Rivalries, reputation, retaliation, and repetition: Testing plausible mechanisms for the contagion of violence between street gangs using relational event models

The hypothesis that violence—especially gang violence—behaves like a contagious disease has grown in popularity in recent years. Scholars have long observed the tendency for violence to cluster in time and space, but little research has focused on empirically unpacking the mechanisms that make violence contagious. In the context of gang violence, retaliation is the prototypical mechanism to explain why violence begets violence. In this study, we leverage relational event models (REMs)—an underutilized yet particularly well-suited modeling technique to study the dynamics of inter-gang violence. We use REMs to examine gang violence’s tendency to replicate—for which retaliation is but one plausible mechanism—and its tendency to diffuse to other groups. We rely on data on conflicts between gangs in a region of Los Angeles over 3 years. We consider how the characteristics of gangs, their spatial proximity, networks of established rivalries, and the evolving history, directionality, and structure of conflicts predict future inter-gang conflicts. While retaliation is an important mechanism for the replication of violence, established rivalries, and inertia—a gang’s tendency to continue attacking the same group—are more important drivers of future violence. We also find little evidence for an emerging pecking order or status hierarchy between gangs suggested by other scholars. However, we find that gangs are more likely to attack multiple gangs in quick succession. We propose that gang violence is more likely to diffuse to other groups because of the boost of internal group processes an initial attack provides.