Slayings: Unemployment and low income levels are stronger influences than
age, race or education, researchers find. Some caution that conclusions may
be too sweeping.

Of all the factors contributing to gangs and their epidemic of violence in
Los Angeles, none is more significant than the staggering rates of
unemployment in their communities, according to a report to be released
today by a team of universityaffiliated medical researchers.

The researchers found that employment and per capita income were more
closely associated with the city's gang homicide rate than a variety of
other social, economic or other demographic factors including age, race,
education or the proportion of singlefamily households. The study will be
presented today at UCLA as part of a lecture series sponsored by the
California Wellness Foundation and UC.

The findings, while questioned by some criminal justice experts, suggest
that the best hope of curbing Los Angeles' gang carnage rests with
communitybased economic programs that would cut away at the conditions that
give rise to gangs and their violence, according to the researchers.

"The bottom line of our study is that of all the variables we examined, the
one factor that is the most closely associated with gang homicides is
unemployment," said Dr. Demetrios N. Kyriacou, director of emergency
medicine at Olive ViewUCLA Medical Center in Slymar. "And until our society
and community leaders and business sector decide they are going to approach
this problem from that point of view, we really won't be able to prevent
this epidemic of gangrelated homicides."

Because the researchers wanted to examine the root cause of Los Angeles'
gang homicides using the most reliable demographic data available from the
U.S. Census, their study examined gang violence in the city between 1988 and
1992, just before and after the last census, said Kyriacou, the principal
investigator for the study, l which included medical researchers at Harvard
Medical School and USC.

Examining eight social, economic and demographic factors, the study measured
those factors against the gang homicide statistics compiled within each of
the Los Angeles Police Department's 18 geographic during the fiveyear
period ending in 1992, when there were 1,702 killings where the victim, the
suspect or both had street gang involvement. Although gang killings have
dropped since 1992, Kyriacou said the trend does not negate the significance
of the findings.

"Street gang violence has been a social and criminal problem in American
society for several decades. Over the past 20 years, however, street gangs
have proliferated dramatically," the report says, citing a 1995 study that
shows that gang activity exists in 94% of U.S. cities where populations
exceed 100,000.

"The city of Los Angeles, in particular, has suffered from this
proliferation," the report calls, noting that the city has America's largest
number of street gangs406and gang members62,693.

Over the years, the report notes, various competing social theories have
been advanced to explain why gangs form. And the factors cited in both the
creation of gangs and their violence have included poverty, unemployment,
delinquency, lack of family structure, lack of education and racism, the
report says.

But the research on gangs, the report adds, has often been "hampered" by
problems in developing a methodology, leaving studies limited by their
reliance on data from case studies or surveys without comparison groups.

For this study then, researchers said, the incidence of gang violence was
evaluated by comparing the relationships between communitylevel
socioeconomic factors with the rate of homicides linked to street gangs.

What the study found was the following:

While singleparent families and the proportion of a community's population
under the age of 20 were strongly linked to gang homicide rates, those
factors were nowhere near as significant as unemployment and per capita
income when all the variables were measured.

In communities where unemployment ran highest, between 14% and 16%, there
were 125 to 175 gang homicides per 100,000 populationabout 15 times the
killing rate compared to communities where unemployment ran a more modest 4%
to 7%.

Similarly, gang homicides in the city were almost entirely confined to
communities where the per capita income was $25,000 a year or less during
the fiveyear period studied. In the poorest communities, where per capita
incomes were less than $10,000 annually, the homicide rate ranged from 75 to
175 people per 100,000 population. And in communities where the per capita
income was $25,000 or more, the homicide rate was less than 10 per 100,000
residents.

By themselves the research showed, other factors undeniably have a
significant role in the number of gangs and their resulting violence. For
example, the highest homicide rates were recorded in communities where the
population under 20 years of age was a sizable 40%, while the lowest murder
rates were reported in areas where a quarter or less of the population fell
below that age.

But the age factor, while explaining the number of gang members, did not
prove as pivotal in assessing the cause of gang violence when it was
measured against other socioeconomic and demographic factors that remained
significant even when combined with other variables, Kyriacou said.

While the report serves to underscore a position of many sociologists and
public policy experts, some cautioned Monday that the conclusion may be far
more sweeping than the reality.

"I don't think it is surprising. The question is . . . exactly what does it
mean in terms of the policy significance," said Philip Cook, professor of
public policy at Duke University.

Added Malcolm W. Klein, professor of sociology at USC and director of its
Social Science Institute; "Employment, generally speaking, has not emerged
as a significant factor [in gang violence] when you take all other factors
into account.

"When you talk about gang homicides, you are clearly talking about minority
neighborhoods, and as soon as you start doing that, you are talking about a
host of factors related to minority neighborhoods including. . .a lower rate
of public social services," said Klein, whose book, "The American Street
Gang," is cited as a reference in the new report.

But when all eight variables in the study were mutually adjusted, UCLA's
Kyriacou said, "The only ones that remained closely correlated to gang
homicides were the proportion of people employed and per capita income."

The report is part of an ongoing research project into the medical and
public health impact of gang violence in Los Angeles. Two years ago, the
project included an exhaustive analysis of gang killings in Los Angeles
County USC Medical Center; and Dr. Corinne PeekAsa, adjunct professor of
epidemiology at UCLS's School of Public Health and research director for the
Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center. Hutson, formerly of
CountyUSC Medical Center, and Anglin are leading the overall research
projects, Kyriacou said.

"We are hoping [the latest report] is a first step toward doing more
research in this area and some policy discussions as to . . . the economic
and social factors that are underlying the gang problem," Kyriacou said.

Gang Related Homicides

A new report by medical researchers suggests that unemployment and per
capita income were the most significant factors in gangrelated homicides in
Los Angeles between 1988 and 1992.