Sociological measurement confusion,paradigmatic imperfection,and etiological nirvana: Striking a pragmatic balance in pursuing science

Extant gang research supports an enhancement effect of membership on delinquency; that is, while delinquent youths may be attracted to gangs, it is also true that gang membership increases delinquency among youths and that while delinquency levels decrease after gang membership, they do not decrease to nongang levels. In this paper, we build on this research, examining the relationship between youth gang membership and violent victimization in a general sample of adolescents. We find that gang member victimization rates are higher than nongang member rates, not only during membership, but before and after as well. Thus an enhancement model of gang membership appears to best fit both offending and victimization rates. This effect of gang affiliation on victimization goes beyond gang members' involvement in violent offending; violence and gang status equate with cumulative disadvantage in terms of violent victimization. Additionally, contrary to gang youths' perceptions, gangs appear to offer no protective value to gang members; we find no differences in violent victimization between youths who joined gangs for protection and those who joined for other reasons, either before or after joining.     

The Role of School-Related Bonding Factors and Gender: Correlates of Gang Membership Among Adolescents

In the past several decades both the education and criminology literatures have examined the influence of school factors on the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents. This literature shows that school-related factors, especially those related to social bonding, are relevant to explaining delinquent behavior. This research examines the efficacy of school-related bonding factors in explaining gang membership. In addition, it examines whether these bonding factors differentially explain male and female gang membership. The results show that delinquent involvement is the strongest predictor of gang membership among middle school children. Although several bonding variables are related to gang membership, their influence is very weak. In addition, we do not find support for the hypothesis that these variables differentially explain male and female gang membership. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Gang involvement and delinquency in a middle school population

The relationship between self-reported gang involvement and self-reported delinquency has been confirmed in a number of studies. However, there have been fewer studies of the relationship between self-reported gang involvement and officially recorded delinquency. This article examines variation in self-reported gang involvement, operationalized as three distinct categories—no involvement, gang involvement but not membership, and gang membership—and its relation to both self-reported and officially recorded delinquency for a population of middle school youths.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF GANG MEMBERSHIP TO DELINQUENCY BEYOND DELINQUENT FRIENDS*

Both being involved in a gang and having friends who are delinquent have been shown to contribute to an individual's own delinquency. However, the unique contribution of gang membership to delinquency, above and beyond having delinquent peers, has not been well studied. Increased delinquency among gang members may not be due to gang membership per se, but to the members' association with delinquent peers. Using data from the Seattle Social Development Project, this research compared involvement in delinquency for gang members, nongang youths with delinquent friends, and nongang youths who did not have delinquent friends. MANOVA and follow-up ANOVA were conducted to determine differences on measures of delinquency among the three groups at ages 14 and 15. Gang members were found to have a higher rate of offending in the past year when compared with the other groups. The contribution of gang membership to delinquency above and beyond having delinquent friends was also examined using structural equation modeling. Gang membership was found to independently predict both self-reported and officially recorded delinquency beyond the effects of having delinquent friends and prior delinquency. Implications of the results for delinquency prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.     

A MULTISITE EXAMINATION OF YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP: DOES GENDER MATTER?*

The nature and extent of female involvement in gangs has been a relatively neglected area of criminological inquiry. Even more rare have been investigations of explanations of female gang participation. This neglect can be attributed, in large part, to a perception that the phenomenon is statistically rare and the behavior substantively unimportant. Our objectives in this research are twofold: to describe gang membership in a general survey of eighth-grade students in a cross section of the United States and to examine differences between boys' and girls' attitudes associated with gang membership     

GANG MEMBERSHIP AS A TURNING POINT IN THE LIFE COURSE*

Gang‐involved youth are disproportionately involved in criminal behavior, especially violence. The processes accounting for this enhanced illegal activity, however, remain speculative. Employing a life‐course perspective, we propose that gang membership can be conceptualized as a turning point in the lives of youth and is thus associated with changes in emotions, attitudes, and routine activities, which, in turn, increase illegal activity. Using prospective data from a multisite sample of more than 1,400 youth, the findings suggest that the onset of gang membership is associated with a substantial change in emotions, attitudes, and social controls conducive to delinquency and partially mediate the impact of gang membership on delinquent activity. Desistance from gangs, however, was not associated with similar systematic changes in these constructs, including delinquent involvement.     

Groups, gangs, and delinquency: Does organization matter?

Purpose

A consistent finding of research on delinquency has been that gang members show higher levels of delinquent behavior than non-gang members. However, research attempting to understand the mechanisms underlying this finding is lacking. The basic premise of the current article is that the level of organization found in delinquent groups and gangs matters in clarifying the relationship between membership and delinquency.

