NCJ Number
170957
Journal
Social Science Quarterly Volume: 76 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1995) Pages: 53-68
Date Published
1995
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Data from 373 male juveniles who reported that they were gang members prior to their incarceration in mostly maximum-security correctional facilities in California, New Jersey, Illinois, and Louisiana formed the basis of an analysis of the relationship of general gang structure and criminal activity to the criminal behavior of individual gang members.
Abstract
Data were collected through questionnaires in the spring of 1991. The survey gathered information about the organization of the gangs to which the youths belonged; their gangs' involvement in carrying firearms, using drugs, selling drugs, robbery, and burglary; and their own involvement in these same offenses. Results revealed that gang criminality and individual-level criminality are generally specialized. In addition, gang structure is ambiguously associated with the forms of crime that gangs commit, but it is unrelated to the criminality of individual gang members. Moreover, the types of gang-level criminality and the types of individual-level criminality are related. Findings indicated that the term "gang" signifies more than the nominal congregation of youth for protective and social purposes. Tables, footnotes, and 38 references (Author abstract modified)