Murder Markets: Group Dominance and the Social Contagion of Gang Homicide in Chicago
Professor Andrew Papachristos of the UMass Department of Sociology will deliver this lecture as part of the Spring 2008 Operations Research / Management Science Seminar series. All are invited to attend.
Title: Murder Markets: Group Dominance and the Social Contagion of Gang Homicide in Chicago
Abstract: Gang murder spreads much like the diffusion of innovations in a market—gangs interpret and absorb information as they respond to the status perceptions of other actors in their local network environment. This paper argues that gang murder is best understood not by searching for its individual determinants but by examining the social networks of action and reaction that create it. Gang murder occurs through an epidemic-like process of social contagion as competing groups jockey for positions of dominance and address perceived threats to social status. I use a network approach and incident level homicide records to recreate and analyze the structure of gang murders in Chicago. The findings demonstrate that individual murders between gangs create an institutionalized network of group conflict, net of any individual’s participation or motive. Murders spread as gangs respond to threats by evaluating the highly visible actions of others in their network neighborhoods. Gangs must constantly (re)establish the social order through highly visible displays of solidarity which, in turn, merely strengthen these murder networks.
This series is organized by the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. Support for this series is provided by the Isenberg School of Management, the Department of Finance and Operations Management, and the John F. Smith Memorial Fund.
