Gun-related violence in and around inner-city schools
J. F. Sheley, Z. T. McGee and J. D. Wright
Department of Sociology, Tulane University, New Orleans, La 70118.
OBJECTIVE--To assess the degree to which inner-city high school students
are victimized by threat of or actual firearm attack.
DESIGN--Cross-sectional survey. SETTING--Ten inner-city high schools in
five cities in four states. PARTICIPANTS--A total of 1653 male and female
inner-city high school students responding anonymously. SELECTION
PROCEDURES--Volunteer, convenience sample. INTERVENTIONS--None.
MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS--Twenty-three percent of respondents were
classified as victims. Major variables predicting victimization levels were
gender, number of siblings, exposure to violence outside of school, and
personal violence-related attributes. Only one in 10 victimizations
appeared to be random (ie, not predicted by these variables).
CONCLUSIONS--Violence in school is brought into, rather than generated by,
the school. Victimized students have characteristics that put them at
higher risk of victimization than other students. Given the large number of
victimizations and the large number of respondents with risk
characteristics, intervention at the individual level seems ineffective.
Instead, alteration of community social structure and culture appears to be
the appropriate, although difficult, avenue of change for gun-related
victimization levels.
