Gangs and Gang Crime Midterm

Identifying Gang Members

• self admission

• self presentation

• known gang association

True

T/F no federal gang data base

Contemporary gang studies

began in 1980s along with mass incarceration as it fueled gang growth

Over policing - Under policing Paradox

Officers went where they thought gangs existed

• targeted certain demographics and put lots of resources toward “easy” crimes (marijuana charges)

• and ignored more serious ones leaving other demographics unprotected (violent crimes in communities)

Gangs are not organized

informal friendship networks that lack key organizational features

• members cannot consistently identify leaders

• not entrepreneurial

• loosely structured and members do not stay long

Just a subculture peer group

Gangs are organized in some sense

gradually organize around conflict and have some key formal organization features

• members identify as part of the gang

• members are highly committed and loyal

• internal structure, status, and roles

They appear disorganized because of social closure

social closure

maximize benefits for insiders while creating boundaries outsiders cannot cross

True

T/F social forces (changing world) impact gangs

Defining a Gang

• involves social closure

• colors, signs, symbols

• initiation rituals and requirements

• specialized language

• subdivisions

• leadership / hierarchies

• territory or “turf”

defining gangs creates a tautological problem

redundant to say that gangs commit crimes because of the gang members and they are gang members because they commit crimes (goes in a circle)

Eurogang definition

a street gang or troublesome youth group is any durable (member turning), street oriented youth group whose own identity includes involvement in illegal activity

Federal Definition

Requires “elevated criminal activity”

Most states have different definitions - Iowas requires

• 3+ members

• primary activity is crime

• identifiable

• ongoing activity

Critical academic perspective - defining gangs

if we are going to define gangs then we should let the members do it because some people labeled as members dont identify as such

• gangs are a social construct created by academics and control agents

Hybrid gangs

• social media will likely make these more common

• more diverse

• migrating gang culture

• less organized

  • less territory

• members are mostly in it for the crime

• gangs can act as mergers and connect multiple gangs

Nation

a conglomeration of multiple gangs that have forged an alliance

set

organized subgroup that adopts some national elements of a parent gang but mostly operates independently

crew

small, hyperlocal group that may engage in street crime (may have a parent gang)

clique

group of friends that manifests a “we” feeling - younger and smaller groups

What group or gang is labeled as is important because

it signals status or prestige

gangs are different that organized criminals

organized crime is criminal activity by an enduring structure devoted to primarily the pursuit of profits through illegal means

• long term membership

• strategic

• specialized in specific ares

• opportunistic

Gang members are…

• overrepresented among violent offenders

• average joins as a teenager (13-16)

• not rare

• most are disproportionately represented

database findings

• women are underrepresented

• blacks and latino youth are overrepresented

• show members to be older than research findings

  • flawed

  • should be used critically

  • may include bias

real gang problem

• responsible for about 10% of homicides

  • not equally distributed

• close association with drug distribution

• weapon carrying

• violence costs 100 billion per year

• exacerbates mental illness

• stigma

socially constructed gang problem

• focuses on interplays between “claims making and context”

• moral panic

  • anxious concern on the part of certain social actors than an established value system is being threatened

built environments influence on crime

criminals are opportunistic so changing the env. with manmade features can create or remove opportunities

• streetlights on corners decrease crime

Pyramid

• all youth (4)

• high risk youth (3)

• gang involved youth (2)

• serious and chronic offenders (1)

• (4) primary prevention

• (3) secondary prevention

• (2) gang intervention

• (1) targeted suppression

The Chicago Problem

• researchers went where they thought crime was happening/there was a gang problem

• a “gang capitol”

• so much research from a single city raises questions about generalizability

• gang affiliations have turned into a heavily politicized “media darling”

Glocalization

people regularly incorporate global products into their localized every day lives (not specific to gangs)

• adoption of global artifacts that are modified to suit the local culture they appear in

  • local - culture and identity

  • local/global - understand culture

  • global - commodification of culture

  • global - gang product

  • glocalization - adoption of global product

New Jack City Film (glocalization)

the big clubs ——- wanting to open their own dance club

• not achievable because of age so they host a different event

Strengths of Quantitative Data (records, surveys, web scraped data)

• generalizability

• only practical way to assess patterns of gang prevalence

• can be studied for long period of time

  • longitudinal data - study same people over period of time

• comparable and can be combined with other data sets to fill gaps

• less risky for researcher

Weaknesses of Quantitative Data

• the dark figure of crime

• doesn’t capture the complex dynamics of gangs

• hard to get less known gangs because funding goes where they are known to be

• researcher positionally

  • how social and political identities shape worldview

• expensive

• small sample size

Strengths of Qualitative Data (participant observation, interviews, social media)

• captures complexities of gangs

• gives insight on “back regions”

