The analysts did not attempt to categorize the pending criminal charges against the victims to determine whether they were minor offenses or violent acts.
But the report reinforces other studies nationally that show that the demographic of people firing guns and those getting shot often overlap. And the data shows that in a city of nearly 1.5 million people now undergoing an unsettling increase in homicides - 406 people were killed last year; there have been 221 killed this year as of yesterday - that violence is largely confined to the city's impoverished quarters.
"It's not happening everywhere, and it's not happening to everybody," said Ellen Kurtz, director of research for the probation department.
While not wanting to minimize the killings, Kurtz said: "Many of these people were not choirboys on their way to church when they got shot."
Two-thirds of shooting victims last year had police mug shots on file from a previous arrest.
The data supports decisions that public officials have made to focus crime-prevention and law-enforcement resources on the people most likely to commit violence, said Denise Clayton, coordinator of the city's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership.
"Because of the media attention to the homicide rate, people are now saying this is a dangerous city," Clayton said. "But it's a very narrow group of people in this world of violence. If you are not in this world, this is not a dangerous city."
The Weapons Related Injury Surveillance System Report is the product of a philosophical shift at the probation department, which has repositioned itself to take on more of a crime-prevention role in addition to its monitoring of 52,000 offenders.
"This kind of report was never was done before," said Robert Malvestuto, chief probation and parole officer.
