More than 3,000 youth are killed by firearms each year.
Firearms are the second leading cause of death among U.S. children and teens between ages 1 and 19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that every day approximately 14 youth are the victim of a homicide while an additional 1,100 are treated in emergency rooms for non-fatal assault injuries. This trend extends across all demographics and communities (urban, suburban, rural, and tribal). Firearm injuries do not only take a toll on human life, but also have negative consequences for the deceased’s family and friends. Research has demonstrated that these individuals are secondary victims as they experience psychological distress and strain due to the death of their loved one (Armour, 2020).
In addition to the human toll, firearm violence and injuries also have detrimental effects to society more broadly. A recent analysis suggests that gun violence cost an average 229 billion dollars a year due to medical and criminal justice expenses, loss of income, and pain and suffering of victims (Follman et al. 2015). Moreover, in instances involving crime, these events may result in increased levels of fear among citizens (Kruger et al., 2007), and decrease in trust of the police and other criminal justice agencies when offenders are not apprehended (Pizarro et al., 2020).
Although incidents involving school shootings often receive media attention and public scrutiny, isolated incidents involving children and teens seldom receive coverage.
The Power of Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality does not create an entire virtual world like Virtual Reality (VR), AR only places virtual objects into real space as seen through our everyday screens. Currently, most AR is used as marketing tools or in gaming (IKEA AR tool or Pokemon GO). Although we are developing a custom App, the AR technology for this project is currently existing and “off the shelf” and should run on most consumer phones and tablets.
As an interdisciplinary team, we believe the use of AR, in actual real communities, can bring significant attention to a critical and overlooked issue. While most static public memorials are concrete, expensive and follow a single historical narrative of importance; we aim to use AR technology to democratize who gets memorialized, bring diverse voices into the creation of these narratives and place beautiful virtual memorials in the real world.
Community Collaboration
Community Collaboration
Importantly, each marker will be produced in collaboration, and with the expressed permission of the youth’s family and the media produced will always be stored on secure drives. These memorials will also focus on the youth’s life, experience and family stories; not necessarily on the firearm incident.
Who are public memorials for?
Innovative Technology with a Purpose
Currently AR is mostly used in the marketing or gaming space. Most research on gun violence is communicated in academic papers or books. This project seeks to combine important academic work and innovative technology, into an innovative reimagining of public art (which is what most public memorials are). This re-imagining of public art in the “virtual” world can initiate important conversations about real-world issues, change how we experience public space and engage new voices into important political dialogue.
Has your family been affected by a youth firearm fatality?
Security of media and strict protocols.
As parents and researchers working in these fields, ethical and secure development of this project is of upmost importance. Arizona State University IRB and ORIA offices have conducted an outside review of the project. Principal researchers are trained on trauma informed data collection and interviewing strategies and have extensive experience with criminology and bereaved populations.
All media is kept in locked and secure servers and participating families can opt out at any time in the process.
How exactly does one participate in the monument project?
If your family has been affected by gun violence and you would like have an AR monument built with your stories, please contact us at the link below. We will contact you, discuss the project in-depth, review all written material and permissions, and answer all questions. From there we will schedule a series of filmed interviews, edit footage and present material back to you before final release and “live” use at the monument. Once the marker is “live”, the video and audio material will be publicly available. Individuals can choose to remove their material at any point in its use, even after material is “live”.