Title: Criminal Behavior of Gang Members and At-Risk Youths. Series: Research Preview Author: C. Ronald Huff Subject: gangs, juvenile violence 9 pages 15,000 bytes ------------------------------ Figures, charts, forms and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420. ------------------------------ Criminal Behavior of Gang Members and At-Risk Youths Summary of a presentation by C. Ronald Huff, Ohio State University During the past decade, the problem of gang-related crime has become a significant policy issue in the United States. According to recent estimates, more than 16,000 gangs are active in this country, with at least half a million members who commit more than 600,000 crimes each year. Two recent studies conducted by researchers at Ohio State University were designed to address three critical questions: o What is the nature and magnitude of self-reported criminal behavior among youth gang members? o What is the nature and magnitude of such behavior among at-risk youths -- those who are not yet gang members? o What is the effect of gang membership on criminal behavior? To answer these questions, the National Institute of Justice funded research in three communities -- Aurora, Colorado; Denver, Colorado; and Broward County, Florida -- and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded research in Cleveland, Ohio. Also, as part of the OJJDP grant, researchers in Columbus, Ohio, tracked leaders of youth gangs to determine what happens to gang leaders over time. Gang membership leads to criminal behavior The Colorado-Florida and Cleveland studies obtained self-reported data through one-time confidential interviews. In each community, researchers interviewed 50 gang members and 50 youths who were at risk of becoming gang members, developing as close a demographic match between the two groups as possible. They selected interviewees through referrals from local youth-serving organizations, rather than from police databases of arrestees. Questions focused on criminal and noncriminal activities of the youths and their peers. The data on criminal activity showed differences between the behavior of gang members and at-risk youths. For example, individual gang members in both studies reported that they had stolen cars (Colorado-Florida, 58.3 percent; Cleveland, 44.7 percent); aggregate rates for auto theft -- reflecting statements that members of their gang had stolen cars -- were much higher (Colorado-Florida, 93.6 percent; Cleveland, 82.6). Auto theft rates among at-risk youths were markedly lower (Colorado-Florida, 12.5 percent; Cleveland, 4.1 percent). The researchers found similar contrasts when looking at violent crimes. About 40 percent of gang members in the Cleveland sample said they had participated in a drive-by shooting, compared with 2 percent of at-risk youths. In the Colorado-Florida study, 64.2 percent of gang members said that members of their gang had committed homicide, whereas 6.5 percent of at-risk youths said that their friends had done so. Although both gang members and at-risk youths admitted significant involvement with guns, gang members were far likelier to own guns, and the guns they owned were larger caliber. More than 90 percent of gang members in both studies reported that their peers had carried concealed weapons; more than 80 percent reported that members of their gang had carried guns to school. In contrast, about one-half of at-risk youths in both studies had friends who had carried a concealed weapon; about one-third of at-risk youths said their friends had carried guns to school. In both studies, gang members were more involved with selling drugs (Colorado-Florida, 76.9 percent; Cleveland, 72.3 percent) than were at-risk youths (Colorado-Florida, 6.4 percent; Cleveland, 9.1 percent). When asked what level of legitimate wages would induce them to stop selling drugs, about one-quarter of the young people in both studies cited an amount little higher than that earned in fast-food restaurants; approximately half of the interviewees, both gang members and at-risk youths, said they had held jobs in the past year. Gang leaders engage in more serious criminal behavior The second component of the Ohio study focused on the criminal activity of identified gang leaders in Columbus. The researchers analyzed the arrest records of 83 gang leaders in the years 1980 to 1994. Membership of 78 of these leaders was distributed among five gangs; the rest belonged to other gangs. During these 15 years, the 83 gang leaders accumulated 834 arrests, 37 percent of which were for violent crimes (ranging from