Gangs - Scott H. Decker

Gangs

Scott H. Decker

Interest in gangs by law enforcement, policymakers and the

public has grown over the past three decades. Among the

most critical challenges in responding to gangs is arriving at

an operational deﬁnition that can be implemented and used

reliably. Responding to gangs is especially important because of

their propensity for violence. Gangs also engage in high levels

of drug sales, and possession and use of ﬁrearms. As most gang

members are in their teens, street gangs are seldom highly

organized or disciplined. Structural, group processes and risk-

factor explanations hold promise for understanding the causes

of gangs and thereby crafting more-effective responses. Gangs are

important in prisons as well, exerting control of inmates and the

distribution of illegal goods and services. Solid evaluation evidence

indicates that coordinated responses to gangs that include both

law enforcement and the provision of employment opportunities

and training have an impact on reducing gang membership.

INTRODUCTION

Gangs and violence have become interchangeable terms. When the term

“gangs” is mentioned in the media or among public audiences, the context

typically includes violence. Although gangs are disproportionately involved in

violent crime, there is more to gang life than violence. This chapter reviews key

points of what is known about gangs, crime, and responses to gangs.

I. DEFINING GANGS

Without the ability to distinguish between gangs and other groups of

offenders, it is not possible to gauge the magnitude of the problem, nor to

build effective responses to gangs. As with many topics in criminology, gang

deﬁnitions are complicated. A key methodological issue in the study of gangs

has been whether the unit of analysis is the gang, the gang member, or the act

(crime) committed by the gang member or members. There is also no consensus

on what the deﬁnition of a gang crime is or should be. At the federal level, the

FBI once offered a sweeping deﬁnition of a gang that focused heavily on the

Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University.

187

organizational features

and was at odds with how most local law enforcement

agencies and researchers understand gangs.

The deﬁnitions used by local law enforcement agencies fall into two groups.

The ﬁrst deﬁnes a gang crime based on the participation of a gang member

in an act (typically a crime), either as a victim or an offender. This is the

deﬁnition used by Los Angeles and many other cities in California. It is an

inclusive deﬁnition that depends only on the ability of an ofﬁcer or investigator

to determine whether a victim or offender is a documented gang member. A

number of other cities, most prominently Chicago, use a much more restrictive

deﬁnition, relying instead on the motive for an offense. From this view, an

offense that involves a gang member, as either victim or offender, may be

classiﬁed as gang-related only if the motive furthers the interests of the gang.

The offenses may include battles over gang turf, retaliation against rival gangs

or gang members, or crimes committed to generate economic gain for the gang.

The use of a motive-based deﬁnition requires considerably more information

and investigation than the use of a member-based deﬁnition of gang crime.

The choice of deﬁnition greatly inﬂuences how many gang members and

gang crimes are counted in a jurisdiction.

A comparison of the Los Angeles

and Chicago deﬁnitions reveals that a member-based deﬁnition yields nearly

twice as many gang-related homicides as the narrower gang-motive deﬁnition.

Despite this difference in magnitude, the demographic characteristics of the

individuals involved (race, age, and gender) and the situational characteristics

of homicides (guns, location, and victim-offender relationship) for the two

different deﬁnitions were the same.

1. See Scott H. Decker, Youth Gangs and Violent Behavior, in the CambRidge handbook of

violent behavioR and aggRession (Daniel J. Flannery et al. eds., 2007) (quoting FBI deﬁnition of

gang as “a criminal enterprise having an organizational structure, acting as a continuing criminal

conspiracy, which employs violence and any other criminal activity to sustain the enterprise”).

2. Malcolm W. Klein, Cheryl L. Maxson & Lea C. Cunningham, “Crack,” Street Gangs,

and Violence, 29 CRiminology 623 (1991); Cheryl L. Maxson & Malcolm W. Klein, Street Gang

Violence: Twice as Great, or Half as Great, in gangs in ameRiCa 71 (C. Ronald Huff ed., 1990);

Cheryl L. Maxson, & Malcolm W. Klein, Deﬁning Gang Homicide: An Updated Look at Member

and Motive Approaches, in gangs in ameRiCa (C. Ronald Huff ed., 2nd ed. 1996).

3. Maxson & Klein, Deﬁning Gang Homicide, supra note 2.

Reforming Criminal Justice188

In terms of measuring gang membership, self-nomination has proven to be

a robust measure that is capable of differentiating gang and non-gang youth.

My colleagues and I have also determined that self-nomination is valid when

measuring an individual’s disengagement from the gang.

II. GANG HOMICIDE

Homicides involving gangs and gang members attract the most media and

law enforcement attention. Because there is no comprehensive national source

of gang-crime reporting, the picture regarding gang crime and violence must

be constructed by compiling a variety of sources, often based on the work of

researchers who use different deﬁnitions and whose samples vary. Two law

enforcement sources of national gang-crime data (including homicide) are

the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Supplemental

Homicide Reports (part of the current Uniform Crime Reports). NIBRS

is meant to be the next generation of crime data after the UCR, though

participation is voluntary.

