Chicago Magazine’s Write-Up of Papachristos’ Research on Social Networks and Violence

The work of Andrew Papachristos, ISPS Affiliate and Associate Professor of Sociology, on social networks and gun violence continues to get media attention.

Chicago Magazine published a long article about this work, titled, “The Small Social Networks at the Heart of Chicago Violence,” on December 9, 2013.

From the article:

Is [violence] airborne? What kind of contact do you need to pick it up? What does “risky behavior” entail when it comes to catching a bullet instead of catching a cold?

Andrew Papachristos, a Yale sociologist, Chicago native, and graduate of Loyola and the University of Chicago, has spent much of his career thus far chasing these lines of transmission, literally building up social networks of violence from the traces people leave in the criminal-justice system before they’re shot or killed.

The bottom line:

… the closer one is to a gunshot victim, the greater the probability of one’s own victimization. 85 percent of all the shooting victims were within a single social network, and the risk of getting shot dropped 25 percent each step an individual was removed from a victim.