Methods

This article examined the association between organization and delinquency in a sample of 523 self-reported juvenile offenders from a high school survey conducted in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Results

The results showed that 1) there is clearly something special about membership in a gang that influences delinquency beyond the more general membership in a delinquent group; 2) the key to understanding finding lies, in part, in the level of organization found in gangs. Organization emerged as the most important factor associated with general delinquency, involvement in violence, and in drug supply offences, significantly (but not completely) reducing the effect of gang membership on delinquency.

Conclusions

Even if most delinquent associations show little signs of formal structure and organization, this study demonstrates the importance of organization as a key mechanism to understand the gang effect on delinquency.     

Subculture,Gang Involvement,and Delinquency: A Study of Incarcerated Youth in China

The purpose of this study is to examine youth gang phenomena in China employing a two-step approach. The first step is to apply the delinquent subculture perspective to the explanation of variation in gang involvement; the second is to investigate the relationship between youth gang involvement and self-reported delinquency. The data for the study were collected from face-to-face interviews conducted with adjudicated youth offenders incarcerated in a province-run juvenile prison. Structural equation modeling is used to assess the direct and indirect effects of delinquent subculture exposure and gang involvement on three outcome variables of delinquency. The primary finding is that exposure to a subculture of violence is indeed a significant predictor of gang involvement. Importantly, gang involvement is significantly correlated with both violent offending and drug offending.     

What’s Sex (Composition) Got to Do with It? The Importance of Sex Composition of Gangs for Female and Male Members’ Offending and Victimization

Sex composition of groups has been theorized in organizational sociology and found in prior work to structure female and male members’ behaviors and experiences. Peer group and gang literature similarly finds that the sex gap in offending varies across groups of differing sex ratios. Drawing on this and other research linking gang membership, offending, and victimization, we examine whether sex composition of gangs is linked to sex differences in offending in this sample, further assess whether sex composition similarly structures females’ and males’ victimization experiences, and if so, why. Self-report data from gang members in a multi-site, longitudinal study of 3,820 youths are employed. Results support previous findings about variations in member delinquency by both sex and sex composition of the gang and also indicate parallel variations in members’ victimization. These results are further considered within the context of facilitating effects such as gender dynamics, gang characteristics, and normative orientation.     

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP: SELECTION AND SOCIALIZATION

We examine whether gang membership is associated with higher levels of delinquency because boys predisposed to delinquent activity are more likely than others to join. We use 10 years of longitudinal data from 858 participants of the Pittsburgh Youth Study to identify periods before, during and after gang membership. We build on prior research by controlling for ages and calendar time, by better accounting for gang memberships that occurred before the study began, and by using fixed effects statistical models. We find more evidence than has been found in prior studies that boys who join gangs are more delinquent before entering the gang than those who do not join. Even with such selective differences, however, we replicate research showing that drug selling, drug use, violent behaviors and vandalism of property increase significantly when a youth joins a gang. The delinquency of peers appears to be one mechanism of socialization. These findings are clearest in youth self-reports, but are also evident in reports from parents and teachers on boys' behavior and delinquency. Once we adjust for time trends, we find that the increase in delinquency is temporary, that delinquency falls to pre-gang levels when boys leave gangs.     

DELINQUENCY,IDENTITY, AND WOMEN'S INVOLVEMENT IN RELATIONSHIP VIOLENCE*

This study focuses on factors associated with women's self-reports of relationship violence “perpetration.” We analyzed data derived from personal interviews with 942 respondents who were originally contacted when they were adolescents and then 10 years later as young adults (N=721). Level of delinquency in adolescence was a signicant predictor of adult reports of involvement in relationship violence, for both male and female respondents. In addition, women's scores on the Conflict Tactics scale were related to adolescent and adult identities-higher scores were found among women who reported that they had been viewed as troublemakers as adolescents and who endorsed statements indexing an angry self-concept in adulthood. Although male perpetration represents a much more serious social and public health problem, these data do suggest that there may be a social learning basis for female as well as male expressions of violence.     

Arrest and the Amplification of Deviance: Does Gang Membership Moderate the Relationship?