The most consistent source of gang homicide data has come from the National

Youth Gang Center (NYGC), funded by the Ofﬁce of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Several conclusions can be drawn this data.

First, the trend in gang homicide mirrors that for youth homicide in the United

States, with dramatic increases in the early 1990s that leveled off by the end of

the 1990s. Despite this pattern, the overall level of gang homicide is considerably

higher than for other subcategories of homicide, including domestic homicides

and robbery, reinforcing the consistent ﬁnding that gang membership is a

signiﬁcant risk factor for involvement in violence, both as a perpetrator and a

victim.

Juveniles are also more likely to carry and ﬁre guns than older offenders,

and their gun possession and use is strongly related to membership in a gang.

4. Finn-Aage Esbensen et al., Youth Gangs and Deﬁnitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang,

and Why Does it Matter?, 47 CRime & delinQuenCy 105 (2001); Scott H. Decker et al., Validating

Self-Nomination in Gang Research: Assessing Differences in Gang Embeddedness Across Non,

Current, and Former Gang Members, 30 J. Quantitative CRiminology 577 (2014).

5. Scott H. Decker, David C. Pyrooz & Richard K. Moule, Disengagement from Gangs as Role

Transitions, 24 J. Res. on adolesCenCe 268 (2014).

6. sCott h. deCkeR & baRRik van Winkle, life in the gang: family, fRiends and violenCe

(1996); teRenCe P. thoRnbeRRy et al., gangs and delinQuenCy in develoPmental PeRsPeCtive

(2002).

7. Adam M. Watkins, Beth M. Huebner & Scott H. Decker, Patterns of Gun Acquisition,

Carrying, and Use Among Juvenile and Adult Arrestees: Evidence from a High-Crime City, 25 Just.

Q. 674 (2008).

Gangs 189

And for both victims and perpetrators, gang homicides are exceedingly likely to

involve males, racial minorities, and guns. They are also more likely than other

homicides to occur outside and include multiple participants.

The NYGC survey data on gang homicide begin with the year 1996, when

1,330 gang homicides were reported by cities with populations over 100,000.

Gang homicides increased in the early part of the new century, an increase

that was notable against the backdrop of falling homicide rates for the nation.

Historically, Chicago and Los Angeles have stood out for their exceptionally

high levels of gang violence, particularly gang homicide. To a large extent,

changes in gang-homicide ﬁgures for cities over 100,000 population are driven

by changes in gang homicide in Chicago and Los Angeles. In 2009, one-half

of the homicides in Los Angeles and one-third of the homicides in Chicago

were gang-related.

Gangs in Los Angeles and Chicago have been present

perhaps for as long as a century. Because of the entrenched nature of gangs in

those two cities, they are not good examples for other cities to emulate when

they construct law enforcement, prevention, or intervention policies. Many

cities over 100,000 population, however, report roughly one-quarter of their

homicides were gang-related.

It is important to underscore that gang members are overrepresented both

as offenders and victims in homicides. Gang members in large U.S. cities

have homicide rates nearly 100 times as high as the national average.

It is

also worth noting that communities with the highest concentration of gang

members have the highest rates of gun assault.

Gang membership has been

identiﬁed as a risk factor for violent victimization, a fact that in turn leads to

a large volume of retaliatory violence. Indeed, an ethnographic study of gang

members in St. Louis

found that nearly one-quarter of the 99 members of

the initial sample had been murdered within a three-year period following the

conclusion of the study. These results underscore the fact that gang violence,

particularly homicide, has a distinctive character.

8. G. David Curry, Arlen E. Egley & James C. Howell, Young Gang Homicide Trends in the

National Youth Gang Survey (2004) (paper presented at the American Society of Criminology

Meetings, Nashville, TN).

9. James C. Howell et al., U.S. Gang Problem Trends and Seriousness, 1996–2009, nat’l gang

CtR. bull. (May 2011), https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Content/Documents/Bulletin-6.pdf.

10. Id.

11. Scott H. Decker & David C. Pyrooz, On the Validity and Reliability of Gang Homicide: A

Comparison of Disparate Sources, 14 homiCide stud. 359 (2010).

12. Beth M. Huebner et al., Dangerous Places: Gang Members and Neighborhood Levels of

Gun Assault, 33 Just. Q. 836 (2014). For a discussion of gun violence, see Franklin E. Zimring,

“Firearms and Violence,” in the present Volume.

13. deCkeR & van Winkle, supra note 6.

Reforming Criminal Justice190

III. INSTRUMENTALITIES

There are a number of correlates that distinguish gang crime, particularly

violence, from other crime. These include a prior relationship between the

victim and the offender, the occurrence of the event outdoors, the involvement

of multiple suspects, and the presence of ﬁrearms and drugs. Here, I will discuss

two of these correlates: ﬁrearms and drugs.

A. FIREARMS

The access to and use of ﬁrearms in gang violence is well documented in

police data and research ﬁndings. In an 11-city study of arrestees, Pennell,

Caldwell, and I found that self-reported gang members were more likely than

other subgroups to report wanting, owning, using, and being victimized by

ﬁrearms.

