Gang membership has long been understood to have a disruptive influence on adolescent development and to contribute disproportionately to the rate of delinquent crime. The nature of the impact, and the long-term effects on individuals, have not been well understood. This book uses longitudinal data to examine the developmental consequences of gang membership, and its longer term influence on the life course. This longitudinal approach is made possible by data from a study of antisocial behavior, The Rochester Youth Development Study, which followed one thousand adolescents through their early adult years. The subjects include delinquents who were gang members and others who were not, allowing the authors to compare motives, patterns of behavior, and recurring problems with caregivers and the law, education, peer relations, and career paths. The findings indicate that multiple developmental deficits lead to gang membership and that membership leads to an increase in delinquency.

https://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/29/29337/29337606_lese_1.pdf

Gangs and Delinquency in Developmental Perspective

This study is a theoretical exploration of the impact of public social control on the functioning of local social controls. Set within the framework of social disorganization and systemic theory, the study argues that an overreliance on incarceration as a formal control may hinder the ability of some communities to foster other forms of control because they weaken family and community structures. At the ecological level, the side effects of policies intended to fight crime by controlling individual behavior may exacerbate the problems they are intended to address. Thus, these communities may experience more, not less, social disorganization.

Incarceration, social capital, and crime: implications for social disorganization theory*

The recent explosion in gang research has highlighted the importance of consistent definitions for gang affiliation and gang-related crime. Definitional questions have assumed greater significance in the wake of broad-ranging prevention and intervention strategies. In this article, the authors utilize a sample of approximately 6,000 middle-school students to examine the youth gang phenomenon using five increasingly restrictive membership definitions. The least restrictive definition includes all youth who claim gang membership at some point in time. The most restrictive definition includes only those youth who are current core gang members who indicate that their gang has some degree of organizational structure and whose members are involved in illegal activities. The authors examine the differentially defined gang and nongang youths on various demographic characteristics, theretical factors, and levels of self-reported crime. The authors also address the theoretical and policy implications of shifting de...

Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and Why Does it Matter?

Theories of neighborhood social organization and crime have not effectively explained the existence of socially organized, high-crime neighborhoods. We describe and test an alternative theory of urban violence that highlights the tension between two dimensions of social organization -- social networks (ties and exchange between neighborhood residents) and collective efficacy (mutual trust and solidarity combined with expectations for prosocial action) -- in the regulation of neighborhood crime. We argue that while social networks may contribute to neighborhood collective efficacy, they also provide a source of social capital for offenders, potentially diminishing the regulatory effectiveness of collective efficacy. This negotiated coexistence model is considered alongside two competing theories of neighborhood crime drawn from the systemic and cultural transmission perspectives. We test these theories using 1990 census data, the 1994-95 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, and 1995-97 Chicago Homicide Data. Consistent with the negotiated coexistence approach, spatial lag models of violent victimization and the 1995-97 log homicide rate indicate that the regulatory effects of collective efficacy on violence are substantially reduced in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of network interaction and reciprocated exchange.

The Paradox of Social Organization: Networks, Collective Efficacy, and Violent Crime in Urban Neighborhoods

Adolescents who join gangs are more frequently involved in serious delinquency compared with those who do not, yet few studies have conducted a prospective examination of risk factors for gang membership. The present study uses longitudinal data to predict gang membership in adolescence from factors measured in childhood. Data were from the Seattle Social Development Project, an ethnically diverse, gender-balanced sample (n = 808) followed prospectively from age 10 to 18. Logistic regression was used to identify risk factors at ages 10 through 12 predictive of joining a gang between the ages of 13 and 18. Neighborhood, family, school, peer, and individual factors significantly predicted joining a gang in adolescence. Youth exposed to multiple factors were much more likely to join a gang. Implications for the development of gang prevention interventions are discussed.

/pdf/childhood-risk-factors-for-adolescent-gang-membership-4nq743jehw.pdf

Childhood Risk Factors for Adolescent Gang Membership: Results from the Seattle Social Development Project:

1. Introduction 2. 'Are you claiming?': methods of study 3. 'I'm down with the Bloods, what's up cuz?': individual issues 4. 'We ain't no worldwide thing or nothing': group membership issues 5. 'Where you hanging?': minor crime and gang members 6. 'I love to bang': serious crime by gang members 7. Gang members and social institutions 8. Gang members and their families 9. Responding to gangs: theory and policy References.

Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence

There are two competing views about the role of gangs and gang members in drug sales. The first argues that street gangs are well-organized purveyors of illegal drugs who reinvest the profits from drug sales into the gang. A second approach rejects this notion. Its proponents claim that drug sales by gangs are seldom well-organized and that gang members often act independently of the gang in selling drugs. We examine these two arguments in the context of findings from a three-year field study of street gangs in a large midwestern city. We find that gang members are involved extensively in the sale of drugs, but that sales are seldom well organized. These results are discussed in light of the organizational structure of the gang and the nature of the street drug market.

Barrik van Winkle

Papers

Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence

“Slinging dope”: The role of gangs and gang members in drug sales

Life in the Gang: Preface