Violence, Trauma, Mental Health, and Substance Use Among Homeless Youth Juggalos

Abstract

Insane Clown Posse is a musical duo whose fans are known as Juggalos. Many homeless youths (HY) identify as Juggalos, most likely because the group’s music embraces poverty and being an outsider in mainstream society. Juggalos are stereotyped as being violent, undereducated, poor, racist, crime-committing youth, and in 2011 the FBI officially labeled Juggalos as a gang. However, little is known about the intersection of HY and Juggalos. A convenience sample of Los Angeles-area, drop-in service-seeking HY completed a self-administered questionnaire (N = 495). In the sample, 15% of HY identified as Juggalos. Juggalo-identifying youth were more likely to have experienced childhood trauma, including physical and sexual abuse and witnessing community violence. Multivariable models revealed that identifying as a Juggalo was associated with increased odds of recent methamphetamine use, ecstasy use, chronic marijuana use, and prescription drug misuse. Juggalos were also more likely to experience suicidal ideation, attempt suicide, recently engage in interpersonal violence, become injured during a fight, and have unprotected sex. In conclusion, Juggalos constitute a unique subpopulation of HY.. Implications for Juggalo-specific trauma-informed services, rather than punitive, are discussed as well as the potential for future research regarding resiliency associated with Juggalo identification..

A critical scoping review about the impact of music in the lives of young adults who use drugs

“…Indirectly, the influence of music varies according to individual and social variables [54,84,85,99,103]. Namely, the impact of music on PAS use is modulated by individuals' motivation for using PAS [84,85].…”

“…Music is also known to strengthen social bonds among groups of individuals who share similar interests, including musical preferences, though it is not always the case [110]. Identifying to a group in which peers engage in at‐risk behaviours then increases the odds of initiating PAS use [103]. Nonetheless, secondary analyses showed that the importance of music was sometimes reported as a reason to not initiate PAS use, especially when individuals feared that consumption conflicts with their capacity to engage in music‐related activities [95,105].…”

“…Acknowledging that previous research mainly focused on the negative consequences of music on PAS use, little remains known about its influence on the well‐being of individuals with a problematic PAS use. Nevertheless, 16 articles reported some form of beneficial impacts of music on their well‐being [35,54–56,67,88,91–93,96,97,100,103,105,112,113]. They show that though a majority of young adults listen to music for emotionally oriented well‐being motives, young adults from the general population as well as those who use PAS might benefit differently from the impact of music [88,96].…”

“…Among the 29 studies that included housed individuals with a problematic PAS use, 22 report harmful consequences of music on consumption and other at‐risk behaviours (e.g. [89,99,103]). While this does not mean that music is not beneficial to them, it highlights that the orientation of previous research has been highly focused on individuals' difficulties.…”

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures: the use of music to communicate public health recommendations against the spread of COVID-19

“…Hence, frequent exposures to music conveying COVID-19 preventive measures could help individuals, and especially younger populations, to adhere to such measures and adapt their behaviours consequently, as has been observed in other helping behaviours (Greitemeyer 2009 ). Furthermore, individuals’ adherence to musically transmitted information increases when it is performed by an artist they admire or with whom they identify, or through a personally significant song (Fraser and Brown 2002 ; Petering et al 2017 ; Allan 2006 ), supporting the importance of soliciting the contribution of multiple known artists. The elevated response rate from numerous music artists of different genres thus represents a major strength in communicating information relative to the current pandemic.…”