The Ties That Bind Desistance From Gangs
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conceptualized gang membership in a life-course framework and examined the social and emotional ties that former gang members maintain with their previous gang network, finding that ties have direct positive effects on recent victimizations.
Abstract: The present study conceptualizes gang membership in a life-course framework. The authors focus specifically on an understudied aspect of gang membership—desistance. This study’s goal is to further develop our understanding of the process of desisting from gangs. This is done by examining the social and emotional ties that former gang members maintain with their previous gang network. Using a detention sample of juvenile arrestees, the authors first compare differences between 156 current and 83 former gang members at a bivariate level. This is followed by a multivariate analysis of former gang members that (a) examines factors that predict increases of ties to the former gang network and (b) illustrates the importance of gang ties by exploring their effects on victimization. The findings shed light on the correlates and consequences of persisting gang ties. In particular, it is found that ties have direct positive effects on recent victimizations. More important, it is found that longer lengths of desista...
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TL;DR: This article examined online recruitment via Facebook, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), and Qualtrics panels in India and the United States and found that online convenience samples often provide valid inferences into how partisanship moderates treatment effects, yet they are typically unrepresentative on such political variables, which has implications for the external validity of sample average treatment effects.
Abstract: This article examines online recruitment via Facebook, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), and Qualtrics panels in India and the United States. It compares over 7300 respondents—1000 or more from each source and country—to nationally representative benchmarks in terms of demographics, political attitudes and knowledge, cooperation, and experimental replication. In the United States, MTurk offers the cheapest and fastest recruitment, Qualtrics is most demographically and politically representative, and Facebook facilitates targeted sampling. The India samples look much less like the population, though Facebook offers broad geographical coverage. We find online convenience samples often provide valid inferences into how partisanship moderates treatment effects. Yet they are typically unrepresentative on such political variables, which has implications for the external validity of sample average treatment effects.
305 citations
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TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between embeddedness in a gang, a type of deviant network, and desistance from gang membership over a five-year period from 226 adjudicated youth reporting gang membership at the baseline interview.
Abstract: Objectives. Drawing from social network and life-course frameworks, the authors extend Hagan’s concept of criminal embeddedness to embeddedness within gangs. This study explores the relationship between embeddedness in a gang, a type of deviant network, and desistance from gang membership. Method. Data were gathered over a five-year period from 226 adjudicated youth reporting gang membership at the baseline interview. An item response theory model is used to construct gang embeddedness. The authors estimate a logistic hierarchical linear model to identify whether baseline levels of gang embeddedness alter the longitudinal contours of gang membership. Results. Gang embeddedness is associated with slowing the rate of desistance from gang membership over the full five-year study period. Gang members with low levels of embeddedness leave the gang quickly, crossing a 50 percent threshold in six months after the baseline interview, whereas high levels of embeddedness delays similar reductions until about two ye...
237 citations
Cites background from "The Ties That Bind Desistance From ..."
...As an emergent property, gang embeddedness should amplify as individuals trend toward identification with the gang and subside as individuals trend away from deidentification—this may help explain the continued consequences of gangs despite deidentifying as a gang member (Melde and Esbensen 2011; Pyrooz et al. 2010)....
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...…gang embeddedness should amplify as individuals trend toward identification with the gang and subside as individuals trend away from deidentification—this may help explain the continued consequences of gangs despite deidentifying as a gang member (Melde and Esbensen 2011; Pyrooz et al. 2010)....
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...Third, as the Pathways study contains nine waves of data, it is an important improvement over extant studies that have not examined gang desistance with a longitudinal design (Decker and Lauritsen 2002; Pyrooz and Decker 2011; Pyrooz et al. 2010)....
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TL;DR: There has been a dramatic increase in research on gang, gang members, and gang behavior since the early 1990s, making this review especially timely as discussed by the authors, which provides an opportunity to assess the current state of gang research and suggest directions for its future.