Similarly, studies by Bjerregaard and Lizotte and by Lizotte and

colleagues report that gun ownership remains one of the strongest correlates

of gang membership and gang violence.

Lizotte et al. report that youths who

carry guns for protection are ﬁve times as likely to be in a gang as youths who

own guns for sporting purposes.

The accumulation of ﬁrearms can often

lead to “arms races” between rival gangs.

Firearms are the weapon of choice

among gang members, a preference for ownership that has increased over the

course of the past four decades.

This fact is strongly related to the high levels

of violent death in gang-involved populations in ethnographic research.

Clearly, an effective response to gangs will need to address the issue of ﬁrearms

possession and availability.

An ethnography of St. Louis gang members characterizes their lives as under

a constant state of threat from rival gangs, one’s own gang, and the police.

St. Louis, gang youths are six times as likely to get shot as their non-gang youth

counterparts.

Neighborhoods with high concentrations of gang members

14. Scott H. Decker, Susan Pennell & Ami Caldwell, Illegal Firearms: Access and Use by Arrestees,

nat’l inst. of JustiCe ReseaRCh in bRief (Jan. 1997), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfﬁles/163496.pdf.

15. Beth Bjerregaard & Alan J. Lizotte, Gun Ownership and Gang Membership, 86 J. CRim. l. &

CRiminology 37 (1995); Alan J. Lizotte et al., Patterns of Adolescent Firearms Ownership and Use,

11 Just. Q. 51 (1994).

16. Lizotte et al., supra note 15.

17. Alfred Blumstein, Youth Violence, Guns, and the Illicit-Drug Industry, 86 J. CRim. l. &

CRiminology 10 (1995); Watkins, Huebner & Decker, supra note 7.

18. James C. Howell, Youth Gangs: An Overview, Juvenile Just. bull. (Aug. 1998), https://

www.ojjdp.gov/jjbulletin/9808/contents.html.

19. deCkeR & van Winkle, supra note 6; Decker & Pyrooz, supra note 11.

20. deCkeR & van Winkle, supra note 6.

21. G. David Curry, Scott H. Decker & Arlen Egley Jr., Gang Involvement and Delinquency in

a Middle School Population, 19 Just. Q. 275 (2002).

Gangs 191

create a potentially volatile situation where members frequently interact with

rival gang members, thus increasing the likelihood of gun violence.

B. DRUGS

The level of gang participation in the sale of illegal drugs coincided with

the widespread availability of crack cocaine in the late 1980s. Howell and I

documented the considerable overlap between involvement in drug markets

and the use of violence.

Neighborhoods were carved into territories “held

down” by gangs competing for drug markets.

Disputes over drug turf were

at the heart of a considerable amount of gang violence in the 1990s. Drug use

among gang members has also been reported in a host of studies.

There are two competing views about the role of gangs and gang members

in street drug sales. One is that street gangs are well-organized and effective

mechanisms for the distribution of illegal drugs and invest drug-sale proﬁts

into their gang. A second explanation holds that drug sales by gangs are seldom

well-organized, with gang members often selling independently of their gangs.

Some research has described gangs as formal-rational organizations with a

leadership structure, roles, rules, common goals, and control over members.

Others, however, describe gangs as loosely confederated groups that lack

internal cohesion or many of the formal characteristics of organization.

Most gang members sell drugs, though the level at which they sell may not be

increased by gang membership alone. It is clear that involvement in drug trafﬁcking

is a risk factor for becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence. Conﬂict between

gangs is motivated by retaliation far more than involvement in the illegal drug

trade. In his work in Indianapolis, Lauger noted that local gangs used violence as

22. Huebner et al., supra note 12; Andrew V. Papachristos, David M. Hureau & Anthony

A. Braga, The Corner and the Crew: The Inﬂuence of Geography and Social Networks on Gang

Violence, 78 am. soC. Rev. 417 (2013).

23. James C. Howell & Scott H. Decker, The Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Violence Connection,

Juvenile Just. bull. (Jan. 1999), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfﬁles1/93920.pdf.

24. deCkeR & van Winkle, supra note 6; Papachristos et al., supra note 22.

25. Scott H. Decker & Barrik Van Winkle, Slingin’ Dope: The Role of Gangs and Gang Members

in Drug Sales, 11 Just. Q. 583 (1994); John m. hagedoRn, PeoPle and folks: gangs, CRime and the

undeRClass in a Rustbelt City (1989); Howell & Decker, supra note 23.

Reforming Criminal Justice192

a source of gaining legitimacy within the gang as well as responding to violence

with greater violence to improve their status amongst other gangs.

Involvement

in drug sales is also a primary way that gang members develop a criminal record,

something that can hurt their chances for employment.

IV. WHAT DO GANG MEMBERS LOOK LIKE?

The average age of a gang member in the United States is 17. This means that

a large number of gang members are adolescents and their behavior reﬂects

that of typical adolescents.

