Spillover Effects of Drug Markets on Gun Violence Across a Network of Neighborhoods

• In Event: Communities and Place: Spatial Networks and Crime - Risk Transmission and Guardianship in a Mobile World

Abstract

Given the significant burden that gun violence places on individuals and communities, it is important to understand the factors that produce differential rates of gun violence across communities. One robust predictor of city- and neighborhood-rates of gun violence has been drug market activity. Mounting evidence suggests that not only are drug markets criminogenic places themselves, they also produce spillovers of violence into spatially proximate areas. This presentation describes whether there is a more general spillover effect of drug markets that affects neighborhoods that are spatially distant. Set within a social disorganization and environmental criminology framework, this study examined the influence of drug market activity on gun violence across a “network of neighborhoods” in Baltimore, New York City, and Philadelphia created from large scale cellphone mobility data. Results from descriptive and inferential analyses will be discussed. The findings from this study add to the literature concerning the drug market-violence link, and the spatial patterning of violence in cities more generally

Author

• Nicole Johnson, Research Triangle Institute