Abstract: This review provides an opportunity to assess the current state of gang research and suggest directions for its future. There has been a dramatic increase in research on gangs, gang members, and gang behavior since the early 1990s, making this review especially timely. We use Short’s three-level framework of explanation to organize the findings of prior research, focusing on individual-, micro-, and macro-level research. Attention is focused on the findings of such research, but we also examine theoretical and methodological developments as well. Drawing from Short and life-course research, we introduce a cross-level temporal framework to guide future directions in gang research.
219 citations
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References
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Book•
09 Jan 1997TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Numeric Outcomes and Numeric Numeric Count Outcomes (NOCO).
Abstract: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal Outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
7,306 citations
TL;DR: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
Abstract: Introduction Continuous Outcomes Binary Outcomes Testing and Fit Ordinal Outcomes Nominal Outcomes Limited Outcomes Count Outcomes Conclusions
5,248 citations
"The Ties That Bind Desistance From ..." refers background or methods in this paper
...The second outcome variable, victimizations, has a positively skewed distribution requiring a regression model that can account for a rare event dependent variable (Long, 1997)....
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...Regressing both gang ties and victimizations on the control and explanatory variables using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression could produce misleading results due to violating OLS assumptions (Long, 1997)....
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3,835 citations
"The Ties That Bind Desistance From ..." refers background in this paper
...More recently, criminology has examined crime over the life course, due largely to the availability of longitudinal data (Farrington, 2003; Sampson & Laub, 1993)....
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Book•
01 Oct 2000
TL;DR: Maruna as discussed by the authors argues that to truly understand offenders, we must understand the stories that they tell - and that in turn this story-making process has the capacity to transform lives, and provides a fascinating narrative analysis of the lives of repeat offenders who, by all statistical measures, should have continued on the criminal path but instead have created lives of productivity and purpose.
Abstract: Can hardened criminals really reform? "Making Good" provides resounding proof that the answer is yes. This book provides a fascinating narrative analysis of the lives of repeat offenders who, by all statistical measures, should have continued on the criminal path but instead have created lives of productivity and purpose. This examination of the phenomenology of "making good" includes an encyclopedic review of the literature on personal reform as well as a practical guide to the use of narratives in offender counseling and rehabilitation.The author's research shows that criminals who desist from crime have constructed powerful narratives that aided them in making sense of their pasts, finding fulfillment in productive behaviors, and feeling in control of their future. Borrowing from the field of narrative psychology, Maruna argues that to truly understand offenders, we must understand the stories that they tell - and that in turn this story-making process has the capacity to transform lives. "Making Good" challenges some of the cherished assumptions of various therapy models for offenders and supports new paradigms for offender rehabilitation. This groundbreaking book is a must read for criminologists, forensic psychologists, lawyers, rehabilitation counselors, or anyone interested in the generative process of change.
2,695 citations
"The Ties That Bind Desistance From ..." refers background in this paper
...The reason is that belonging to a gang is a state while committing a crime is an act (you cannot really “belong” to crime; see Kissner & Pyrooz, 2009; Maruna, 2001)....
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TL;DR: The pioneering longitudinal studies of child development were extended well beyond childhood and eventually followed their young study members up to the middle years and later life, generating issues that could not be addressed satisfactorily by available theories.
Abstract: The pioneering longitudinal studies of child development (all launched in the 1920s and 1930s) were extended well beyond childhood Indeed, they eventually followed their young study members up to the middle years and later life In doing so, they generated issues that could not be addressed satisfactorily by available theories These include the recognition that individual lives are influenced by their ever-changing historical context, that the study of human lives calls for new ways of thinking about their pattern and dynamic, and that concepts of human development should apply to processes across the life span Life course theory has evolved since the 1960s through programmatic efforts to address such issues
2,532 citations
"The Ties That Bind Desistance From ..." refers methods in this paper
...These departures are comparable with the life-course desistance concepts of “knifing-off” (Elder, 1998) or treating desistance as a “developmental process” (Bushway, Piquero, Broidy, Cauffman, & Mazerolle, 2001)....
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