Killing Fields: the Minority Areas : Study Finds Young Black, Latino Males High Murder Risks

Armed with a study that indicates that young black and Latino men are, by far, the most likely victims of murders, a UCLA psychologist suggested Thursday that both police and mental health agencies direct their efforts toward minority communities in Los Angeles and the children who live there.

Using Los Angeles and its almost 5,000 murders in the 1970s as a case study, the report, prepared for release today, said that homicides could be significantly reduced through the identification of “high-risk groups and the weapons, relationships and circumstances associated with homicides.”

The study, prepared by UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital with the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, pointed out that homicides increased in Los Angeles by 84% during the 1970s.

The report called on public health professionals to address the problem, saying that in the past, homicide “has been considered the concern of the criminal justice system alone.” But strategies using punishment and imprisonment have “not succeeded in reducing homicide rates.”

Fred Loya, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA and principal author of the report, entitled “The Epidemiology of Homicide in the City of Los Angeles, 1970-79,” said Thursday that the study should provide mental health experts, as well as police and other members of the criminal justice system “a better sense of who is at risk and who is the perpetrator.”

Loya said police and others have traditionally viewed homicide as basically unpreventable, but now, he added, they and “social policy makers such as politicians” may want to reconsider that position.

“You may not be able to impact the total problem of homicide in the city--the stranger-to-stranger killings and random drive-by shootings,” Loya admitted, “but if you decide to put your homicide-prevention dollars into a group in the future, you may want to focus on the 8- to 14-year-old boys in South-Central, East Los Angeles, the North San Fernando Valley and Venice who are going to be moving into the high-risk group in coming years.”

“My recommendation would be, in a sense, to reprioritize. . . . We have to get to kids at a very young age to teach them alternatives to violence through conflict mediation training and reinforcing family values.”

News of the study met with general approval at the Los Angeles Police Department, where department spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said that homicide is “a crime that other disciplines need to address.”

Booth pointed to the situation in South-Central Los Angeles, where “church leaders and mental health professionals have gotten together and discussed the problem with police.”

The number of homicides in the city is down considerably from 1970s levels--it peaked at about 1,000 murders annually--to about 750 in recent years, he said.

Some of the reduction is attributable, at least in South-Central Los Angeles, to “the community’s recognition of the problem,” he said. “The fact that the community is working together more closely with police is apt to lead to the identification and arrest of more homicide suspects. A murderer has a reduced opportunity to repeat the crime if he is in jail,” Booth added.

Booth said the department is, in effect, already following some of the advice of the Centers for Disease Control by focusing on two components of the city’s population that lead to homicides--gangs and prostitutes.

The lower homicide figures of the 1980s may be the result of increased police emphasis on gang activities in South-Central and prostitution in Hollywood, he said.

County Sheriff’s Department and Health Services Department officials declined comment on the report because they had not yet received copies.

Admitting that the study’s statistics might be dated, James Mercy, assistant chief of the center’s violence epidemiology branch, said, “The overall trends may be down (in the 1980s), but the patterns of violence are probably the same.”

“I think the report is really intended to serve as a model for other communities to document those patterns of homicide within their own towns,” he said. “It’s important that communities begin to do that so they can appropriately address the issue.”

The Centers for Disease Control said it selected Los Angeles as “an ideal setting for examination of homicide at the local level” because violence there is “a major social and public health problem.”

The homicide rate in Los Angeles increased 84% from 1970 to 1979, the study said, and in 1980 was the fifth leading cause of death.

Researchers examined all 4,950 homicides in the city during the 1970s and found that the greatest number of victims were young, male and minority-group members.

Homicides were most likely to occur in a residence, by means of a handgun and as a result of an argument between persons who knew each other.

Three groups were designated as being at particular risk--black males 15 years of age and older; black females 15 to 44 and Latino males 15 or older.

The report, Loya said, is “one of the first to isolate the Hispanic population and its risks for homicide.”

Latino Victims Younger

Loya said the Latino victims tended to be younger than black or Anglo victims, and far more Latino males are killed than Latino females. The comparative differences for Anglo males and females, as well as black males and females, are not as great, he added.

Among Latino males, murders were generally precipitated by arguments or physical fights, often because of gang warfare or criminal activity, the report said.

Although the young are generally more likely to be homicide victims than are the old, the situation changes when black and Latino victims are factored out. Among whites, the age group with the highest rate of homicide are persons 65 years and older.

“The elderly tend to be more vulnerable and helpless than the general population, which makes them easy targets,” said UCLA researcher Nancy Allen. She warned that as the elderly population increases, the number of homicides for this age group will probably rise.

There was a strong relationship between alcohol consumption and homicide, Allen said. About one-half the victims had drunk just before their deaths.

Specifics of Study

More specifically, the study found that:

- Most victims were members of minorities; 47.4% were black, 27.1% Anglo, 22.9% Latino and 2.6% others.

- 77.7% of homicide victims were male. Males had a homicide rate of 27 per 100,000, compared to a rate of 7.3 for females.

- 69.2% of victims were between 15 and 44 years old. From age 35, the risk of being murdered declined, though it increased somewhat again in the 55-to-64 age group.

- Black males were nearly seven times more likely to be killed than Anglo males. Latino males almost three times more likely to be murder victims than Anglos.

- Among women, blacks were four times more likely to be killed than Anglos and Latinos, whose risk rate was about the same.

- Comparing risk rates of the two sexes of the same ethnic group, Latino males were more than seven times more likely to be murdered than Latinas. Black males were more than four times more likely to be killed than black females, while Anglo males were a bit more than twice as likely to be murdered as Anglo women.

- In terms of murder sites, 48.4% homicides occurred in homes, 23.1% in streets, 5.3% in business locations, 4.4% in bars or restaurants, and 15.6% at other locations.

Guns Used Most Often

- In 56.6% of homicides, victims were killed with some type of gun. Of these, 79.3% involved handguns. Knives and other sorts of cutting instruments were employed in 23.3% of homicide cases, bludgeoning in 10.6% of murders, strangulation or asphyxiation in 4.3%, and other weapons or methods in 5.3%.

- Verbal arguments were associated with 32.7% of homicide cases. Crime-related murders accounted for 26% of the cases; physical fights 10.3%; sex-related circumstances 4.9%; gang-related circumstances 4.9%; child abuse or neglect, 2.1%, and other circumstances, 6.5%.

- Most homicide victims knew their assailants. The murderer was either a member of the victim’s family or otherwise acquainted with the victim in 61.2% of the incidents. In 25.3% of the murders the victims and killers were strangers. The murders were not identified in 13.5% of the cases.