They form associations and social relationships

with limited information about the consequences of such associations and

terminate those relationships as quickly as they form them. In addition,

adolescents are not the best money managers or planners. Adolescence is also

a time when friends assume greater importance than parents. Most gangs have

a strong afﬁliation with the neighborhood where they live and often take the

name of the neighborhood or a prominent street in the name of the gang.

Like most adolescents, adolescent gang members engage in a considerable

amount of braggadocio and myth-making. Formal roles and responsibilities

are not characteristic of the typical adolescent, and that is also true of gangs.

The typical “term” in a gang is about two years. Disengagement from a gang is

seldom the result of a program or social intervention, rather it seems to come

from natural social processes related to maturation. While most gang members

are male, females constitute an important component of gangs, perhaps as

much as 25% of all gang members.

Older gang members are capable of higher levels of organization. In many

cases, that can be attributed to spending time in prison, which enforces

discipline. The discipline gang members learn in prison is generally not due to

the efforts of the correctional ofﬁcers and rules; it is a consequence of discipline

enforced by prison gangs. Going to prison often enhances the credibility and

reputation of a gang member and places them in a position of leadership

once they return from incarceration. In many instances, gang membership is

entrenched with cultural values, particularly among Hispanic gangs.

26. timothy R. laugeR, Real gangstas: legitimaCy, RePutation, and violenCe in the integRating

enviRonment (2012).

27. See generally Gabriel J. Chin, “Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction,” in

Volume 4 of the present Report.

28. For a discussion of juvenile offenders, see Barry C. Feld, “Juvenile Justice,” in the present

Volume.

Gangs 193

V. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF GANGS?

Understanding the causes and correlates of gangs should lend insights into

appropriate responses to the gang problem. Three predominant explanations

for the presence of gangs exist. These focus on (1) community-level

explanations, (2) the role of social processes, or (3) risk factors. Community-

level explanations underscore the role of neighborhood structure and other

social variables, including measures of community social control, in the

generation of patterns and trends in homicide. Such explanations typically

include measures of racial composition, concentrated poverty, gun availability,

and the presence of drug markets and drug use in the neighborhood or city as

the unit of analysis.

Such approaches often use spatial analysis.

Explanations

that emphasize collective behavior point to the role of social processes, such

as contagion and retaliation, and depend more often on ethnographic or case

study materials. The former approach emphasizes the spatial distribution of

individual and neighborhood characteristics, whereas the latter highlights

dynamic social processes and often uses the group as its level of analysis. Risk-

factor approaches, on the other hand, focus on individuals and pay attention to

the challenges they have or negative life experiences.

A. STRUCTURAL EXPLANATIONS

A study in Chicago found that gang homicides have a signiﬁcantly different

ecological pattern than do non-gang homicides and conform to classic models of

social disorganization and poverty.

They argue that analyzing gang groups as a

function of mobility patterns is a productive conceptual means of understanding

gang homicides.

Social disorganization was found in neighborhoods

undergoing shifts in population composition, overall mobility, and economic

change. This disorganization was subsequently linked to gang homicide and

other forms of gang crime, particularly violence. This conclusion was reached by

examining a host of structural variables, including race/ethnicity and poverty.

Social disorganization is problematic because it interrupts the natural socializing

processes of family, employment, school and adult supervision.

29. Richard Rosenfeld, Timothy M. Bray & Arlen Egley, Facilitating Violence: A Comparison of

Gang-Motivated, Gang-Afﬁliated, and Nongang Youth Homicides, 15 J. Quantitative CRiminology

495 (1999); Huebner et al., supra note 12.

30. Alfred Blumstein et al., Diffusion Processes in Homicide (Nat’l Crim. Just. Ref. Serv. July

17, 1999), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfﬁles1/nij/grants/193425.pdf; Jacqueline Cohen & George

Tita, Diffusion in Homicide: Exploring a General Method for Detecting Spatial Diffusion Processes,

15 J. Quantitative CRiminology 451 (1999).

31. G. David Curry & Irving A. Spergel, Gang Homicide, Delinquency, and Community, 26

CRiminology 381 (1988).

32. Id.

Reforming Criminal Justice194

Neighborhoods with high levels of gangs display strong spatial concentrations

of crime, particularly in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and social

change.

Spatial concentrations of gang members also create higher levels of

gun violence.

Neighborhoods with high concentrations of gang membership

are characterized by high levels of gun violence and social disorganization.

B. SOCIAL PROCESSES AND GANG VIOLENCE

Studies of the social processes involved in the generation of gang violence

focus on group processes.

The dynamics of interactions that lead to both initial

and retaliatory acts of gang violence are key to such analysis. Such analyses

underscore the role of group process and social-psychological variables in the

understanding of gangs and gang activities. In 1996, I observed spikes in gang

violence over time that were often quite dramatic in magnitude.

My study

underscored the role of “threat” in the explanation of gang violence, particularly

retaliatory violence. An assault could initiate a sequence of retaliatory violence

that moves beyond an individual neighborhood and its original participants.

