DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37895.v1
title: Untangling the Web of Violence: The Network Effects of Civil Gang Injunctions, Los Angeles, California, 1998-2013
title: Version 1

description: 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.
description: 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.
description: 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.
description: The variables in this study pertain to gang affiliations and criminal records. Demographic variables in this study include age, sex, and race.
description: 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: at least one charge/conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, attempted homicide, or homicide; at least one defendant was tried as an adult; and 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.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Case Details Data DS2: Offender to Victim Group Data DS3: City-to-City Data DS4: Actor Attributes Data DS5: Gang Attributes Data DS6: Gang Proximity Data DS7: Gang Cliques Data DS8: Gang Rivalries Data DS9: Gang Alliances Data
description: Active organized criminal gangs in the Los Angeles area and related injunctions. Smallest Geographic Unit: Neighborhood
description: record abstracts