  • what its like in their social circle

• captures more mundane / day to day aspects of gangs

• researchers can focus on smaller “subgroups”

weaknesses of qualitative data

• time consuming

• researcher positionally - how they are perceived determines how much info they get

• provides “snap shots” of population being studied

• subject to methodological bias

• potentially harmful to both researcher and participant

Outsider researcher ( pros )

not members of the studied group and do not share any social history

• safer in moments of between gang conflict

• lack of knowledge = more room for ignorance and Q & A

• more objective

insider researchers ( pros )

are or were members of the studied group and share social history

• allows quicker access

• better at evaluating participant veracity and culture nuance

• more subjective

outsider research cons

• hard to gain access to gang and their culture

• cultural nuances may go over their heads

• more objective

insider research cons

• could be unsafe during gang conflict

• more emotionally involved

• more subjective

Unit of analysis for research

• geographic locations

  • gang turf or territory, neighborhoods, streets

• social groups

  • the gang, peer groups, family, institutions (police)

• People - want to understand interactional exchange

  • gang members, affiliates, police officer

Venkatesh’s positionality

• outsider

  • had preconceived notions about gang life, the chicago projects, and poverty

  • took a long time to build up to discussing gang activities - dependent on a single contact point

• shows how gang economy “pulls” people in

Rios positionality

• insider

  • immediate access to gang and street culture

  • strong emotional connection to subjects

  • better understanding of complicated neighborhood dynamics

• shows how a culture of constant punishment impacts youth behavior

• may have wanted to advance policy changes in his own neighborhood (end goal in mind while researching)

Ethics in research

• minimize the harm to participants while maximizing the value of the research

• protection

  • safely store and manage sensitive data

  • follow interview protocol

  • do not put yourself in harms way or exceed expertise

• honesty

  • do not exaggerate or try to fit a narrative

  • remain within parameters of IRB approval

  • do not engage with unnecessarily deceptive practices

Ethical Issues

• arriving unprepared

• romanticizing gang life

• becoming part of the study or having excess insider knowledge

• placing researchers into ethically questionable situations

• outsider researcher bias - viewing them as zoo creatures

Life course research

concerned with linking stages of life course to gang related behaviors and outcomes

• mostly want to understand

  • onset - first instance of gang identification

  • duration

  • termination - last reported instance of identification as a gang member

limitation: focuses to heavily on start and end and fails to account for the in between

4 key terms of life course research

• stages - distinct chunks of time in life course

• transitions - occurs between life phases

• turning points - trajectory altering moments in life course

• trajectory - pathway or processes that steer people toward or away from certain behaviors

gang embeddedness

individual immersion with an enduring deviant network (describes the in between)

target method to indicate…

embeddedness because it is not a dichotomy

• there are core members, fringe members, gang affiliates, and wannabes

• latent, continuous, and fluctuates over time

5 components of embeddedness

• contact with gang

• position in gang

• importance of the gang

• friends outside of the gang

• participation in gang assaults

age crime curve

to read graph, identify peaks

• highest odds at age 15 (most are adolescents)

• most subjects are not in gang for long

if study changes so do findings (police data would show older members)

Motivators for gang membership

• unmanaged personality deficits - trait theories

• not attached or bonded to society - social control theories

• adapting to social and env. hardship - strain theory

• susceptible to peers and other social pressures - labeling theory

• recruited - signaling theories

Risk Factors for Gang Involvement

• familial gang involvement

• lack of interpersonal skills

• lack of parental supervision

• lack of future orientation

• peer gang involvement

• antisocial env.

• low self esteem

• poverty

all connected or go together in some way

Pull factors (most common)

• desire to mimic and maintain affiliation with family and friends

• excitement regarding gang status

• the promise of making money

• access to drugs and alcohol

Push Factors

• protection

• feeling powerless or hopeless

• adverse childhood experiences

• economic desperation

strain theory

conformity - accept goals and means

innovation - accept goals reject means

ritualism - reject goals but accept means

retreatism - reject goals and means

self control and social bonds

conforming behavior = attachment to others, commitment to conventional goals, involvement in conventional activities, belief in the rules of society

if any of those are broken then it will lead to delinquent/criminal behavior

labeling theory and process

• if you get more positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement about gangs, then more likely to join

• normative self concept - primary deviance - social reaction - state reaction - secondary deviance - social and state reaction - deviant self concept

  • each step chips away at conformity and the label sets in

Intergang conflict

• occurs between rival gangs and generally involves reciprocal gang banging

• if you attack one rival gang member, you attack them all

Intragang conflict

• conflict occurs between members of the same gang

• includes violent initiations, punishment for rule breaking, and personal conflicts

• common experience

• less known information

Leveriso and O’Neil’s findings

• the more organized a gang is the more often members experience simple and aggravated assault victimization