This approach emphasizes the dynamic social processes of collective

behavior that lead to retaliatory violence among gangs. It is important to note

in this context the role that offending plays in victimization, particularly for

gang members

where offending and victimization are linked in a series of

inter-relationships. In this context, Klein and Maxson identiﬁed the role of

social processes in the escalation of violence.

Pizzaro and McGloin provided

33. Carolyn Rebecca Block & Richard Block, Street Gang Crime in Chicago, nat’l inst.

of JustiCe ReseaRCh in bRief (Dec. 1993); David Kennedy, Anthony Braga & Anne Piehl, The

(Un)Known Universe: Mapping Gangs and Gang Violence in Boston, in CRime maPPing and CRime

PRevention 219 (David L. Weisburd & J. Thomas McEwen eds., 1997); Rosenfeld, Bray & Egley,

supra note 29.

34. Huebner et al., supra note 12.

35. Colin Loftin, Assaultive Violence as a Contagious Social Process, 62 bull. n.y aCad. med.

550 (1984).

36. Scott H. Decker, Collective and Normative Features of Gang Violence, 13 Just. Q. 243

(1996).

37. Andrew V. Papachristos, Murder by Structure: Dominance Relations and the Social Structure

of Gang Homicide, 115 am. J. soC. 74 (2009); Cohen & Tita, supra note 30; Decker, supra note 36.

38. David C. Pyrooz, Scott H. Decker & Richard K. Moule, The Contribution of Gang

Membership to the Victim-Offender Overlap, 51 J. Res. CRime & delinQ. 315 (2014).

39. Malcolm W. Klein & Cheryl L. Maxson, Street Gang Violence, in violent CRime, violent

CRiminals 189, 219 (Neil A. Weiner & Marvin E. Wolfgang eds., 1989); Cheryl L. Maxson,

Gang Homicide: A Review and Extension of the Literature, in homiCide: a souRCebook of soCial

ReseaRCh 239 (M. Dwayne Smith & Margaret A. Zahn eds., 1999).

Gangs 195

additional support for this approach with data from Newark.

Such approaches

typically point to the lack of structural control in gangs,

particularly the weak

control that gangs have over their members, and the role that rivalries can play

in leading to violence within and between gangs. These studies reinforce the

notion that gangs lack the ability to control the behavior of their members.

This process is enhanced by the widespread availability of social media. As the

“digital divide”

has shrunk and gang members more frequently engage in

the use of social media to fan the ﬂames of violence,

there is a new medium

for keeping conﬂicts alive. Social media also helps to spread violence to new

groups and potentially involve new victims. Addressing the group processes

in gangs will require inserting conventional relationships and activities in the

lives of gang members.

C. RISK FACTORS

A third approach to explanations of gang membership and behavior is

found in approaches that emphasize risk factors. This work largely comes from

school-based panel studies of youth that identify gang members and isolate

characteristics that distinguish them from non-gang members. Five domains

have been examined in this context: (1) individual, (2) family, (3) school, (4)

peer group, and (5) community. Risks in these domains are associated with an

increased probability of afﬁliating with a gang. Maxson identiﬁed ﬁve speciﬁc

risk factors that received the most empirical support.

These include: (1)

experiencing a critical life event such as loss of a parent or divorce, (2) showing

a propensity for risk-taking and impulsivity, (3) having pro-delinquent

attitudes, (4) having low levels of parental supervision, and (5) associating

with delinquent peers. Research also shows that involvement in gangs increases

when those factors are more intense, begin earlier, are greater in number, and

span longer periods of time. There is, however, a caveat to add: These are the

same risk factors for delinquent involvement. As a consequence, it is not easy

to differentiate gang risk factors from delinquent risk factors. A strength of

40. Jesenia M. Pizarroa & Jean Marie McGloin, Explaining Gang Homicides in Newark, New

Jersey: Collective Behavior or Social Disorganization?, 34 J. CRim. Just. 195 (2006).

41. Scott H. Decker & G. David Curry, Gangs, Gang Homicide and Gang Loyalty: Organized

Crimes or Disorganized Criminals?, 30 J. CRim. Just. 343 (2002).

42. David C. Pyrooz, Richard K. Moule & Scott H. Decker, Criminal and Routine Activities in

Online Settings: Gangs, Offenders, and the Internet, 32 Just. Q. 471 (2015).

43. Pyrooz, Decker & Moule, supra note 38; Desmond Upton Patton, Robert D. Eschmann &

Dirk A. Butler, Internet Banging: New Trends in Social Media, Gang Violence, Masculinity and Hip

Hop, 29 ComPuteRs in hum. behav. A54 (2014).

44. Cheryl Maxon, Street Gangs, in CRime and PubliC PoliCy 158 (James Q. Wilson & Joan

Petersilia eds., 2011).

