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.     

It’s More Than the Code: Exploring the Factors that Moderate the Street Code’s Relationship with Violence

The paper explores the conditions under which the code of the street is more likely to lead to violence. Utilizing a sample of 400 homeless youths the paper examines how anger, self-centeredness, nerve, parental warmth, physical abuse, homelessness, negative attitudes toward the police, violent peers, and violent victimization moderate the relationship between the street code and violence. Findings suggest that the street code has a stronger relationship with violence under conditions where individuals have higher levels of anger, self-centeredness and nerve, less experience of parental warmth, more experience with physical abuse, longer periods of homelessness and more negative orientations toward the police. The street code, anger, self-centeredness, nerve, physical abuse, homelessness, negative attitudes toward the police, violent peers, and violent victimization also have significant lower order relationships with violence. Avenues for future research are discussed.     

广东街面犯罪常见防治措施与创新思路分析

街面犯罪是广东刑事犯罪中最主要的类型。近年来,广东警方通过公开巡逻、便衣伏击、端窝断腿等多项措施,在防治街面犯罪方面取得了一定成绩,但发案态势依然居高不下。警方宜转变思路,从截断犯罪链条、取证社会化、进一步解放警力、成立对抗犯罪的公益法律援助中心等多方面着手,全面深入地防治街面犯罪。     

WHEN BEING GOOD IS BAD: AN EXPANSION OF NEUTRALIZATION THEORY*

Traditional subcultural theorists maintain that offenders operate in an environment in which oppositional norms catering to ethics of violence, toughness and respect dominate the social landscape. Such offenders actively reject middle‐class value systems and operate beyond the boundaries of what is considered decent society. In their seminal work introducing Neutralization Theory, Sykes and Matza criticized such subcultural perspectives for overemphasizing the extent to which actors reject mainstream values (1957). They maintained that offenders and delinquents are aware of conventional values, understand that their offending is wrong, and self‐talk before offending to mitigate the anticipated shame and guilt associated with violating societal norms. This study analyzes street offender decision making and behavior in an effort to expand that perspective. The analyzed data was taken from interviews of hardcore, active, noninstitutionalized (uncaught) drug dealers, street robbers and carjackers to determine how they neutralize to support their offending. Findings indicate that these offenders strive to protect a self‐image consistent with a code of the streets orientation rather than a conventional one. That is, they neutralize being good rather than being bad. This suggests that expanding the scope of neutralization theory beyond the confines of conventional value systems will allow the theory to explain the behavior of a larger group of offenders. It also takes into account the kinds of real‐world contextual forces that now influence urban crime.     

When Formal Sanctions Encourage Violent Offending: How Violent Peers and Violent Codes Undermine Deterrence

Research focusing on deterrence has stressed the negative relationship between perceived formal sanctions and criminal behavior, ignoring the possibility that in some populations formal sanctions may serve to increase offending under some conditions. Utilizing a sample of 300 homeless street youths, the study explores if violent peers, violent values, and the culture of the street moderates the association between perceived legal sanctions and violent offending. The results suggest that violent peers, violent values, and the culture of the street condition the perceived certainty of punishment so that it leads to higher levels of violence. Further, the culture of the street conditions the relationship between perceived severity of punishment and violence. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

Gangs and public policy

Research Summary Attention to gang issues has dramatically increased in the last several decades, both in the scholarly literature and in law enforcement. Despite widespread attention to the gang problem, researchers, police officers, and lawmakers have yet to agree on definitions used to characterize and understand the problem. This article summarizes the existing literature concerning the importance of accurately defining and classifying gang members, documents and analyzes state and federal gang legislation in the United States, and provides a detailed analysis of one state's system that might serve as a useful model for other states. Policy Implications Serious risks to public safety and civil liberties are associated with Type 1 and Type 2 classification errors regarding gang membership. The wide variation in state statutory definitions of “gang member” and in the construction and administration of gang databases presents major challenges for policymakers and academic researchers. This article addresses these challenges and argues that a more rigorous and unified system, based on one state's existing model, might be possible and could offer significant advantages in our efforts to address the delinquent and criminal behavior of gangs throughout the United States.     

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.     

Operationalizing Gang Membership

Abstract

Although an extensive amount of research in the last decade has focused on juvenile gangs and the consequences of gang involvement, there has been considerable debate in the literature concerning both the conceptualization and the operationalization of the term gang membership. This research examines the extent to which the operationalization of gang membership impacts prevalence rates of both gang membership and delinquent involvement and whether this varies by gender. The findings suggest that the type of operationalization utilized by the researcher does impact both the prevalence rates of gang membership and delinquent involvement. Further, this impact varies by gender. An unrestricted definition of gang membership compared to more restrictive definitions yields conflicting findings with regard to the impact of gender on gang membership. Whereas the unrestricted measure of gang membership yielded significant gender differences, the more restrictive measure of organized gang membership produced no significant gender differences. The findings indicate the need to further address the issue of operationalization in our empirical studies of gang membership and to be sensitive to the potential impact this may have on gender differences reported by researchers.     

The reduction of violent crime through economic equality for women

Normally we do not link the reduction of violent crime with equal rights for women, this paper traces such a linkage. Central to the logic of this argument is that the distribution of the frequency of violent crime is often described by a bimodal curve which supposedly distinguishes between minor, unimportant offenders and a distinct group of serious offenders: the target for many policies being the latter. In fact, this bimodal distribution does not exist; therefore, policies based on it will be fruitless. The larger group of minor offenders is basically ignored. The distribution of violence is better described as a continuous skewed curve which retains its shape. Thus, an effective policy to reduce violence would have to shift the entire curve to the left. Reducing the more numerous acts of lesser violence rather than concentrating on the rarer cases of extreme violence would be more effective. Since much violence is nurtured in family settings, policies that decrease stress in family settings would have a meaningful impact on future violence. Stress could be reduced with greater economic equality for women, making it possible for them to leave potentially violent domestic settings. In the long term this would have an impact on violent crime.