It has been speculated that male delinquent associates lure juvenile females in to delinquent behavior. The hypotheses tested in this study were that (1) increases in male gang membership will increase female gang membership; and (2) that increases in female gang activity will increase the number of serious offenses committed by juvenile females that are referred to State detention. The method was to gather information on gang activity for the six largest cities in Texas. It took over a year to gather this information due to the lack of central collection and standardization of gang activity information. In addition to collecting comparative county level data regarding incarceration and gang affiliation, ethnographic information was collected from smaller samples of juvenile detainees and self-identified gang members in two counties. The results show that the effect of male gang activity in urban areas produced more female gang activity in the poor neighborhoods of Texas’ largest cities. There does not seem to be a strong or significant statistical relationship between the numbers of male gang members producing a corresponding large number of female gang members. For every 10 male commitments there was approximately 1 female committed for sentencing to the Texas Youth commission. Gang activity led by Hispanic juveniles and some better organized Hispanic adult gang members in these cities seemed to account for the variation between these urban counties and the other areas in Texas. The presence of male gang members did influence female gang membership, in that through coercion and peer pressure, male gang members proselytized potential female gang members in their neighborhoods to join. Female gangs did not appear to be organized on their own, but were created as a service unit of the main male gang. No relationship was discovered between female gang membership rates and the commission of serious crimes by juvenile females in the counties studied. 5 figures, 25 references