Reforming Criminal Justice196

the risk-factor approach is that it allows for interventions to target the social

deﬁcits created by the presence of a risk factor. Another strength is that there is

strong convergence between the risk factors for gang membership and those for

involvement in delinquency. This strongly suggests that general delinquency

interventions should be appropriate for dealing with gang members. Several

of the Colorado Blueprint programs (Functional Family Therapy and Multi-

Systemic Therapy in particular) that are demonstrated as effective in dealing

with delinquency may be applied to gang involvement.

VI. PRISON GANGS

Because of their heavy involvement in crime, a large number of gang

members are imprisoned. One group estimated that up to 40% of juveniles

in secure conﬁnement claim gang membership.

Adult gang members also

constitute a sizable part of the prison population,

which has increased

dramatically since the 1990s. Gang members can be found in all forms of

incarceration in the United States, including prisons, jails, detention centers,

and pre-release centers. It is estimated that gang members comprise roughly

13% of jail populations,

12% to 17% of state prison populations,

and 9% of

the federal prison population.

Prison gangs are more structured than street gangs and have much more

effective control over their members.

The rank-and-ﬁle membership often

has several distinct levels of membership. In this sense, prison gangs resemble

organized-crime groups, because of their level of organization and emphasis

on proﬁts. Prison gangs are heavily involved in prison violence and rule

infractions. By some estimates, as much as half of all violence in prison is

45. dale PaRent et al., u.s. deP’t of JustiCe, Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile detention

and CoRReCtions faCilities (1994).

46. geoRge m. CamP & Camille gRaham CamP, u.s. deP’t of JustiCe, PRison gangs: theiR

extent, natuRe, and imPaCt on PRisons (1985); Paige H. Ralph & James W. Marquart, Gang

Violence in Texas Prisons, 71 PRison J. 38 (1991)

47. Rick Ruddell, Scott H. Decker & Arlen Egley, Gang Interventions in Jails: A National

Analysis, 31 CRim. Just. Rev. 33 (2006).

48. Marie L. Grifﬁn & J. R. Hepburn, The Effect of Gang Afﬁliation on Violent Misconduct

Among Inmates During the Early Years of Conﬁnement, 33 CRim. Just. & behav. 419 (2006); Jessie

L. Kreinert & Mark S. Fleisher, Gang Membership as a Proxy for Social Deﬁciencies: A Study of

Nebraska Inmates, 3 CoRReCtions mgmt. Q. 47 (2001).

49. Gerald G. Gaes et al., The Inﬂuence of Prison Gang Afﬁliation on Violence and Other Prison

Misconduct, 82 PRison J. 359 (2002).

50. David Pyrooz, Scott H. Decker & M. Fleisher, From the Street to the Prison, from the Prison

to the Street: Understanding and Responding to Prison Gangs, 3 J. aggRession ConfliCt & PeaCe

Res. 12 (2001).

Gangs 197

attributable to prison gangs.

Prison gangs exert strong control over drug sales,

gambling, and prostitution in institutions.

Prison also provides an impetus

to join a gang for many individuals who seek protection. Incarceration plays a

role in maintaining the inmate code, which values illegal activities that create

proﬁts.

Moreover, going to prison provides gang members with additional

status when they return to the street. Little is known about how gang members

fare when they are released from prison and whether their re-entry is more

difﬁcult than that of other inmates.

VII. RESPONDING TO GANGS

Many high-proﬁle, high-cost interventions targeting gangs have not been

adequately evaluated. We do not have a good sense of whether police crackdowns

on gangs produce reductions in crime, nor do we fully understand the impact

of gang truces on violence and gang recruitment. Civil Gang Injunctions have

been used extensively in California. Despite their popularity and expense, we

don’t know enough about their short- and long-term impact. The programming

and research literature on prison gangs and re-entry efforts among prison

gang members also has large gaps. Given the high cost of responding to gangs

wrapped up in policing and prisons, this is not an acceptable situation. Clearly

it is imperative that careful evaluations be conducted.

Good evaluations must begin with clear deﬁnitions of problems and

interventions. Some efforts to curb gangs are targeted at individual gang

members while others target gangs themselves. The evidence supports targeting

individuals rather than the gang itself.

Interventions that target the gang

itself often give recognition and resources that strengthen their organizational

structure as well as their position in the community. Another key element in

gang interventions is the match between the level of criminal involvement and

the scope of an intervention. It is important to distinguish individuals who

are at broad risk for gang involvement from those who are actively engaged in

serious gang crime. Clearly, a different response is needed for active offenders.

The gang programming and evaluation literature identiﬁes primary prevention

51. Barton L. Ingraham & Charles F. Wellford, The Totality of Conditions Test in Eighth-

Amendment Litigation, in ameRiCa’s CoRReCtional CRisis: PRison PoPulations and PubliC PoliCy

(Stephen D. Gottfredson & Sean McConville eds., 1987); CamP & CamP, supra note 46.

52. maRk s. fleisheR, WaRehousing violenCe (1989).

53. Meghan M. Mitchell et al., Criminal Crews, Codes, and Contexts: Differences and

Similarities Across the Code of the Street, Convict Code, Street Gangs, and Prison Gangs, deviant

behav. 1 (2016).

