Do Gang Members Commit Abnormal Homicide?

Gang membership is a robust correlate of homicide offending and victimization, but little is known about the association between gang status and various abnormal forms of homicide (e.g., multiple-victim homicide, sexual homicide, and abduction homicide). The current study utilized data from a large sample of 618 male convicted murderers to empirically examine gang status and diverse forms of homicide perpetration. Gang-involved offenders were nearly three times as likely to commit a normal homicide characterized as a single-victim murder. However, gang members were 64 % less likely to perpetrate multiple-victim murder. In other models, gang status reduced the likelihood of sexual homicide by 75 % and reduced the likelihood of abduction homicide by 56 %. These findings present an anomaly in the gang-homicide literature, and suggestions for additional research are offered.     

Adolescent Male and Female Gang Members’ Experiences with Violent Victimization, Dating Violence, and Sexual Assault

A substantial amount of scholarship has been devoted to examining the relationship between gang membership and criminal offending. This research has produced a wealth of qualitative and quantitative studies indicating that gang membership increases the likelihood of criminal offending for both males and females. Less research, however, has examined the relationship between gang membership and violent victimization. The present study adds to the literature by examining the relationship between gender, gang membership, and three types of victimization. Specifically, this paper focuses on whether self-reported gang membership is uniquely related to victimization experiences for females compared to males. Results from a statewide survey of public high school students in South Carolina indicate that gang membership is significantly related to the risk of victimization for both males and females. The implications of these findings for research and policy are discussed.     

Gang activity in English prisons: The prisoners’ perspective

Abstract

Gang activity in American prisons has resulted in serious problems for prisoners and staff. This study assessed prisoners’ perceptions of gang-event frequency in the UK. Interviews with 360 prisoners from nine prisons in England and Wales indicated gang-related events were perceived as more frequent in all male categories of prison than they were in female institutions. Prisoners reported drug possession and prisoner groups being formed along regional origins as the most frequent gang-related activities. Recidivists perceived higher levels of gang-related activity than did first-time prisoners. Gang-related variables also predicted prisoners’ perceptions that groups of prisoners have more control over events in the prison than do staff and that order in the prison may not be maintained. The merits of interviewing prisoners and the implications of the results for maintaining order in prison are discussed.     

Racial and Ethnic Heterogeneity,Economic Disadvantage,and Gangs: A Macro‐Level Study of Gang Membership in Urban America

There is a lack of macro‐level gang research. The present study addresses this shortcoming by providing a theoretically informed analysis of gang membership in large US cities. More specifically, our goal is to determine whether racial and ethnic heterogeneity conditions the relationship between economic disadvantage and gang membership. Three separate sources of data are used in this study: U.S. Census 2000, Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Services 2000, and National Youth Gang Survey 2002–2006. A series of weighted least‐squares regression models are estimated, finding that both economic disadvantage and racial and ethnic heterogeneity exhibit independent and additive effects on gang membership. In addition, the results show that racial and ethnic heterogeneity has a conditioning relationship with economic disadvantage. Furthermore, our expanded operationalization of the Blau heterogeneity measure indicates that prior research may have underestimated the effects of heterogeneity. The authors discuss these findings in the context of existing gang research and offer directions for future research.     

The Strategic Prevention of Gun Violence Among Gang‐Involved Offenders

Problem‐oriented policing has been suggested as a promising way to understand and prevent complex gang violence problems. A number of jurisdictions have been experimenting with new problem‐oriented frameworks to understand and respond to gun violence among gang‐involved offenders. These interventions are based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focuses criminal justice and social service attention on a small number of chronically offending gang members responsible for the bulk of urban gun violence problems. As part of the US Department of Justice‐sponsored Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, an interagency task force implemented a pulling levers strategy to prevent gang‐related gun violence in Lowell, Massachusetts. Our impact evaluation suggests that the pulling levers strategy was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the monthly number of gun homicide and gun‐aggravated assault incidents. A comparative analysis of gun homicide and gun‐aggravated assault trends in Lowell relative to other major Massachusetts cities also supports a unique program effect associated with the pulling levers intervention.     

Gang Membership,Gun Carrying,and Employment: Applying Routine Activities Theory to Explain Violent Victimization Among Inner City,Minority Youth Living in Extreme Poverty∗

Conceptual inconsistencies in routine activities theory are illustrated by demonstrating how gang membership, gun carrying, and employment can be categorized as both risk and protective factors in a high‐poverty context. Two waves of longitudinal data from a high‐poverty sample of African American youth were used to examine the determinants of victimization risk. Bivariate analyses indicated that gang membership, gun carrying, and employment status are significant risk factors for violent victimization, but these effects were mediated by measures of lifestyles (e.g., demographic and family factors, deviant lifestyles) included as controls in the full multivariate model. In other words, the strong positive relationship between gang membership and gun carrying found in previous studies may be due to model misspecification and/or the lack of research on high‐poverty samples of inner city youth from the Deep South. Additional logistic regression analyses also indicate that the number of hours employed per week (but not employment status) is a risk factor for violent victimization. Finally, the theoretical implications of these findings for routine activities theory are discussed.     

Is the Nexus of Gang Membership,Exposure to Violence,and Violent Behavior a Key Determinant of First Time Gun Carrying for Urban Minority Youth?

Two waves of longitudinal data from a high-poverty sample of minority youth living in extreme poverty was used to determine if the nexus (or intersection) of gang membership T1, exposure to violence T1, and violent behavior T1 is a precursor of first time gun carrying T2. The findings indicated a significant amount of overlap between gang membership, exposure to violence, and violent behavior. The multivariate findings also revealed that: (1) the effect of exposure to violence T1 on initiation of gun carrying T2 became non-significant after controlling for gang membership T1 and violent behavior T1; and (2) only 1.8% of youth were part of the nexus of gang membership T1, exposure to violence T1, and violent behavior T1, but they were 665% more likely to initiate gun carrying T2. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings for the prevention of youth gun violence as well as areas for future research are also discussed.     

