Bullets, Blades, and Being Afraid in Hispanic High Schools: An Exploratory Study of the Presence of Weapons and Fear of Weapon-Associated Victimization Among High School Students in a Border Town

Abstract

This article presents data obtained from a survey of high school students in Brownsville, Texas. Almost half of the students reported having seen other students carry knives at school, roughly 1 in 10 reported having seen other students carry guns at school, and more than 1 in 5 reported being fearful of weapon-associated victimization at school. Logistic regression analyses indicate that age, gender, seeing other students carry weapons, and involvement with student clubs/organizations significantly affect fear of weapon-associated victimization. Using language spoken at home as a measure of acculturation, it was also determined that immigrant juveniles are more fearful of weaponassociated victimization than nonimmigrant juveniles. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Citizenship status and arrest patterns in the United States: evidence from the arrestee drug abuse monitoring program

“…Proponents of this notion argue that immigrants, particularly those who are illegal or undocumented, commit violent personal and property offenses [6,9,67,68,76], that they bring illegal drugs and weapons into the U.S. [7,19], and that they tend to smuggle in and use illegal drugs [38]. In an effort to shed further light on the above issues, the present research examined whether there are associations between citizenship status (a proxy for immigration) and various offenses using a nationally representative sample of arrestees.…”

“…(6) In regards to weapons offenses, do non-citizen arrestees have higher arrests rates than their native born counterparts? (7) What are possible implications of answers to the above questions for research and immigration policy?…”

Acculturation and Aggression in Latino Adolescents: Modeling Longitudinal Trajectories from the Latino Acculturation and Health Project

“…Samples with a large proportion of Cuban participants have come from southern parts of Florida [12,13,28]. Sites across Texas were used in six studies [33][34][35][36][37][38], and one investigation [11] involved a sample that was predominantly Mexican adolescents living in either North Carolina or Arizona. Only two studies [18,39] have examined nationally representative survey samples of youth.…”

“…The most common measure of acculturation in studies of acculturation and Latino adolescent aggression has been language use and fluency which was examined in 56% of the studies as either a sole indicator or in combination with other acculturation measures [40]. Approximately 25% of Latino studies on adolescent youth violence used one of four characteristics as a sole indicator of acculturation: language use [33,39]; immigration generation [18,19]; US residency [37]; or time living in the United States [38]. Although most studies used multiple indicators of acculturation, researchers frequently examined these indicators as independent predictors rather than as a unified construct.…”

Green Criminology and the Reconceptualization of School Violence: Comparing Green School Violence and Traditional Forms of School Violence for School Children

“…Criminologists have conducted empirical examinations of school crime, including applications of mainstream criminological theories in an effort to elucidate violent school victimization (Stewart, 2003;Welsh, Greene, & Jenkins, 1999;Wilcox et al, 2005). Dependent variables in these and other school violence studies include aggressive behaviors and physical attacks between students (Brezina, Piquero, & Mazzerolle, 2001;Ousey, Wilcox, & Brummel, 2008;Payne, Gottfredson, & Gottfredson, 2003;Schreck, Miller, & Gibson, 2003;Wilcox, Tillyer, & Fisher, 2009;Wynne & Joo, 2011), student weapon carrying (Brown & Benedict, 2004;Wilcox & Clayton, 2001), sexual assault and harassment victimization (Tillyer, Gialopsos, & Wilcox, 2013), and threat of injury by someone at school (Augustine et al, 2002). A similar pattern emerges among studies pertaining to bullying--a particular form of school violence that gained increased attention from researchers and practitioners following recent high profile bullying related suicides and other tragedies.…”