Although research has found that gang suppression efforts are largely ineffective, these policies have been responsible for the arrests of many gang youth. Prior research indicates that arrest is associated with deleterious consequences, but we know less about how arrest uniquely affects gang members. Using longitudinal data from a school-based sample, this study explores the effects of arrest for both gang and nongang youth. Propensity score matching and matched outcome analyses allow us to determine whether gang membership moderates the effect of arrest on later deviant outcomes. Our results indicate that the consequences of arrest are inconsistent with the goals of suppression tactics, with gang members reporting little to no change in deviant attitudes and peers and modest increases in delinquency. Meanwhile, nongang youth experience a range of consequences associated with arrest, including increased odds of gang-joining.     

Girls, guys, and gangs: Convergence or divergence in the gendered construction of gangs and groups

Despite recent efforts to examine and understand female gang membership, the research literature lacks a complete picture of how gender and gang membership work to shape perceptions of the structural characteristics of gangs, gang values, and gang activities. A questionnaire was administered to 103 youths (seventy-four male and twenty-nine female juvenile detainees) in St. Louis, Missouri, to disentangle the effects of gender and gang membership on perceptions of values, activities, and organizational characteristics of gangs. Gang members differed from nongang members more than males from females. This suggests that gender alone may not be able to account for differential perceptions of gang and nongang youth and that underlying social processes affect both groups.     

PARENTHOOD AS A TURNING POINT IN THE LIFE COURSE FOR MALE AND FEMALE GANG MEMBERS: A STUDY OF WITHIN‐INDIVIDUAL CHANGES IN GANG MEMBERSHIP AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

The impact of parenthood on leaving a street gang is not well understood. This is likely because researchers in prior studies have not accounted for multiple dimensions of gang exit, possible gender differences, and potential selection bias. In this study, we use a sample of 466 male and 163 female gang members from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 to consider the within‐individual relationship between changes in parenthood and changes in claiming gang membership and offending. These data offer the opportunity to consider gender differences and birth parity (i.e., first or second child). The results from a series of fixed‐effects models reveal that motherhood is associated with enduring reductions in both the odds of claiming gang membership and the rate of offending, whereas fatherhood has a temporary beneficial impact on gang membership and offending only for those fathers who reside with their children. In most cases, the beneficial effect of having a child rests in becoming a parent for the first time. On the whole, our study findings demonstrate that parenthood serves as a turning point for a particular group of noteworthy offenders—gang members.     

Delinquent Behavior, Violence, and Gang Involvement in China

Objectives

This study examines the relationship between delinquent behavior and gang involvement in China. We assess the feasibility of self-report methodology in China and whether established findings in US and European settings on the relationship between gang involvement, violence specialization, and delinquent behavior extend to the Chinese context.

Methods

Data were gathered from 2,245 members of a school-based sample in Changzhi, a city of over 3 million people in Northern China. Drawing from a detailed survey questionnaire that measures prominent theoretical constructs, multi-level item response theory modeling was used to examine the association of gang involvement with general and specific forms of delinquency, notably violence specialization.

Results

Over half of the sample engaged in some form of delinquency over the prior year. Eleven percent of the sample reported gang involvement. Large bivariate differences in overall delinquency and violence specialization between gang and non-gang youth were observed. Multivariate analyses with measures of low self-control, household strains, family and school attachment, parental monitoring, and peer delinquency reduced the bivariate effect sizes, but current and former gang members had higher log odds of overall delinquency and violence specialization.

Conclusion

In helping fill gaps of knowledge on gangs and delinquency in the world’s most populous country, this study observed self-reported rates of delinquency and gang involvement not unlike Western countries. Findings on the relationship between gangs and delinquency, particularly violence, are consistent with the current literature and support the invariance hypothesis of gang involvement.     

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF DRUG USE AND DRUG DEALING AMONG URBAN GANGS*

Youth gangs are a major part of the urban landscape. Gang members always have been involved in collective and individual violence and, in recent years, in drug use and drug dealing. Involvement in drug dealing recently has been associated with increased violence among gangs. However, variation in organizational and social processes within gangs suggests that there also will be variation in drug-crime relationships among gang members. Analyses of the drug-crime relationships were conducted from interviews with 151 gang members in three cities. Four types of gangs were identified, and similar gang types were observed in the three cities. All gang types had high involvement in drug use, but drug dealing varied. The severity of collective gang crime was associated with the prevalence of drug use within a gang. Drug dealing occurred among gangs with both high and low involvement in violence and other crimes. Involvement in cocaine, opiates, and PCP occurred among both violent and nonviolent gangs, as well as among gangs with different involvement in drug dealing. The results suggest that the drug-crime relationship is skewed and spurious for gang members, similar to relationships among nongang inner-city adolescents. Members of violent gangs more often reported the existence of several features of social organization and cohesion in their gangs, independent of gang involvement in drug use and dealing. Similar to other urban adolescents, for gang members violence is not an inevitable consequence of involvement in drug use or dealing.     

