“The average age of a gunshot victim in Chicago is about 27 years old. Everybody thinks it’s younger, and that means that gun violence prevention efforts are not nearly as targeted and effective as they could be.”
Sociology professor Andrew Papachristos has been interested in criminal justice ever since childhood, when his Greek immigrant parents were the victims of gang violence on Chicago’s North Side. Now, his research applies public health concepts and network science to map gun violence in U.S. cities, in an effort to save lives and craft more effective long-term prevention policies.
“We should address youth violence, but the older population — the population most at risk — is often overlooked in prevention programs,” Papachristos says. “If an organization is working on gun violence, and they only focus on 12 year olds, they need to think about directing some resources to older groups, too.”
[For more on this story by Clare Milliken, go to https://news.northwestern.edu/...reduce-gun-violence/]
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