• the more “central” people are within the gang, the more often the experience aggravated assaults

• leaders experience fewer aggravated assults

• violent offending, carrying a weapon, and drinking increase the number of reported aggravated assaults among gang members

Leaving the gang

most people stop engaging in gang activities, but the emotional ties persist

• push - changes within the gang (including how one views the gang) push people out regardless of what they have outside of the gang

• pull - changes in life outside of the gan pull people out and into new social spaces or opportunities

disengagement

refers to the process of shifting from peak to lower levels of embeddedness in a gang

desistance

refers to the life course process of stopping gang-related behaviors

transitioning out of the gang

fully embedded - 1st doubts (realizing other options) - anticipatory socialization (imagining yourself in a new role) - turning point (influential experiences) - completely disengaged

variation in gang organization

not always clear so scholars look at gang rules, roles, hierarchies, and regular meeting

-varies across time, geography, and member characteristics

gangs are organized around…

• conflict

• maintenance of between and within gang respect and reputation

• preservation of member states and camaraderie within the gang context

• territorial guardianship

• illicit economies

social institutions

groups or organizations that have specific roles, norms, and expectations and function to meet social needs of community

-family, educational system, state run services (tangible and concrete)

social structure

of neighborhoods specifically include economic, physical, and social forces that organize groups and people within a community

-income inequality, system involvement, distributions of power (abstract)

What kind of places have gangs?

• neighborhoods lacking social institutions, resources, and organization - strain

  • dysfunctional neighborhoods that cannot meet needs of residents

• neighborhoods characterized by isolation and inequality - critical race

• neighborhoods with low levels of social control - social disorganization

  • constantly changing neighborhoods

Strain theory on gangs

if people do not feel like their behavior is constrained by values, norms, or structure, they will feel “adrift” and their behavior will become erratic and self serving

wilsons underclass theory on gangs

• rapid urbanization is associated with increases in gang presence and activity

  • underclass lacked skills and training to join legitimate labor force

• underclass is physically and socially isolated allowing gangs to continue to thrive

critical race theories on gangs

• seeks to understand how racism consistently generates difference in group and individual experiences

  • criminal legal system impacts racial inequalities in neighborhoods

Social disorganization theory and gangs

• underserved communities cannot regulate the behavior of neighborhood residents

• mechanisms of formal and informal social control become weak and ineffective and people still want structure so gangs fill voids and gaps left by conventional structures and institutions

communities

social networks composed of individuals who share cultural norms, values, and experiences (not mappable)

• gang members are part of the community

neighborhoods

mappable spatial units, with boundaries determined by history, culture, and the state

• popular unit of analysis in gang studies

• landmarks and built env. give gangs someting to organize around

The corner and the crew reading

corner

• references neighborhood structural conditions and a gangs use of neighborhood space

  • gangs have more strong affiliation with neighborhood than typical resident

crew

• references various interactional processes within and between gangs that amplify violence

history + proximity = violence (gang conflicts and turf are both important)

collective efficacy

social cohesion among neighborhoods combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the greater good

• counteracts neighborhood factors associated with crime

gentrification

temporal and spatial churning process of higher income household directly and indirectly displacing lower income households (changing composition and character or neighborhoods)

• if neighborhoods change, so will gangs

  • more businesses = small suppressive effect of gang homicides

  • demolition of public housing = increase in gang homicides

social cohesion is essential for social action

enough people must agree that gangs are a problem…worth solving…that can be solved…with the resources available

drugs and gangs

• operate similarly to legitimate trade (want access to potential customers with limited competition)

• complexity varies by location

• members are extensively involved - organizational level varies

• disputes over market fuel gang conflict

critiquing social disorganization theory

contemporary gangs dont always claim turf - members can be scattered and travel to commit crimes

• may not always be disorganized, but rather differently organized

• leaving the city and moving to suburbs

• “not those kind of places” often misidentify and handle situations because there is little research (chicago problem)

• circular thinking - gangs are a sign and consequence of social disorganization

• not always accidental - often by design

• residents do not just accept gang behavior

Papachristos et al

looked at gang violence networks and used social networks as a concept and a quantitative analytical strategy to understand what drives gang conflict

pattillo

looks at within neighborhood social ties and uses social networks as a concept and analytical network to understand why gangs exist in middle class neighborhoods

• residents proximity to socioeconomic instability (racism) make crime an attractive option

• residents are good at social controls - just looks different than what social disorganization says

dense social networks and gang crime

the more familiar with one another, the more illicit networks are absorbed into mainstream connections and thereby normalized

• gang members are integrated into neighborhood and community social networks because of residential stability

  • maintain neighborhood quietude

• residents all want to protect the neighborhood so they let gangs fill gap (innovator)

• gang members and gang activities are limited and respectful to neighborhood residents

  • not all gang activity is criminal activity