Youth Gangs: A 1990s Perspective

The juvenile gang in the 1990s differs in many significant ways from the gangs described in the “classical” gang studies of the 1950s and 1960s. Juvenile justice professionals should be aware of the changes in the nature, organization, motivation, and activities of gangs and plan intervention strategies accordingly. One important issue in gang research—one which has great implications for public policy—is defining “gang” and “gang-related crime.” The existence of a “gang problem” in a community may be more related to the definition of “gang” and “gang-related” than to the objective issue of whether, or not, a gang problem exists. Further issues relating to the gang of the 1990s involve changing age and sex distribution of gang members, increasing violence by gangs, and deeper involvement with drug distribution. Implications for public policy are discussed.     

Information transfer implications of development research administration in Nigeria

The study of research utilization and administration has been a growing field, but the emphasis in this field has been on industrialized countries. This article presents the results of a pioneering study of the use of research by senior officials in the Nigerian Federal Government. The article focuses first on Federal Government-sponsored research, it reviews how such research was initiated and conducted, how results were presented and what affected the use of the results. The article then describes expatriate-sponsored research, casts light on the conventional assumption about the amount of such research and points to the fact that there was comparatively less awareness of the results. The article not only provides significant information about the administration of research in Nigeria but emphasizes the need to give attention to this aspect of administration.