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.     

Deterring Gang-Involved Gun Violence: Measuring the Impact of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire on Street Gang Behavior

Objectives

The relatively weak quasi-experimental evaluation design of the original Boston Operation Ceasefire left some uncertainty about the size of the program’s effect on Boston gang violence in the 1990s and did not provide any direct evidence that Boston gangs subjected to the Ceasefire intervention actually changed their offending behaviors. Given the policy influence of the Boston Ceasefire experience, a closer examination of the intervention’s direct effects on street gang violence is needed.

Methods

A more rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation of a reconstituted Boston Ceasefire program used propensity score matching techniques to develop matched treatment gangs and comparison gangs. Growth-curve regression models were then used to estimate the impact of Ceasefire on gun violence trends for the treatment gangs relative to comparisons gangs.

Results

This quasi-experimental evaluation revealed that total shootings involving Boston gangs subjected to the Operation Ceasefire treatment were reduced by a statistically-significant 31 % when compared to total shootings involving matched comparison Boston gangs. Supplementary analyses found that the timing of gun violence reductions for treatment gangs followed the application of the Ceasefire treatment.

Conclusions

This evaluation provides some much needed evidence on street gang behavioral change that was lacking in the original Ceasefire evaluation. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that jurisdictions should adopt focused deterrence strategies to control street gang violence problems.     

Cut from the Same Cloth? A Comparative Study of Domestic Extremists and Gang Members in the United States

Despite calls for research on the similarities and differences between violent extremist groups and criminal street gangs, there have been few empirical comparisons. We develop a comparative model that emphasizes explicit, spurious, and indirect linkages between the two groups and use national sources of data on domestic extremists and gang members—the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)—to compare them across group involvement, demographic, family, religion, and socioeconomic status characteristics. Six percent of domestic extremists in PIRUS have a history of gang ties, which constitutes a minimal proportion of domestic extremists and is likely the rare exception among the population of gang members. Gang extremists more closely resemble non-gang extremists in PIRUS than they do gang members in the NLSY97. While these groups have some similarities, one of the major differences is that gang members are younger than domestic extremists. This likely contributes to many of the other differences between the groups across the life course, including marriage, parenthood, unemployment, and education. Given that the evidence is most consistent with the independence model, further comparative testing is needed before generalizing gang-related policies and programs to domestic extremism.     

“From Your First Cigarette to Your Last Dyin’ Day”: The Patterning of Gang Membership in the Life-Course

Objective

Motivated by the reorientation of gang membership into a life-course framework and concerns about distinct populations of juvenile and adult gang members, this study draws from the criminal career paradigm to examine the contours of gang membership and their variability in the life-course.

Methods

Based on nine annual waves of national panel data from the NLSY97, this study uses growth curve and group-based trajectory modeling to examine the dynamic and cumulative prevalence of gang membership, variability in the pathways into and out of gangs, and the correlates of these pathways from ages 10 to 23.

Results

The cumulative prevalence of gang membership was 8 %, while the dynamic age-graded prevalence of gang membership peaked at 3 % at age 15. Six distinct trajectories accounted for variability in the patterning of gang membership, including an adult onset trajectory. Gang membership in adulthood was an even mix of adolescence carryover and adult initiation. The typical gang career lasts 2 years or less, although much longer for an appreciable subset of respondents. Gender and racial/ethnic disproportionalities in gang membership increase in magnitude over the life-course.

Conclusions

Gang membership is strongly age-graded. The results of this study support a developmental research agenda to unpack the theoretical and empirical causes and consequences of gang membership across stages of the life-course.     

面对,接受,处理,放下

"面对,接受,处理,放下。这是任何人面对一起不幸事件时都应有的态度。"李双江之子李天一涉嫌强奸案被炒作得沸沸扬扬。这起事件引发"网民的狂欢",除了对被害人的怜悯与同情外,更多的是对李天一的痛责,恨不得要司法机关立即从肉体上消灭之,还有就是对李双江夫妇教子无方的嘲讽与抨击,等等。面对这种巨大的喧嚣,我援引一个故事来谈"接纳"的观点:国际著名教育专家麦道卫博士的女儿上中学时有一天问他:"爸爸,要是我这会儿怀孕了,你怎么处理?"他回答说:"我是一名布道家,教了一辈子的亲子教育,要是你     

雪莲,地瓜,爆米花

大家都说《泰囧》好看,很搞笑的喜剧片,要我去看。抱着用一部喜剧来给我的生日当天划一个圆满句号的想法去看的电影,看完才知道,你把它当一部单纯的喜剧来看,未免太肤浅;你把它当一部人生励志片来看,未免太凝重。徐朗和王宝,是我们这个世界上两类人的写照。一类,不在乎吃饭,顾不上挑水,更忙不到砍柴,他们的心中只有一个老周。若为老周故,吃饭挑水皆可抛。一类,吃饭即吃饭,挑水即挑水,随遇而安,砍柴时若是能见到一抹晚霞简直此生不     

朝审,秋审,热审

《明史·刑法志》:“天顺三年令每岁霜降后,三法司同公、侯、伯会审重囚,谓之朝审.”明朝每年在规定时间内将法司在押的重囚,引到承天门外,三法司会同稿·刑法志》:“秋审亦原于明之奏决单,冬至前会审之.”按清律规定,凡严重危害“社稷”的犯罪,应立即处决的,称“斩立决”.如危害性较小或有可疑者,暂判“斩监候”或“绞监候”,缓期处决,延至秋天由九卿重审.秋