NCJ Number
150383
Date Published
1994
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the criminal justice system response to gang violence proposes a descriptive model in which the criminal justice system moves through successive stages from denial to recognition, repression, and organized response and in which the reactions of the justice system have a major role in shaping the development of gang violence.
Abstract
The analysis uses data from a national survey of law enforcement agencies. The results reveal that organizational pressures and selective perceptions within governmental agencies strongly influence which groups become defined as gangs. The legal system identifies and modifies the problems of gang violence and influences the perceptions of the public. The criminal justice reaction too often results in a repressive cycle that does not ensure public safety or benefit the life chances of the youth at risk of being perpetrators or victims of gang-related violence. Suppressing gangs involves both large financial costs and the even larger burden of destroying local community control and alienating youths from the rest of their communities, thereby increasing rather than decreasing gang-related violence. Table and 48 references