The relationship between socioeconomic factors and gang violence in the city of Los Angeles

Objective: To investigate the relationship between community-level socioeco nomic factors and the incidence of gang-related homicide in the city of Los Angeles, Methods: An ecological group-level analysis was conducted to correlate the 5-year incidence rates (from 1988 through 1992) of gang-related homicide wi th community-level socioeconomic statistics for the 18 geographically disti nct Los Angeles Police Department divisions, Eight socioeconomic factors we re examined: (1) log mean per capita income, (2) proportion employed, (3) p roportion high school graduates, (4) proportion single-parent families, (5) proportion male, (6) proportion younger than 20 years of age, (7) proporti on African American, and (8) proportion Hispanic. Pearson correlation coeff icients were calculated for the interrelationships among the study variable s and gang-related homicide. Adjusted regression estimates were calculated from a multiple linear regression model, Results: The overall 5-year gang-related homicide rate for the city was 48. 8 per 100,000, with a range of 5.2 to 173.5 per 100,000 among the different Los Angeles Police Department divisions. Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that the strongest negative correlations with gang-related homicid e were log mean per capita income and proportion employed, and the stronges t positive correlations were proportion single-parent families and proporti on younger than 20 years of age. With mutual adjustment of all variables, o nly log mean per capita income and proportion employed sere significantly a ssociated with gang-related homicide. Conclusion: At the community level, gang-related homicide in Los Angeles is most closely associated with lower income and unemployment, These relation ships may provide important insights into the causes of gang formation and gang violence.