facilitate gun ownership and carrying among current members. Boys in gangs are more likely than others to say they have peers who own guns for protection. Presumably, these peer gun owners are the other gang members. In turn, having peers who own guns for protection makes it more likely that a boy will own a gun for protection and carry it.

Gun Carrying

Thus far, this analysis has considered gun carrying for boys who report owning guns for sport or protection. However, one need not own a gun to carry one either illegally ⁶ or legally. Sport owners may carry their guns on the street for perfectly legal reasons. Depending on how “carrying” is defined, boys may even carry guns to school legally. (For example, a boy’s father could drive him to school with a shotgun in the back window of the pickup truck, and if asked whether he carried a gun to school, the boy might say that he had.) Surveys that simply ask teenagers whether they carried a gun or carried a gun to school are inadequate. Surveyors need to make it clear to respondents that they should report only illegal carrying.

Another potential problem arises when survey questions ask about “carrying a gun” without making it clear that the gun in question is a firearm. Such wording could be interpreted by respondents to include blank guns, inoperative guns, BB guns, or pellet guns. This may be why reported percentages of gun carriers sometimes seem shockingly high. Additionally, surveys sometimes ask students whether they know someone who carried a gun or carried a gun to school. Percentages based on such questions can be even higher, because many respondents might report about the same infamous individual.

To deal with these problems, the Rochester survey asked the boys whether they had carried a hidden weapon since the time of the last interview. This was asked as part of the survey battery of questions on self-reported delinquency. If a boy said he had carried a hidden weapon, he was asked whether that weapon was a gun. With this strategy, respondents did not have to own a gun to report carrying one.

Table 3 shows that at interview waves 2 and 3 of the study, when the boys were only 14 or 14 1 /2 years old, 5 percent had carried a hidden gun at least once in the previous 6 months. In other words, substantial numbers of boys carry hidden guns at very young ages.⁷

As Table 3 shows, asking boys about carrying a hidden firearm (in the context of other self-reported delinquency questions) revealed more gun carriers than asking about carrying a gun owned for protection and many more carriers than asking about carrying a gun owned for sport.⁸ At wave 4, when the boys were about 15 years of age, 1 percent reported carrying a gun owned for sport, 4 percent reported carrying a gun owned for protection, and 6 percent reported carrying a hidden gun (in response to a survey question on self-reported delinquency). Carrying hidden guns increased as these boys became older. By wave 10, when the boys were about 20 years old, 10 percent carried hidden guns. It is interesting that the percentage carrying hidden guns was twice the percentage carrying guns they owned for protection. Therefore, at age 20, half of illegal gun carrying involved guns the boys did not own—i.e., guns they had borrowed, rented, or temporarily stolen.

Carrying hidden guns is somewhat transitory. Only about one-third of the boys carried hidden guns from one wave to the next. The other two-thirds stopped carrying guns after only 6 months. Moreover, of those boys who ever carried a hidden gun, more than half (53.2 percent, n=67) carried the gun only during one 6-month period. About one-third (32.5 percent, n=41) carried a gun during two or three waves (1 year to 1 1 /2 years). The remaining 14 percent (n=21) carried a gun consistently for 2 to 3 years. In other words, half of the carriers of hidden guns were very transitory carriers and half were persistent (if intermittent) carriers. Carrying hidden guns is probably instrumental (i.e., done for a specific reason), in the sense that a boy carries a gun because he perceives a need for protection. When traveling in a dangerous world where others carry guns and when part of a gang, a boy sees the need for a gun. This might suggest that those who are transitory carriers are easier to deter or dissuade from carrying guns because their need to carry them is equally transitory.

Part of the reason that carrying hidden guns is transitory is that adolescent boys’ reasons for carrying guns change over the course of their youth. Carrying hidden guns was found to be strongly related to gang membership at younger ages, but that relationship diminished as the boys left the gangs, at around age 16. On the other hand, involvement in drug selling was found to be more strongly related to carrying hidden guns in the later teens, when serious drug dealing takes place. For example, after age 15, involvement in selling large amounts⁹ of drugs increased the odds of gun carrying 8- to 35-fold, depending on the exact age of the boy. Similarly, the strong relationship between carrying hidden guns and having peers who owned guns for protection suggests that changes in peer groups can influence gun carrying (Lizotte et al., 2000).

It is also important to note that the Rochester study found no relationship between gun carrying and race-ethnicity or income. This dangerous behavior crosses racial and class lines.

Implications

The findings reported here suggest that interventions to stop illegal gun use by boys must begin when they are quite young. Because boys’ reasons for carrying guns change as they age, interventions must adapt to these changes. Interventions must also make boys feel safer in their environments. Additionally, strategies to reduce illegal gun carrying should probably be different for transitory and long-term carriers. Because there is so much turnover in boys’ illegal gun ownership and carrying, confiscating a single illegal gun probably stops several boys from possessing that gun over a period of time. Finally, because such a high percentage of urban boys carry illegal guns (5 to10 percent in the Rochester study), targeting this population for interventions might be an effective strategy.

In addition to the findings reported above, the Rochester study compared the amount of serious violent crime that boys committed during periods when they carried illegal guns to the amount of crime the same boys committed when they did not carry illegal guns. The amount of serious violent crime the boys committed during periods of active gun carrying was more than five times the amount they committed when they did not carry guns. Even though the number of boys who carried illegal guns was relatively small, since these boys were high-rate offenders even when they did not carry guns, decreasing gun carrying among them could avert many thousands of serious crimes. This means that preventing gun carrying among at-risk boys could go a long way toward reducing the violent crime rate.

The remaining sections of this Bulletin describe efforts to understand and prevent juvenile gun violence. A summary of selected research is followed by a discussion of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s) Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program (with a focus on the Baton Rouge (LA) Partnership and its Operation Eiger) and comments on programs identified by OJJDP as promising strategies to reduce gun violence.

Gun Use by Male Juveniles: Research and Prevention	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • July 2001