Are shootings contagious? Prosecutors look at gun violence like disease

The Criminal Strategies Unit in the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is looking at local gun violence from a public health angle, and treating shootings as a spreading disease that can be curbed. The idea is to identify emerging patterns and try to intervene before they lead to violence.

“I like the metaphor they’re using. They treat it like epidemiologists treat a disease,” said KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney. “If you’re trying to track down a particular disease, you look at where it goes and how it travels and how it spreads.”

In 2016, there were 717 shooting incidents, and 914 in 2017. In 2018, so far there have been 699 shootings, with 67 percent of firearm homicides and 58 percent of non-fatal shootings occurring south of Seattle city limits, reported The Seattle Times.

It’s being treated as a public health issue, in which researchers are trying to predict who might be involved in future crimes and where it might occur. A few years ago, there was little local data on this. Every individual police department had their own separate information, but now eight county departments are sharing data with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which hopes to expand this to include all departments.

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“The thing that they found out felt sort of obvious: If you know somebody who’s been shot or know someone who has shot, that increases your chances of getting shot, or being the shooter,” Tom said.

What’s difficult is how to apply this data to preventing such crimes. One suggestion involved making the neighborhoods safer in an effort to convince young people that they their safety is guaranteed, and that they don’t need a gun to protect themselves.

Does calling gun violence a disease miss the real issue?

“The things is, there is no spread of this. You see where it happens, and it continues to happen, whether it’s the 70s, 80s, or 90s, it’s the same deal,” said co-host John Curley. “You have a place where people are growing up and there’s no one to give them any direction, or they reject the direction, or there’s nothing to look forward to. You then have to get a gun because the guy across the street has a gun.”

“So it’s not a disease, it’s centrally located in one spot,” continued Curley. “It’s about the fact that a 12-year-old boy has really nothing to look forward to, no one’s there to mentor the kid, and then that kid ends up joining a gang.”

“They can identify who the problem people are going to be, but can we intervene enough in their lives to make them whole and safe? That’s a steep climb, I’m afraid,” added Tom.

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