(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A new study from Northwestern University found one in four Black and Hispanic males who had been in juvenile detention were injured or killed by guns within 16 years of leaving detention.
The study, named “Juvenile Project,” also found that young men held in juvenile detention were up to 23 times more likely to be killed by guns than the rest of Cook County’s residents. Project director Linda Teplin and other researchers interviewed detainees at the county’s Juvenile Detention Center between 1995 and 1998 — and then again up to 16 years later.
“I am concerned that we, as a nation, are focused on mass shootings to the exclusion of the other 97% of firearm violence that affects, disproportionately, poor people,” Teplin said.
Teplin described many of their subjects as “high-risk” individuals who spent time in detention because they didn’t have resources to pay for lawyers.
“They get into trouble at school, and the police are already at school, and then they’re arrested, detained and then on a road that will not have a good outcome,” she said.
Better investment in communities, Teplin added, could prevent some of these injuries and deaths.
“Lots of abandoned buildings, easy places to hide guns, people living in close proximity to each other, where minor flare-ups between neighbors can erupt into firearm violence,” she said.
The study came after others looked at mental health, trauma and suicide. Another author of the study, published in JAMA Network Open, said such investigations are necessary in helping the country set its focus to address the epidemic of gun violence.
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