Shooting Galleries and HIV Disease: Variations in Places for Injecting Illicit Drugs Among Street Injection Drug Users

• NCJ Number: 129064
• Journal: Crime and Delinquency Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Dated: special issue (January 1991) Pages: 64-85
• Author(s): L J Ouellet; A D Jimenez; W A Johnson; W W Wiebel
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 22 pages
• Grant Number(s): DA 05285
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article describes shooting galleries in Chicago that evolved from distinct variations in community ethnography, political economies, and medical epidemiology. Obtaining this information will lead to a better understanding and preventing of the HIV transmission among intravenous drug users (IVDUs) and their sex partners.

Abstract

The three types of galleries -- cash, taste, and free -- are characterized according to organizing principle, authority relations, means of payment, number of users, probability of regular hours, probability of entry by strangers, probability of service of house doctor, syringe usage, and the potential for widescale needle sharing. The study shows that aside from the number and proportion of infected users, the following risk factors for HIV transmission increased the risk and vary by gallery type: prevalence of syringe sharing; number of people sharing any one syringe; and the number of different social networks of IVDUs using a gallery. The potential for risk reduction includes identification and access to HIV intervention information as well as the changing behavior in gallery types. 5 notes and 23 references (Author abstract modified)