domestic violence to murder). Property crimes and drug-related offenses also figured prominently. The researchers identified a clear pattern of arrest charges in each of the five prominent gangs. A gang's peak arrest rate for property crimes occurred about 1.5 years before its peak arrest rate for violent crimes; the peak arrest rate for drug crimes followed about 3 months later. The researchers theorized that violent crimes increased as the gangs began engaging in drug activity and may have been connected to the establishment of the drug trade. The increasingly violent activities took their toll on the gangs: By the end of the period studied, a disproportionate number of the gang leaders had died. Steps to prevention and control These studies identified a close relationship between gang membership and criminal behavior. Gang membership exposed youths to an increased risk of physical violence and death -- often including an assaultive initiation ritual -- even though most gang members joined for a sense of belonging and security. In contrast, many young people told the researchers that they suffered no physical reprisal for refusing to join a gang. The research demonstrated that the benefits of resisting a gang far outweigh those of joining. Creative prevention that fosters feelings of belonging in the community as a whole might dissuade many of these youths from joining gangs. Also, since half the young people interviewed had held a job, programs that expand job opportunities in the legitimate economy could induce some to stop selling drugs. Finally, the Columbus study noted a decline in the arrest rate of gang leaders, which the researchers attributed in part to a reallocation of police resources away from gang activities toward specifically drug-related activities: Drugs and gangs are not synonymous, and the assignment of personnel to drug teams reduced the ability of the police to monitor gang activity. ------------------------------ This summary is based on a presentation at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) by C. Ronald Huff, Ph.D., Director of the School of Public Policy and Management and the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State University, to an audience of researchers and criminal justice practitioners. The research, for which Dr. Huff was principal investigator, was conducted with NIJ support (grant #91-IJ-CX-K013). Support was also received from the State of Ohio's Office of Criminal Justice Services (grant #91-JJ-C01-0682), with funds from the Federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, administered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The seminar, Criminal Behavior of Gang Members, is available as a 60-minute videotape for $19 ($24 in Canada and other countries). Use the order form on the next page to obtain this videotape, NCJ 164725, and any of the others available in NIJ's Research in Progress Seminar Series. ------------------------------ Points of view in this document do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U. S. Department of Justice. ------------------------------ FS 000190 The Latest Criminal Justice Videotape Series from NIJ: Research in Progress Seminars Learn about the latest developments in criminal justice research from prominent criminal justice experts. Each 60-minute tape presents a well-known scholar discussing his or her current studies and how they relate to existing criminal justice research and includes the lecturer's responses to audience questions.In addition to Criminal Behavior of Gang Members and At-Risk Youths, reported on in this Research Preview, the other tapes available in VHS format are: NCJ 152235 -- Alfred Blumstein, Ph.D., Professor, Carnegie Mellon University: Youth Violence, Guns, and Illicit Drug Markets. NCJ 152236 -- Peter W. Greenwood, Ph.D., Director, Criminal Justice Research Program, The RAND Corporation: Three Strikes, You're Out: Benefits and Costs of California's New Mandatory-Sentencing Law. NCJ 152237 -- Christian Pfeiffer, Ph.D., Director, Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen: Sentencing Policy and Crime Rates in Reunified Germany. NCJ 152238 -- Arthur L. Kellermann, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Center for Injury Control, and Associate Professor, Emory University: Understanding and Preventing Violence: A Public Health Perspective. NCJ 152692 -- James Inciardi, Ph.D., Director, Drug and Alcohol Center, University of Delaware: A Corrections-Based Continuum of Effective Drug Abuse Treatment. NCJ 153271 -- Marvin Wolfgang, Ph.D., Director, Legal Studies