Self-control, differential association, and gang membership: A theoretical and empirical extension of the literature

Using data gathered from a sample of two hundred jail inmates housed in a large California city, this research extends the still nascent literature on the self-control/gang membership association. The article begins by first articulating more comprehensively than earlier research Gottfredson and Hirschi's theoretical justification for expecting a self-control/gang membership link. Next, an examination is undertaken of the relative independent influences on gang membership of self-control and a series of measures, derived from differential association theory, that mainly tap familial gang involvement. On the whole, logistic regression models suggested that self-control exerted an effect on gang membership that was almost entirely independent of, but also modest in comparison to, familial gang involvement effects, although the results also indicated the insignificance of self-control upon controlling for a series of differential association measures. Finally, theoretical implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Young women and gang violence: Gender,street offending,and violent victimization in gangs

Drawing on multiple data sources in St. Louis, this article examines how gendered situational dynamics shape gang violence, including participation in violent offending and experiences of violent victimization. Combining an analysis of in-depth interviews with young women in St. Louis gangs with an examination of homicide reports from the same city, we find that young women, even regular offenders, highlight the significance of gender in shaping and limiting their involvement in serious violence. They use gender both to accomplish their criminal activities and to temper their involvement in gang crime. Consequently their risk for serious physical victimization in gangs is considerably less than young men's. St. Louis homicide data collaborate these qualitative findings. Not only are young women much less likely to be the victims of gang homicide, but the vast majority of female gang homicide victims were not the intended targets of the attack. In contrast, homicide reports suggest that the majority of male gang homicide victims were the intended targets. We suggest that gendered group processes and stratification within gangs are key factors explaining both violent offending and victimization risk in gangs.     

Uncovering the Pathways Between Gang Membership and Violent Victimization

Objectives

Gang members are more likely to be victimized violently than non-gang youth, but the extent to which this relationship is confounded, direct, or mediated remains unclear. This study responds to recent calls by scholars for more methodologically sound research in this area with the goal of uncovering the pathways between gang membership and violent victimization.

Methods

Using a school-based longitudinal sample of adolescents, the current study uses Preacher and Hayes multiple mediator structural equation modeling and counterfactual methodology to test whether and which theoretical pathways—self-control, cultural orientations, routine activity, and lifestyle theory—mediate the contemporaneous and prospective effects of gang membership on violent victimization.

Results

The results indicate that 27 % of the contemporaneous effects of gang membership on victimization is attributable to selection, with the remaining 73 % endogenous to gang membership, supporting Thornberry et al.’s (J Res Crime Delinquency 30:55–87, 1993) enhancement model. Entry into a gang increases risk taking, temper, self-centeredness, negative peer commitment, neutralization of violence, aggressive conflict resolution, unstructured socializing, and delinquency, and decreases empathy and positive peer commitment. The contemporaneous gang membership-victimization link was fully mediated, due almost entirely to delinquency. Prospective models reveal a gang membership-victimization link that is fully confounded by selection, although attrition and desistance from gangs may be responsible for this finding.

Conclusions

The existing risky attitudes and behaviors of youth who select into gangs matters a great deal for understanding the gang membership-victimization link, but these very risks are exacerbated upon entry into a gang. Our mediation findings suggest that interventions targeting highly delinquent gang members should pay dual dividends of reducing delinquency and victimization.

     

GANG HOMICIDE,DELINQUENCY, AND COMMUNITY*

Analysis of community-level data on community areas in Chicago substantiates two conceptual differences: the first. between gang crime and delinquency as community-level phenomena; and the second, between theoretical associations of each of the former to community-area patterns of social disorganization and poverty. One pattern is more common in Chicago's Hispanic communities; the other, in Chicago's black communities. Five measures of the quality of community life used are gang homicide rate, delinquency rate, unemployment rate, percentage living below the poverty level, and mortgage investment per dwelling. Identifying communities as white, black, Hispanic, or mixed and applying discriminant analysis reveal the racial-ethnic communities as distinct social worlds. Regression analyses of gang homicide and delinquency rates show that the two measures display very different patterns of association with other community characteristics. An analysis of the residual change score for gang homicide rate over two time periods indicates the relative stability of community patterns with poverty measures explaining much of the change in patterns. It is concluded that gang homicide rates and delinquency rates are ecologically distinct community problems. The distribution of gang homicide rates conforms to classic theories of social disorganization and poverty, and the distribution of delinquency rates is more generally associated with poverty.