Untangling the Web of Violence: The Network Effects of Civil Gang Injunctions, Los Angeles, California, 1998-2013 (ICPSR 37895)

Version Date: Nov 14, 2022

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Principal Investigator(s):
Gisela Bichler, California State University, San Bernardino; Alexis Norris, California State University, San Bernardino

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37895.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This study examined the structural evolution of street gang violence as it corresponds to the use of civil gang injunctions (CGIs) in the City of Los Angeles, 1998-2013. CGIs impose significant behavioral restrictions on individuals (i.e., setting curfews and restricting social activity) to reduce social interactions that may lead to conflict. Yet, despite their widespread use, little is known about what effects CGIs may have on the pattern of conflict relations within the local neighborhood of specific gangs and at the network level for a community of gangs.

Citation

Bichler, Gisela, and Norris, Alexis. Untangling the Web of Violence: The Network Effects of Civil Gang Injunctions, Los Angeles, California, 1998-2013. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-11-14. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37895.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2017-JF-FX-0043)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Neighborhood

Restrictions

This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, this data collection is restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1998-01-26 -- 2013-12-26

Date of Collection

2017-10 -- 2020-09
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Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine how the web of violence changes at two levels--the local social neighborhood of specific gangs and the network level for a community of gangs. Comparing pre- and post-injunction networks of violence for specific gangs, as well as cumulative effects across four phases of Civil Gang Injunction (CGI) implementation, researchers investigated how the imposition of CGIs alters the tendency of gangs to direct serious violence at non-gang involved individuals and engage in new conflict with rival groups, while controlling for historical effects and group characteristics with quadradic assignment procedure (QAP) nodal regression and stochastic actor-oriented modeling.

Study Design

The study design consisted of generating networks that mapped conflict relations and identified all criminal convictions involving an individual associated with any of the gangs named in the civil gang injunctions filed in the City of Los Angeles between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2012. Individuals must have been gag members at the time of the incident.

These gangs constitute a list of seeds, or starting points (considered egos) in the generation of a social network. By using the gang's name as a search term, cases were identified wherein at least one defendant or victim was a known gang member at the time of the incident.

Sample

To identify cases, the names of gangs under a civil gang injunction (CGI) filed in the City of Los Angeles between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2012 were searched in Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis (electronic libraries that provide information on federal and state cases). Then, gang affiliations of all named individuals identified in the court documents were determined.

A set of selection criteria to narrow the focus to serious violence occurring within a specified time frame and in a predetermined study area was applied. To be included in the study, the case must involve:

  1. at least one charge/conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, attempted homicide, or homicide;
  2. at least one defendant was tried as an adult; and
  3. the crime occurred between Jan. 1, 1998 and Dec. 31, 2013 somewhere within the five-county study region of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties.

All combatant gangs were searched and cases filtered with these criteria. Information on all defendants, co-offenders, and victims was extracted.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

Active organized criminal gangs in the Los Angeles area and related injunctions.

Unit(s) of Observation

Event/Process, Organization, Individual

Data Source

Court case records and publicly-available information on organized criminal gangs.

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

The variables in this study pertain to gang affiliations and criminal records. Demographic variables in this study include age, sex, and race.

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Original Release Date

2022-11-14

Version History

2022-11-14 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.