Youth gangs

SIGNIFICANCE: Although juvenile crime has tended to decline since the mid-1990s, crimes associated with youth gangs have continued to increase as gangs have proliferated across the United States and as gang members have engaged in more serious forms of crime.

Youth gangs have received considerable attention in criminal justice since the beginning of the twentieth century, but no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a gang has yet emerged. The consensus among scholars and people in criminal justice is that a gang is a group with at least three members who engage in delinquent behavior. Gangs are more than merely groups of delinquent peers; they are unique in that the values of their members support the deviant behavior of both the individual members and the gang as a whole. Many researchers also agree that an important element of youth gangs is their adoption of distinctive identifying names. Moreover, gang members also tend to identify themselves by wearing distinctive clothing and tattoos and by marking neighborhoods with distinctive graffiti—all of which reinforces group cohesiveness.

History and Theory

The first documented youth gangs emerged in the Five Points District of New York City at the beginning of the twentieth century. Members of these early gangs were predominantly White and included many newly arrived immigrants from Europe. These early gangs were forerunners to organized crime groups—a fact that makes them different from their modern gang counterparts. Early attempts to explain the criminal behavior of youth gangs focused on social disorganization. However, during the 1920s, researchers took on the challenge of specifically explaining the gang phenomena.

It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Los Angeles and Chicago saw the emergence of what would become modern youth gangs. These later gangs were similar to the earlier gangs in that their membership was made up of mostly new immigrants. These new gangs also included groups whose members were moving throughout the United States. Most of their members were African Americans and Hispanics. The modern gangs developed in response to conditions of poverty, discrimination, and other social problems in developing urban areas in big cities. Research on gangs during the mid-twentieth century leaned toward “strain theory”—an emerging explanation of general criminal behavior that focused on lack of legitimate opportunities in society and the resulting need for value adaptation.

A major difference between these modern gangs and earlier gangs is that instead of dissolving or seeing their members move into organized crime, the modern gangs have tended to become more deeply entrenched in street crime. Part of the reason for this development, researchers have found, has been the inability of gang members to gain access to legitimate employment opportunities.

The continuity of gangs has been reinforced by the continued involvement of members into their adulthood, and twenty-first century gangs have their roots in the mid-twentieth century gang movement. The perpetuation of gangs has encouraged a resurgence of scholarly interest in gang theory. A notable development in theory has been the application of general criminological theory to explain why individuals join gangs. Money, gang members in the family, friendship, respect, protection, and self-esteem are among the reasons that have been noted for joining gangs.

The late twentieth century saw increased levels of gang violence and a proliferation of gangs across the United States. Cities that had never had youth gangs before the 1980s suddenly had to deal with gangs. Much of this change has been attributed to deindustrialization and a consequent need to rely more on criminal activities, especially drug sales. Large gangs expanded across the United States, and entirely new gangs emerged in many cities. By the 2020s, more than thirty thousand gangs were active in the United States. The vast majority of teen members, nearly 59 percent, were in rural counties, according to Functional Family Therapy. About 48 percent lived in small cities, nearly 37 percent were in suburban counties, and more than 32 percent were in large cities.

One of the most visible changes in modern gangs has been their trend toward multiracial membership. Also, many gangs are taking in female members. The age structures of gangs are also changing. Gangs are taking in more younger members than ever before, and increasing numbers of members are remaining active in their gangs into their young adulthood. There also seem to be growing connections between street gangs and prison gangs that were not evident in earlier years.

Structure and Behaviors

The evolution of gangs over time has brought with it variety in the structure of the groups and the criminal behaviors of its members. The structures of gangs appear to be related to the gangs’ behaviors. For example, gangs lacking cohesion are generally less organized than others are and are more likely to engage in random deviant behavior. More cohesive groups have tighter structures and engage in more organized criminal activities. The longer gangs are in existence, the more cohesive they become. Gangs whose members stay in longer are also more likely to develop greater cohesion and stronger organization. However, most gangs are not formally organized, and most members are transitional and do not stay in gangs for life.