54. malColm W. klein & CheRyl l. maxson, stReet gang PatteRns and PoliCies (2006); david

g. CuRRy, sCott h. deCkeR & david C. PyRooz, ConfRonting gangs: CRime and Community

(2014).

Reforming Criminal Justice198

as an appropriate response to the general population of youths and families

who live in areas of high risk for gang involvement. Primary prevention is a

less expensive and less invasive “dose” than targeted (also known as secondary)

prevention. As such, primary prevention seeks to address the needs of

individuals at risk for involvement in gang or delinquent activities. School-

based prevention programs are a good example of primary prevention. For

example, the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program has

been identiﬁed as an effective primary-prevention program. Expanding the

use of this prevention strategy would be a good start at gang prevention. On

the other hand, targeted prevention is designed to provide a higher level of

“dose” to children and adolescents at high risk for gang involvement, perhaps

because of the neighborhood they live in or the involvement of other family

members in gang activity. Interventions such as job training or counseling are

best used with individuals who are gang members but not yet at high levels

of involvement. This is a more intrusive intervention, with higher costs than

either form of prevention. Suppression—arrest, prosecution, imprisonment—

is reserved for those most involved in crime, particularly long-term gang

members or individuals who serve as leaders of gangs.

A key to this model, referred to as the Gang Response Pyramid, is the match

between level of criminal involvement and response. Finding the right match

can be enhanced by assessing individuals for the risk factors associated with

gang membership.

Gangs 199

Diagram 1

A growing body of research has examined the process of disengaging

from gangs.

Most importantly, this research ﬁnds that the majority of gang

members leave their gangs, often without negative consequences. The exit

process is helped along most often by family and maturational reform. It is

important for agencies, police, and friends and relatives to recognize and abet,

not impede, the exit process from gangs. When opportunities for desistance

present themselves (pregnancy, injury, employment, marriage), their effects

should be encouraged and enhanced.

55. Scott H. Decker, David C. Pyrooz & Richard Moule Jr., Disengagement from Gangs as

Role Transitions, 24 J. Res. adolesCenCe 268 (2014); Dena C. Carson, Dana Peterson & Finn-

Aage Esbensen, Youth Gang Desistance: An Examination of Different Operational Deﬁnitions of

Desistance on the Motivations, Methods, and Consequences Associated with Leaving the Gang, 38

CRim. Just. Rev. 510 (2014).

Reforming Criminal Justice200

Some of the more notable gang interventions include the Comprehensive

Gang Strategy, Boston Ceaseﬁre, and the Los Angeles Gang Reduction and

Youth Development (GRYD) strategy. The Comprehensive Gang Strategy

involves a wide variety of interventions such as the Community Wide Approach

to Gang Reduction (Mesa, Riverside, San Antonio, Bloomington-Normal and

Tucson),

Safe Futures (St. Louis, Imperial Valley, Boston, Seattle, Fort Belknap

and Contra Costa),

and the Little Village Project. All of these interventions

are united by their adherence to the Comprehensive Gang Strategy developed

by Dr. Irving Spergel. These efforts combined prevention, intervention and

suppression. The results of external evaluations demonstrate that the model

is extremely difﬁcult to implement, but that when implemented fully, some

reductions in gang crime are produced. Boston Ceaseﬁre

was a response to

youth violence and homicide in Boston.

It was a “smart” intervention in

the sense that the operational staff (law enforcement, probation, outreach

workers, ministers and youth workers) was guided by the research team. The

research team (David Kennedy and Anthony Braga) used mapping, network

analysis, and other social-science analytical tools to identify patterns, places

and motivations for violence (including gang violence). Signiﬁcant reductions

in youth homicide were observed, though there is ongoing debate about the

long-term effectiveness of the intervention. The lasting takeaway for gang

intervention, however, is that Boston Ceaseﬁre demonstrated that it is possible

to form a coalition of law-enforcement, social-service, clergy, and probation

efforts to address a problem. Chicago Ceaseﬁre was a related program that

was built on public-health principles of violence prevention and depended

heavily on outreach workers to act as “violence interrupters.” Finally, GRYD

is notable because it represented a political triumph over territoriality on

the part of politicians and social-service agencies. GRYD emerged from the

reform efforts of the Los Angeles mayor and City Council to combine all of the

existing funding for gang prevention and intervention programs into a single

initiative. GRYD used research (mapping, police data, school data, and youth

surveys) to identify risk areas, risk factors, and concentrations of gang crime.

The evaluation showed some reductions, but not consistently across the city.

56. James C. hoWell, offiCe of Juvenile JustiCe & delinQuenCy PRogRams, u.s. deP’t. of

JustiCe, youth gang PRogRams and stRategies 34-37 (2000), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfﬁles1/

ojjdp/171154.pdf.

57. elaine moRley et al., offiCe of Juvenile JustiCe & delinQuenCy PRogRams, u.s. deP’t.

of JustiCe, ComPRehensive ResPonses to youth at Risk: inteRim findings fRom the safefutuRes

initiative (2000), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfﬁles1/ojjdp/183841.pdf.