and Criminology, University of Pennsylvania: Crime in a Birth Cohort: A Replication in the People's Republic of China. NCJ 153730 -- Lawrence W. Sherman, Ph.D., Professor, University of Maryland: Reducing Gun Violence: Community Policing Against Gun Crime. NCJ 153272 -- Cathy Spatz Widom, Ph.D., Professor, State University of New York-Albany: The Cycle of Violence Revisited Six Years Later. NCJ 153273 -- Wesley Skogan, Ph.D., Professor, Northwestern University: Community Policing in Chicago: Fact or Fiction? NCJ 153850 -- Scott H. Decker, Ph.D., Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Susan Pennell, San Diego Association of Governments: Monitoring the Illegal Firearms Market. NCJ 154277 -- Terrie Moffitt, Ph.D., Professor, University of Wisconsin: Partner Violence Among Young Adults. NCJ 156923 -- Orlando Rodriguez, Ph.D., Director, Hispanic Research Center, Fordham University: The New Immigrant Hispanic Populations: Implications for Crime and Delinquency in the Next Decade. NCJ 156924 -- Robert Sampson, Ph.D., Professor, University of Chicago: Communities and Crime: A Study in Chicago. NCJ 156925 -- John Monahan, Ph.D., Professor, University of Virginia: Mental Illness and Violent Crime. NCJ 157643 -- Benjamin E. Saunders, Ph.D., and Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D., Medical University of South Carolina: Prevalence and Consequences of Child Victimization: Preliminary Results from the National Survey of Adolescents. NCJ 159739 -- Joel H. Garner, Ph.D., Research Director, Joint Centers for Justice Studies: Use of Force By and Against the Police. NCJ 159740 -- Kim English, Research Director, Colorado Division of Criminal Justice: Managing Adult Sex Offenders in Community Settings: A Containment Approach. NCJ 160765 -- Michael Tonry, Ph.D., Professor, University of Minnesota: Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration. NCJ 160766 -- David M. Kennedy, Ph.D., Professor, Harvard University: Juvenile Gun Violence and Gun Markets in Boston. NCJ 161259 -- Robert Crutchfield, Ph.D., Professor, University of Washington: Labor Markets, Employment, and Crime. NCJ 161836 -- Geoff Alpert, Ph.D., Professor, University of South Carolina: Police in Pursuit: Policy and Practice. NCJ 163056 -- Dan Brookoff, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Director, Medical Education, Memphis Methodist Hospital: Drug Use and Domestic Violence. NCJ 163057 -- Marcia Chaiken, Ph.D., Research Director of LINC, Alexandria, VA: Youth Afterschool Programs and the Role of Law Enforcement. NCJ 163058 -- Eric Wish, Ph.D., Director, Center for Substance Abuse Research, University of Maryland, Dependence and Drug Treatment Needs Among Adult Arrestees. NCJ 163059 -- Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D., Professor, Columbia University, Adolescent Violence: A View From the Street. NCJ 163921 -- Patricia Tjaden, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Center for Policy Research, The Crime of Stalking: How Big Is the Problem? NCJ 164262 -- Andrew Golub, Ph.D., Principal Research Associate, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., Crack's Decline: Some Surprises Across U.S. Cities. NCJ 164725 -- Ronald Huff, Ph.D., Professor, Ohio State University, Criminal Behavior of Gang Members. NCJ 164726 -- James Austin, Ph.D., Executive Vice-President, National Council on Crime & Delinquency, Sentencing Guidelines: A State Perspective. NCJ 165585 -- Garen Wintemute, M.D., Director, Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California-Davis, Predicting Criminal Behavior Among Authorized Purchasers of Handguns. NCJ 167027 -- Lorraine Green Mazerolle, Ph.D., Director, Center for Criminal Justice Research, University of Cincinnati: Using Gunshot Detection Technology in High-Crime Areas. NCJ 167028 -- Stephen Mastrofski, Ph.D.; Roger B. Parks, Ph.D.; Albert J. Reiss, Jr., Ph.D.; Robert E. Worden, Ph.D.: Community Policing in Action: Lessons From an Observational Study. NCJ 167029 -- Christian Pfeiffer, Ph.D.; Director, Kriminologisches Forschungs-institut Niedersachsen: Trends in Juvenile Violence in European Countries. NCJ 167882 -- Dennis Kenney, Ph.D., Research Director, Police Executive Research Forum: Crime in the Schools: A Problem-Solving Approach. NCJ 168626 -- Pamela Lattimore, Ph.D.; Kevin Jack Riley, Ph.D., National Institute of Justice: Homicide in Eight Cities: Trends, Contexts, and Responses. To order any of these tapes, please contact the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000. Call 800-851-3420, or e-mail askncjrs@ncjrs.org if you have any questions.