Emergent gangs with low levels of cohesion tend to have weak leadership. Their members tend to engage in random and diverse deviant behaviors that are individually based and do not benefit the gangs as a whole. Many members of such gangs engage only in minor forms of juvenile delinquency. Members of gangs of this type are the most likely to quit before they reach adulthood, and the gangs themselves are prone to disband. Many gangs in the United States can be classified as emergent.

When emergent gangs continue to evolve, they become more cohesive. They often have initiation rituals that test members’ loyalty and strength. Eventually, formal rules develop, and members who violate the rules may face consequences. Meanwhile, more leadership structures develop, and the deviant behaviors of individual members may monetarily benefit a gang as a whole.

Most gangs never become solidified and tightly organized, but a few “supergangs,” such as the Latin Kings, have reached advanced levels of organization. Gangs of this nature have intricate leadership structures with multiple tiers and elaborate rules for members to follow. Highly organized groups often have branches dispersed throughout the United States, and their criminal activities are well structured. Such gangs tend to operate as organizations and often benefit from the criminal activities of their individual members. Their members generally avoid outward displays of their gang affiliation to avoid attracting the attention of police.

Criminal Activities

Criminal activity of gangs range from minor delinquent behaviors, such as shoplifting and drinking, to such serious crimes as robbery and homicide. Most gang members engage in deviant behavior before joining their gangs, but their deviant behaviors increase after they join. Reasons for this tend to revolve around the common value systems and group mentalities of the gangs.

Among the most common criminal activities of gangs are graffiti marking, drug trafficking, and seemingly random violence, such as homicides and drive-by shootings. A traditional gang behavior, graffiti marking serves multiple purposes, including creating artistic displays (tagging), marking territory, honoring fallen members, and communicating with rival gangs. However, increasing violence in gang-ridden urban areas has overshadowed this relatively minor deviant behavior. Gang violence takes the form of intergang wars and drive-by shootings. The result has been staggering death rates among young urban male members of minority groups.

Much of modern youth gang violence is due partly to increased availability of guns and personal transportation, which has expanded rivalry areas. It has also been suggested that this violence is a function of increased drug sales, which rely heavily on tough enforcement of street-level rules.

Prevention and Intervention

As law enforcement and scholars have tackled problems of youth gangs and street crime, strategies for preventing gang violence have proliferated. Some of these strategies are implemented at the individual level to keep youths from joining gangs and to encourage those already in gangs to renounce their gang lifestyles. Prevention and intervention are important because of both the short and long-term consequences of gang membership.

The effect of gang membership stays with many members long after they leave their gangs. Gang-prevention programs strive to raise awareness of the effects of gangs and give youths the skills necessary to resist membership. Those at higher risk for gang membership may require more intensive efforts, including family counseling and mentoring programs. For youths who are already gang involved, outreach and street-worker programs provide job skills training and guidance to help with the transition to legitimate adulthood activities.

Gang membership affects not only individual members but also entire communities, which suffer from gang activities. Several prevention and intervention efforts aim to strengthen communities and reduce criminal behavior in high-crime areas. Community organization efforts encourage community efforts to combat the effects of social disorganization. Working together ultimately strengthens communities and helps to protect them against escalating crime. An example of this type of approach is neighborhood watch programs. Other avenues for organization utilize key community stakeholders, such as religious leaders and business owners.

The criminal justice system also plays a role in the reduction of gangs and gang activity. While community-oriented policing is an important endeavor in community relations, law enforcement also plays a role in suppressing the criminal gang activities. The toughest police approaches to gangs may include zero-tolerance enforcement and specialized gang units.

In some instances, tough police policies have backfired and strengthened gangs. The U. Supreme Court seems to recognize the potentially negative effects of hard-core gang enforcement in its 1999 ruling in Chicago v. Morales, which limited police discretion in handling suspected gang members. At the same time, programs such as Boston’s Ceasefire Program, which combines suppression with other intervention efforts, have shown favorable results.

Efforts to control youth gang activity have also been strengthened as a result of administrative and legislative changes that include civil injunctions, enhanced sentencing, and gang-specific prosecutions. However, enhanced sentencing and more efficient detection and criminal prosecution of gang activity have also led to problems within correctional institutions. Increases in gang activity on the streets have been accompanied by the increased presence of gangs in correctional facilities, which have been accompanied by growing connections between street and prison gangs.

Bibliography

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