Introduction
This post is not about the politically charged term “Black-On-Black-Crime.”
Rather, it is about the early life death –or YEARS OF LIFE LOST (ILL)–of young black men between the ages of 15 and 34. Most of whom are killed by other black men. The mortality risk for young black men is increasingly high as more and more guns are finding their way into the culture of the American inner city, space where hundreds of thousands of black Americans live.
What We know
We know that homicide is an intra-gender & intra-race crime.
Epidemiologists (Wintemute 2015) have long noted the public health epidemic of firearm violence in the US, noting:
During the ten years from 2003 to 2012, the most recent year for which data are available, 313,045 persons died from firearm-related injuries in the United States. These deaths outnumber US combat fatalities in World War II; they outnumber the combined count of combat fatalities in all other wars in the nation’s history. The total societal costs of firearm injuries were estimated to be $174.1 billion in 2010.
Epidemiologists have also noted this trend among young black males, beginning most notably directly after the end of the Vietnam war up through the present. We learn that firearm violence (homicide) is among the leading cause of death for young black men ages 15–34 in 2012.
The concentration of mortality from firearm homicide is highest among young black males–moreso than among black females and / or white males–solely because this group is highest for engaging in risky behavior. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta tracks these risky behaviors and notes that for the age group being killed there are six. These are:
- Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence
2. Sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection
3. Alcohol and other drug use
4. Tobacco use
5. Unhealthy dietary behaviors
6. Inadequate physical activity
While not conclusive this list of six risky behaviors gives us an indicator to rely on especially indicator #1 and helps us to understand the following CDC table;
To illustrate, I have chosen the cities of Chicago and Baltimore where the number of homicides have escalated in recent years.
Since homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men–they are approximately 10 times more likely to die of murder than whites of the same age group–it stands to reason that we should know why these early deaths are happening?
A recent headline suggested that in the city of Chicago 75% of those persons murdered are Black and that 71% of the known murderers are Black (http://bit.ly/20yQ90w). One chart from the same newspaper shows the homicide victims by their age and we can see that for age cohorts between 17 and 35 is where most of the deaths take place.
The following chart shows the homicide victims by their race. This is interesting in that the only double digit percentages are for both Hispanics and blacks.
In the news across 2015 and 2016 there was constant reminder of how dangerous it is for young black men in the city of Baltimore, home of the Netflix TV series The Wire. In Baltimore there was for 2015 a homicide rate of 47 per 100,000 people. In 2015 Baltimore had over 340 homicides with Freddie Gray being #88 after a fatal ride in the back of a police van in April.
Out of a tally of the 100 most recent homicides for 2015-2016 – 89 of the 100 were black victims. And, with 90% of the homicides being black young men we also know that the perpetrators are also young black men.
When looking for the reasons why this is happening we get the usual answers: geography; poverty; lack of schooling; single family home; no fathers involved in parenting etc. Yet, this can’t be all there is to the story?
What We Don’t Know
One thing is definite: we don’t know why these young men are killing each other (Hattery and Smith 2012). Sociologically, then, the question becomes why do young black men kill one another at such alarming rates?
As stated above I don’t think it is all about concentrated poverty or concentrated geography or fatherlessness. One good starting point–never mentioned in this research topic–is alienation. Alienation has been defined by a lot of theologians and scholars and the term carries a lot of different meanings. Here we go with the work of Emile Durkheim who saw alienation as having at minimum five features: (1) powerlessness, (2) meaninglessness, (3) normlessness, (4) isolation and (5) self-estrangement.
According to Durkheim, normlessness or what he calls ANOMIE takes place when acceptable social norms are no longer accessible. That is, when individuals become cut off from society (friends, family, social relationships) and have no real grounding they lose touch socially, psychologically, economically etc. This detachment or alienation or anomie can and often does bring the individual to decision making that is irrational.
Irrational decision making with gun in hand can and often does lead to the violence of homicide. As demonstrated here in Chicago and in Baltimore and many, many other major urban centers for 2015 and 2016 this means hundreds of thousands of young black men are dead. For young black men this means for the above mentioned dates approximately 5000 young black males have been killed by another black male.
Conclusion
“If it’s not a public health problem, then why are all those people dying from it?”
–Dr. David Satcher, Centers for Disease Control
Knowing that young black men are killing other young black men is a conundrum. For the real question is what is to be done? How can interventions, predicting when/where this lethal violence will take place so that it can be thwarted? I am not sure. I do know that the literature on the topic spells out (a) jobs, (b) better schooling opportunities, (c) m0re hands on parenting etc. Yet, we do know by the time these young men are adults it is too late. Whatever the strategies are they have to start early on and become a systematic part of the acculturation process.
Notes
- It would be interesting to follow up on the research of Frank Sulloway in his massive book Born To Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, an Creative Lives to see where young black males who commit homicide are located in their family birth order. He says that it is typical for the youngest of siblings to follow a path of violence.
2. Read part 1: “BLACK MEN, VIETNAM, DRUGS & PRISON”
References
Durkheim, Emile. 1933. The Division of Labor in Society. NY: MacMillan Co.
Hattery, Angela and Earl Smith. 2012. {New edition 2016} The Social Dynamics of Family Violence.
Mydans, Seth. 1980. “Homicide Rate Up for Young Blacks.” New York Times http://nyti.ms/244LV5j
Ollman, Bertell. 1977. Alienation. London: Cambridge University Press.
Sulloway, Frank. 1996. Born To Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, an Creative Lives. New York: Pantheon Books.
Wintemute, Garen. 2015. “The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence in the Twenty-First Century United States.” Annual Review of Public Health 36:5-19.