Competitive dominance, gang size and the directionality of gang violence

P Jeffrey Brantingham,George E Tita,Matthew Valasik

doi:10.1186/s40163-019-0102-3

P Jeffrey Brantingham, George E Tita + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-019-0102-3

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Abstract

Intergroup violence is assumed to play a key role in establishing and maintaining gang competitive dominance. However, it is not clear how competitive ability, gang size and reciprocal violence interact. Does competitive dominance lead to larger gangs, or allow them to remain small? Does competitive dominance lead gangs to mount more attacks against rivals, or expose them to more attacks? We explore a model developed in theoretical ecology to understand communities arranged in strict competitive hierarchies. The model is extended to generate expectations about gang size distributions and the directionality of gang violence. Model expectations are explored with twenty-three years of data on gang homicides from Los Angeles. Gangs may mitigate competitive pressure by quickly finding gaps in the spatial coverage of superior competitors. Competitively superior gangs can be larger or smaller than competitively inferior gangs and a disproportionate source or target of directional violence, depending upon where exactly they fall in the competitive hierarchy. A model specifying the mechanism of competitive dominance is needed to correctly interpret gang size and violence patterns.

Highlights

Intergroup violence is common in communities with multiple criminal street gangs (Decker 1996; Glowacki et al 2016; Gravel et al 2018; Papachristos et al 2013; White 2013)
We examine the model with data on gang size diversity and the directionality of gang homicides in a community of gangs in Los Angeles sampled over a twenty-three-year period from 1990 to 2012
We started this paper by highlighting the fact that competitive interactions between rival gangs often appear imbalanced

Summary

Introduction

Intergroup violence is common in communities with multiple criminal street gangs (Decker 1996; Glowacki et al 2016; Gravel et al 2018; Papachristos et al 2013; White 2013). Our simulation procedure is equivalent to that used to generate Fig. 5a: (1) randomly order the k Hollenbeck gangs into a hypothetical competitive hierarchy; (2) assign a fixed activity cessation rate mi = m = 0.6 to each gang; (3) compute the value of ci sufficient to achieve the observed value of pk, using a rearranged version of Eq (13); (3) compute the expected in- and out-degree using Eqs. To suggest revisions to the model that take into account more realistic behavioral and environmental effects

Discussion and conclusions

Findings

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