̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Charles Lanfear

A third of people from Chicago carry concealed handguns in public before they reach middle age

fpjl2 — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 09:56:48 +0000

Around a third (32%) of people who grew up in Chicago have carried a concealed firearm on the city streets at least once by the time they turn 40 years old, according to a major study of gun usage taking in a quarter of a century of data.

Urban sociologists behind the research argue that such carry rates are likely to be similar across many other major US cities.

̽��ֱ��research suggests that almost half of men (48%) have carried a concealed gun by the age of 40, compared to just 16% of women.*

̽��ֱ��study, published in Science Advances, is one of the few to track gun usage in the same US population across decades, and reveals that two-thirds of those who carried a gun in the past year started doing so in adulthood, compared to only a third who began in adolescence.

̽��ֱ��research also found that gun carrying in adolescence and adulthood may occur in response to different concerns. Those who started carrying in their teens often picked up a handgun in response to experiencing gun violence first-hand.** This was not true of those who began carrying over the age of 21.

“Among adolescents, we found a strong association between either witnessing a shooting or being shot, and beginning to carry soon after,” said Dr Charles Lanfear, study lead author from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

“ ̽��ֱ��majority of people who ever carry a concealed handgun start doing so in adulthood. For those adults, we found no link between direct exposure to gun violence and gun carrying,” said Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.

“This pattern suggests that gun carrying among adults may be linked to perceived threats of a more general nature, such as the idea that the world is a dangerous place, and police are incapable of ensuring public safety. Whereas gun carrying in adolescence may more often be related to direct experiences of gun violence.

“One simple but crucial fact is clear from our study, that carrying a concealed firearm is now a common event in the life course for Americans,” Lanfear said.

In the US between 1995 and 2021 some 89% of firearm homicides were committed with a handgun. However, despite the US gun stock doubling over the past quarter-century, and homicides spiking in COVID-era America, little is known about when and why people start carrying handguns.

̽��ֱ��latest study was conducted by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, ̽��ֱ�� of Pennsylvania and Harvard ̽��ֱ��. Data was taken from a representative sample of 3,403 children originally from Chicago who were tracked over a 25-year period between 1994 and 2021.

When data-gathering began in the mid-90s, children were drawn at random from 80 of Chicago’s 343 neighbourhoods and from across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum, as part of a major longitudinal study run by Harvard.

̽��ֱ��new analysis of this huge tranche of data reveals what researchers have called ‘dual pathways’ of concealed gun carrying: those who start in adolescence and those who start in adulthood, with the cut-off being the 21st birthday – the legal age for purchasing and carrying a handgun.

In addition to findings on why people carry, the team discovered that most people who carry a gun in their teens do not continue in later life, with only 37% still carrying in 2021. Those who start carrying handguns in adulthood are more persistent, with 85% still taking a gun out in public in 2021.

Moreover, the use of guns – whether it be shooting someone, shooting at someone, or brandishing a gun in self-defence – differs among the 2 groups.

Teenage gun-carriers that fired or brandished their weapons all did so for the first time before adulthood. “We found that no one who began carrying a gun in adolescence ended up using it for the first time after the age of twenty-one,” said Lanfear.

Those who picked up a gun in adulthood had a relatively steady rate of first usage over time, so that by middle age (40 years old) both groups of carriers had reached almost identical levels of gun usage: with around 40% of carriers having used a gun.

Researchers found a racial component to gun-carrying. Black individuals carried at rates over 2 times as great as those of Hispanic and white individuals. However, a previous study by the same team showed that Black city residents were twice as likely as White residents to witness a shooting by age 40.

In fact, the research found that those least likely to witness gun violence – White residents – are the most likely to start carrying a firearm in response to gun violence exposure.

While all self-described gun-carriers – whether they started in adolescence or adulthood –are more likely to have an arrest history compared to those who don’t carry guns, the researchers say their study reveals ‘stark’ differences in why and when and for how long people take guns onto the streets.

Added Lanfear: “These findings take on new relevance given recent social changes in America. In 2020 and 2021 the nation saw a sharp increase in adult gun carrying, coinciding with an uptick in gun purchases following the outbreak of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd. We found the same trends in adult gun-carrying among our study sample.”

Major 25-year study reveals a ‘dual pathway’ for when people start carrying.

Carrying a concealed firearm is now a common event in the life course for Americans

Charles Lanfear

Jamie Carroll/Getty

A man drawing a conceal carry pistol from an inside the waistband holster

Notes:

* ̽��ֱ��researchers found female gun-carrying to be uncommon. However, they detected a rapid increase in some cohorts at the age of 35, but these increases all occurred during the first year of COVID-19 (2020). Researchers say this is consistent with other research finding large COVID-era increases in gun ownership among groups with historically lower rates of ownership.

**Exposure to gun violence before age 15 is associated with a doubling in the probability of carrying a concealed gun between ages 15 and 21. Around 44% of adolescent gun carriers started carrying after being exposed to gun violence. In contrast, exposure to gun violence at an older age is not statistically or substantively associated with gun-carrying. Direct exposure to gun violence after age 21 is far less frequent than during adolescence.

̽��ֱ��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 – 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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Airbnb rentals linked to increased crime rates in London neighbourhoods

fpjl2 — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 08:24:17 +0000

Latest research has revealed a ‘positive association’ between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than 5 million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his ̽��ֱ�� of Pennsylvania co-author Professor David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto ‘Lower Layer Super Output Areas’, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for 6 categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data.

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

̽��ֱ��association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.

̽��ֱ��data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in ‘criminogenic variables’ such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

̽��ֱ��duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. ̽��ֱ��data models even incorporated the seasonal ‘ebb and flow’ of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends.

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting ‘collective efficacy’: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

̽��ֱ��study measured levels of collective efficacy across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

̽��ֱ��researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “ ̽��ֱ��fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends.

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation

Charles Lanfear

Karl Hendon/Getty

London townhouses in Greenwich

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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.

Yes