̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - urban violence

Medieval Murder Maps: homicidal Oxford students in the 14th century

fpjl2 — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 05:59:43 +0000

A project mapping medieval England’s known murder cases has now added Oxford and York to its street plan of London’s 14th century slayings.

US gun violence: half of people from Chicago witness a shooting by age 40, study suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 09 May 2023 15:07:11 +0000

A study tracking the lives of Chicagoans from childhood and adolescence in the 1990s to the start of middle age has found that 56% of Black and Hispanic residents from across the city witnessed at least one shooting by the time they turned 40.

White residents were exposed to gun violence at less than half the rate of Black and Hispanic residents, although it was still high: 25% of White Chicagoans had witnessed a shooting before turning forty.

Across racial categories, 50% of all the study’s participants had been exposed to gun violence by age 40. ̽��ֱ��average age to witness a shooting was just 14 years old.

Of those in the study, more than 7% of Black and Hispanic people had themselves been shot before turning forty, compared to 3% of White people. ̽��ֱ��average age for being shot was 17 years old.

Researchers also compared the locations of gun violence incidents* in the year leading up to recent study interviews in 2021. Rates of shootings within a 250-metre radius of the homes of Black participants were over 12 times higher than those of White participants. Rates of shootings near the homes of Hispanic people were almost four times higher than for White people.

̽��ֱ��research team continued to gather data for participants who had moved out of the city, although the vast majority of gun violence took place within Chicago.

̽��ֱ��sustained stress of living with the potential for gun violence likely takes a “cumulative physiological toll” on Chicago’s citizens – and people in cities across the US, argue researchers.

Findings from the latest study, led by a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge criminologist in collaboration with researchers from Harvard and Oxford universities, are published in JAMA Network Open, a journal of the American Medical Association

“Existing evidence suggests that the long-term stress of exposure to firearm violence can contribute to everything from lower test scores for schoolkids to diminished life expectancy through heart disease,” said study lead author Dr Charles Lanfear, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.

“We expected levels of exposure to gun violence to be high, but not this high. Our findings are frankly startling and disturbing,” said Lanfear. “A substantial portion of Chicago’s population could be living with trauma as a result of witnessing shootings and homicides, often at a very young age.”

“It is clear that Black people in particular are often living in a very different social context, with far higher risks of seeing and becoming victims of gun violence in the streets near their homes lasting into middle age.”

̽��ֱ��Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), a Harvard ̽��ֱ�� study, has followed thousands of children since they were first surveyed in the 1990s, gathering life experiences as they grow up in the city or move away. Participants are from households selected at random from a set list of eighty Chicago districts – carefully chosen to reflect Chicago’s spectrum of race and levels of social advantage, or lack thereof.

̽��ֱ��latest research focused on data gathered from 2,418 of participants born in the early 1980s through to the mid-1990s, equally split between men and women.**

̽��ֱ��oldest study participants, born in 1981, hit adolescence in the early-to-mid 1990s when lethal violence reached a peak in the US. “ ̽��ֱ��nineties saw a demographic bump collide with high poverty levels and rises in gang crime resulting in part from the crack epidemic,” said Lanfear.

“However, since 2016 we have seen another surge in gun violence. Rates of fatal shootings in Chicago are now higher than they ever were in the nineties.”

Men are far more likely to be involved in violent crime, and this is reflected in the risks of actually being shot by age 40, which are five times higher for men than women. However, there was a much smaller difference between the sexes for exposure to gun violence: 43% of women and 58% of men had seen someone shot.

“ ̽��ֱ��chronic stress effects on women from being so highly exposed to firearm violence may well be substantial in Chicago, and indeed in many US cities,” said Lanfear.

“ ̽��ֱ��study participants are taken from right across Chicago, and only a tiny fraction will be involved in any kind of crime. Given the levels of women and children witnessing gun violence in the city, the vast majority of this exposure will be as bystanders in public spaces, in streets or outside schools.”

“ ̽��ֱ��public health consequences of life in violent and traumatised neighbourhoods will be playing out not just in Chicago, but in many cities right across the United States,” Lanfear said.

Study following thousands of Chicagoans from across the city over a 25-year period found that 50% of the study participants had seen a shooting before middle age.

A substantial portion of Chicago’s population could be living with trauma as a result of witnessing shootings and homicides

Charles Lanfear

Getty images

Police line in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Notes

*Taken from the Gun Violence Archive, and not-for-profit organisation that collates data on gun violence drawn from sources including police departments, media and government agencies.
** Racial make-up of the study participants as follows: 890 Black respondents, 1146 Hispanic respondents, and 382 White respondents. ̽��ֱ��research looked at data from PHDCN study groups born in 1984, 1987 and 1996. ̽��ֱ��research team say they can safely estimate exposure to gun violence up to age 40 for the majority of the study participants. Even the younger group, now 27, are on track to compare with older cohorts, as most shootings are witnessed during youth.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Children of the city: tackling violence in the 21st century

fpjl2 — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 09:48:29 +0000

READ THE STORY HERE.

Read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Up to one billion children worldwide are estimated to be victims of violence. Now, an intended study of 12,000 children in eight cities worldwide wants to discover what it really means to be a child of the city today – the adversities, the vulnerabilities, the resilience.

@AndyAitchison.uk

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

International Relations student awarded MBE

fpjl2 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:00:34 +0000

Damian is among 51 students on the part-time MSt course in International Relations, which is run by the Institute of Continuing Education and the Department of Politics and International Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��students are of 21 nationalities, working in fields such as international development, diplomacy, business and government. ̽��ֱ��students visit Cambridge for two-week blocks of study four times in their first year and also for two separate weeks during their second year, during which they research a 25,000 word thesis.

Damian first visited Rio as a backpacker in 1994 while studying languages at the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh. After befriending a number of street children on that visit, he then returned to Brazil to volunteer in the Tocantins region. He worked for Amnesty International for 8 years in London, with a focus on South America.

He then worked with the cultural group AfroReggae, promoting culture as a tool to inspire young people living in poverty. During his periods living in Rio, he played a role in assisting the British Consulate with official visits to some of the favelas which have high levels of violence, such as Complexo do Alemão. He co-wrote a book, ‘Culture is Our Weapon’, about these experiences.

‘Although many people find the favelas a frightening place to visit, I have learned a lot over the years about the underlying causes of tensions in these communities,’ recalls Damian. ‘This has led me to try to help official visitors to these areas understand more about them too, in the hope that policies will be implemented to help people living there.’

He has seen major changes coming to Rio, particularly with preparations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. His next job is with UN-Habitat, on a peace and integration programme for the favelas. ‘In recent years, the police have taken more control over a number of favelas, away from drug dealers and gangs’, explains Damian. ‘Attempts are being made by a number of agencies to introduce infrastructure and social services improvements for these areas.’

̽��ֱ��Masters course in International Relations appealed to Damian because he wanted to broaden his professional understanding and experience. He takes a particular interest in rising powers: countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. He plans to write his thesis on the peace and development programme for the favelas and to use learning from the International Relations course to put his experiences so far into context.

A student on the Master of Studies in International Relations course, Damian Platt, has been awarded the MBE for his work in the favelas, or shantytowns, of Rio de Janeiro. Damian was given the award by HRH the Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in December.

Damian Platt

Rio Anarkia

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