ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WTXL) - Assistant professor of Criminology at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg Joan Reid co-authored an article that was recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
According to the USFSP, posted on Tuesday January 31st the article examines the potential effect of exposure to violence in relation to gun carrying and psychological distress.
The article analyzes the first two years of a seven-year Pathways to Desistance Program study of serious juvenile offenders in Philadelphia County, Penn., or Maricopa County, Ariz. The program followed serious young offenders in an attempt to determine what factors led to a decrease in their involvement with crime.
“We collected data four times during the two-year period, and about 50 percent of the subjects said they were carrying at some point during the study,” said Reid, whose academic research includes exposure to violence, victimology, and human trafficking. “So we were looking at whether there was anything we could see as far as when they carried and when they didn’t carry during that two-year period in an attempt to determine what was causing them to carry.”
Reports say the study used 1,170 primarily African-American and Hispanic male youths between the ages of 14 and 19 who had been found guilty of committing at least one serious criminal offense.
As a professor Reid says every semester she looks up statistics on causes of death for her Victimology class and the results "disturb" her.
According to 2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading cause of death for black males in the United States between the ages of 15 and 34 is homicide.
Reid believes that this is why her research really matters.
“Every semester, I look at these statistics for my Victimology class and it disturbs me,” said Reid. “It is extremely upsetting. And even for black males as young as 10-14, homicide is the second leading cause of death with most of these homicides being gun-related violence.