58. Program Proﬁle: Operation Ceaseﬁre (Boston, Mass.), nat’l inst. of JustiCe, https://www.

crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=207.

Gangs 201

The state of research and practice in responding to gangs has not advanced to

the point where it is possible to identify “best” practices, something akin to what

is available in outlets such as the University of Colorado Blueprints for Healthy

Youth Development. There are many resources available, including a guidebook on

prevention by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Justice

as well as a Strategies to Prevent Gang Crime published by the Ofﬁce of Community

Oriented Policing.

That said, the state of knowledge does support the following

generalizations. First, no single response to gangs is likely to be successful, because

the problem of gangs, gang members and gang behavior is complex and requires

multiple responses. Second, the dose must match the magnitude of the problem.

That is to say, where the gang problem is deeply entrenched (for example, cities

like Chicago and Los Angeles), multifaceted, long-term strategies must be initiated.

In other cities, where the gang problem is emergent, a lower level of intervention

may be necessary. Third, the response must be tailored to the individual level of

gang involvement. Serious and chronic gang members who engage in high levels of

violent crime will require the suppression activities of the criminal justice system.

Youths who live in neighborhoods plagued by gang violence who have not joined

gangs will need substantial prevention and perhaps intervention services. Fourth,

every intervention needs a well-deﬁned problem statement, a carefully articulated

intervention, and must be evaluated with a rigorous research design. Finally,

while more complex to design and implement, comprehensive interventions are

most likely to produce positive outcomes. Such interventions must involve law

enforcement, community, education, juvenile justice, NGO, and the private sector.

The gang problem did not emerge overnight and won’t be solved with

quick-ﬁx responses. Communities must adopt long-term strategies to respond

to the multiple layers of gang problems while addressing the more proximate

or immediate output of gangs, such as gun violence, drug sales and threats to

the socializing power of families, employment and schools.

CONCLUSION

What does the future hold for gangs? There is widespread media speculation

that many gang members are radicalized, especially in prison. At this point,

there is little credible evidence to support this assertion rather than anecdotal

evidence. The lack of ideological beliefs and political motivations seem to be

the major reasons why this is the case.

The Internet also presents opportunities

59. sCott h. deCkeR, offiCe of Community oRientated PoliCing seRviCes, u.s. deP’t of JustiCe,

stRategies to addRess gang CRime: a guidebook foR loCal laW enfoRCement (2008).

60. Scott H. Decker & David Pyrooz, Gangs, Terrorism, and Radicalization, 4 J. stRategiC

seCuRity 151 (2011).

Reforming Criminal Justice202

for criminal involvement on the part of gangs. Gang members are usually

teenagers and use the Internet for social media and for symbolic reasons rather

than instrumental reasons.

Finally, as marijuana becomes more socially and

legally accepted, it will be interesting to see how gang members who deal drugs

will respond to those legal changes. As legal marijuana begins to saturate the

market, it is possible that violence will break out for limited proﬁts or dealers

will begin to push harder drugs.

While concentrated economic and social disadvantage are associated with

the presence of gang crime, social processes also play an important role in such

events. A large proportion of gang violence involves retaliation and often has

a contagious character to it. The links between street gangs and prison gangs

are important and many incidents in prison are linked to the street. The role

of prison gangs has especially important consequences for current re-entry

initiatives. Involvement in prison gangs may thwart community re-integration

and make transition to the community more difﬁcult for such individuals. The

problems of youth gangs and violent behavior are no longer conﬁned to the

United States. The prospect of youth gangs becoming an entrenched part of

global youth culture is enhanced by the Internet and social media.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Collaborative efforts and comprehensive strategies are needed to better

understand gangs and minimize the threats they pose.

1. Build a strong information network. Multiple sources of information

(law enforcement, school, prison, community, gang members) are needed

to develop a solid knowledge of gangs and their members.

2. Take a comprehensive approach. Effective responses to gangs involve

multiple agencies and different activities. Examples are outlined in the

Healthy Community Pyramid in this chapter, and in the Comprehensive

Gang Strategy.

Maintaining partnerships among different agencies can

be difﬁcult, but it is essential.

3. Expand the focus of law enforcement. Gangs are opportunistic and involved

in a variety of offenses, particularly drug sales and violence. Thus a focus on a

single offense type by police and prosecutors is likely to be ineffective.

61. Pyrooz, Moule & Decker, supra note 42.

62. OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model, nat’l gang CenteR, https://www.nationalgangcenter.

gov/Comprehensive-Gang-Model.

Gangs 203

4. Intervene early. Because the risk factors for delinquency and gang

membership overlap so strongly, delinquency interventions offer great

promise. Multiple intervention points should be utilized, including family,

school, social service, recreation, and employment.

5. Closely monitor the reentry process: As a large number of gang members

go to prison, their reentry is important to community safety. Often gang

members return to the community no better—or even worse—than when

they left for prison. Gang members returning from prison need close

supervision and high-intensity levels of programming.

Reforming Criminal Justice204