The Center for Justice Innovation recently released a report that details the various reasons why young Brooklynites carry guns.
For its report, titled "Two Battlefields": Opps, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture, the Center for Justice Innovation interviewed over 100 young firearm-carriers that resided in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights.
According to the local nonprofit, the purpose of the report was to answer a number of fundamental questions regarding youth gun culture.
These questions included: Why are young people carrying guns? What effect do social and structural factors have on gun culture? And how can young people themselves help reduce gun violence?
“In poor Black communities, young people rarely have spaces where they feel safe and vulnerable enough to speak honestly about why they carry and use guns,” said Basaime Spate, study author and Community Research Coordinator at the Center for Justice Innovation. “We were able to create that space for our participants — a place for them to share what they experience on the daily. Doing this work and allowing participants to share their unfiltered voice is vital to finding real solutions to reducing gun violence.”
According to the report’s findings, it discovered that fear was the number one reason for gun-carrying in Crown Heights.
75% of participants in the report indicated that they carried guns because they were afraid of dying, while 72% of participants said that they were scared of someone causing harm to their family members.
The Center for Justice Innovation says that it also found that the young people that were interviewed for the report were largely fearful of two groups, “opps” (a term referring to rival gang members and other adversaries) and cops.
According to the report, over one-third (35%) of participants said they carried guns because they were scared of the police. Participants also cited a lack of police protection as a significant reason why they are in possession of firearms.
One of the interviewees said: “I feel like if the police ain’t going to protect us, who else is going to protect us besides ourself?”
In light of its findings, the report also suggested numerous gun violence prevention solutions, including the expansion of job programs for youth with criminal records; identifying and building trust with key community members around gun-carrying and -use; recognizing the relationship between young gun-carriers and gangs, and incorporating that dynamic into program design; and more.
“For far too long, we have tried to solve the problem of gun violence without truly hearing what the young people who carry guns are telling us about their lives. In this report, our participants make it very clear that we in the professional fields have to reframe how we understand gangs and crews,” said Elise White, study author and Director of Action Research, Center for Justice Innovation.
“To get at the heart of gun violence in cities, we have to start working with local street networks to address and repair the harms these young people experience every day — from each other and from society — and nurture these relationships of trust and loyalty.”
To view the report in full, head over to the Center for Justice Innovation website.
