Harry Stone Crime Watch #1155

CRIME PREVENTION - GANGS

OVERVIEW OF GANGS

Gangs pose a significant threat to community safety. Understanding how gangs develop and what they offer to their members is critical in order to create effective intervention and prevention strategies. Although all gangs engage in criminal behavior, extensive research reveals that they have different codes of conduct, are motivated by different values, and commit different types of crimes. Appreciating such distinctions is crucial to developing effective local responses.

Even though gangs have distinct characteristics, they tend to be similar in that they:

- Develop along racial and ethnic lines;

- Are male-dominated associations with an increased proliferation of female gangs;

- Stake out a specific territory;

- Operate as an organization that may be part of a larger group; and

- Display symbols of their organization in dress, Gang colors, tattoos, graffiti, hand signals, language, etc.

Historically, youth have been drawn to gangs because they increase a sense of self-worth and acceptance in individuals and hold out promises of higher status and personal protection. Gang affiliation can provide the status and peer acceptance important in adolescent development that is otherwise unavailable to at-risk youth.

Recent research about youth gangs reveals that most members join before the age of 18, and, contrary to popular belief, they do not make membership a lifelong commitment. Three longitudinal studies showed that from one-half to two-thirds of members stay in a gang for one year or less. Unfortunately, gang lifestyles are sensationalized in fashion, music, and the mass media. Such attention serves to reinforce the attractiveness of gang membership, especially to adolescents, for whom a sense of belonging is an important aspect of identity formation.

DRUGS, GUNS, & VIOLENCE IN GANGS

Despite the popular perception that belonging to a gang and drug-dealing go hand-in-hand, the research is somewhat contradictory. Recent studies conclude that larger gangs can be classified as "entrepreneurial gangs," that is, organized in a money-making enterprise like drug sales. Most gangs are better described as "street gangs," and are less focused on economic gain than other turf issues. Research conducted in California indicates that there was an increase in drug sales by gang members that paralleled high unemployment and the rise of the crack cocaine economy in the 1980s, but in general, drugs remain peripheral to the purposes and activities of the gang.

Even though most gang members are not involved in organized drug trafficking, concern over drugs and violence related to gangs is not unfounded. Studies show that young gang members have a higher drug usage rate than non-gang members. In addition, delinquency rates, including drug use, commission of violent offenses, and arrest rates, were higher for gang members.

Perhaps the most threatening aspect of gang proliferation has been the increasing use of firearms. Gang members are shown to possess significantly more guns than other at-risk youth. Studies cite "the threat of a rival gang," as the primary factor motivating youth to carry guns. Older youth and young adults are motivated more by the fact that their peers own guns, causing an escalating arms race of guns with greater and greater sophistication and lethality [in some communities].

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DEALING WITH GANGS

The National Education Association recommends beginning with the following recommendations to deal with Gang activity:

PREVENTION - Create strategies that aim to prevent youth from joining gangs and engaging in gang behavior, including education about the dangers of joining a gang.

INTERVENTION - Design programs that aim to divert youth from crime, provide alternatives such as after-school programs, counseling, work-study, conflict-resolution, etc.

SUPPRESSION - Use enforcement tactics that usually involve policies and procedures to identify, isolate, punish and rehabilitate criminal offenders.

To combat the presence of gangs, our current policy advises some specific interventions, including:

- Requiring students to wear school uniforms,

- Enforcing parental and community curfews to restrict delinquent behavior at night,

- Employing truancy prevention efforts, and

- Setting zero-tolerance policies on underage drinking and guns in the schools.

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Chairman@HarryStoneCW.org