Employment and per-capita income were more closely linked to Los Angeles' gang homicide rate than were other factors -- such as age, race or education -- said researchers, according to AP.
The study is part of a research project into the medical and public health impact of gang violence in Los Angeles. Medical researchers at the Harvard Medical School, Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and UCLA's School of Public Health
also took part in the study, said AP.
According to the wire service, some criminal justice experts challenged the conclusions, pointing out that gang violence typically occurs in minority neighborhoods suffering from a lack of public services and a host of other problems.
But the lead researcher said joblessness stuck out among eight social, economic and demographic factors examined, said AP.
"The bottom line of our study is that of all the variables we examined, the one factor that is the most closely associated with gang homicides is unemployment," Dr. Demetrios N. Kyriacou, director of trauma care in the department of emergency medicine at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, told AP. "And until our society and community leaders and business sector decide they are going to approach this problem from that point of view, we really won't be able to prevent this epidemic of gang-related homicides."
The study looked at gang violence in the city between 1988 and 1992. Although gang-related killings have dropped sharply from the 1,702 reported in 1992, the study said street gangs continue to proliferate, said AP.
According to researchers, Los Angeles has 406 street gangs with nearly 63,000 members, said the wire service.
Over the years, AP noted, gang proliferation has been linked with everything from broken homes and a growing youth population to racism. Researchers conducting the new study charged that those theories were based on limited studies, and instead based their findings on a comparison between various community factors with the rate of gang killings.
The study found that the number of single-parent families and the proportion of people under age 20 in a community were strongly linked to gang homicide rates, said AP. But by far, the most significant factors seemed to be unemployment and income.
Researchers discovered there were 125 to 175 gang killings per 100,000 population in communities where the unemployment rate was the highest, generally between 14 percent and 16 percent, said AP. The gang murder rate was about 15 times higher than for areas where the jobless figure was 4 percent to 7 percent.
Nearly all the gang killings occurred in areas of the city where the per capita income was $25,000 per year or less. In the poorest communities -- where income was less than $10,000 a year per person -- the homicide rate was 75 to 175 people per 100,000 population, said AP. It was less than 10 per 100,000 residents when the per capita income was $25,000 or more.
Supply a Job, Save a Life?
Study Says Providing Jobs Could Reduce Gang Killings
LOS ANGELES, Posted 4:15 p.m. October 28, 1997 -- A new study from UCLA suggests gang killings could be reduced if more jobs were provided and poverty lessened, reports The Associated Press.