Search

This study examines the life of Crips cofounder Stanley "Tookie" Williams and the controversy surrounding his multiple nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. After being sentenced to death for a quadruple murder, Williams underwent a period of radical transformation and became an internationally recognized ambassador for peace. From San Quentin's death row, Williams supported several internationally recognized gang peace initiatives including the 1992 Watts truce, the 1993 Summit on Urban Peace and Justice, Hands Across America, and the 2004 Tookie Protocol for Peace. This article explores the challenges Williams faced in his evolution from a gang member to a peace activist, his role in these projects, and how neoliberal criminal justice reforms undermined his global efforts to promote grassroots peace coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

committing the same crime in furtherance of a gang. This article identifies three double jeopardy violations, then offers three distinct suggestions for defense attorneys, ethical prosecutors, and judges to right these wrongs. First, gang prosecutions violate classic double jeopardy when predicated on a single, previously adjudicated criminal offense. Second, gang prosecutions violate collateral estoppel where criminal Defendants are found not guilty of a substantive criminal act, yet found guilty of the same act in furtherance of the gang. Third, multiple punishment double jeopardy is violated when Defendants are punished consecutively for a gang statute and conspiracy to violate the same gang statute. This is the fourth article in a series that argues that gang statutes were created, and have operated, to incarcerate poor, young men of color--including seasoned gang members, novice gang members, and simply accused gang members--under a peculiar set of legal standards that violate the plain language of the United States Constitution. To ensure criminal Defendants, including gang members, due process of law, gang statues must be abolished. Until then, ethical prosecutors should refrain from bringing gang charges, and if they do bring gang charges, should avoid the constitutional violations described in this series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research consistently finds that gang youth, compared to nongang youth, are more involved in risky behaviors such as violence and drug sales. Less attention has been given to comparisons in sexual behavior. While research demonstrates that gang membership is associated with risky sex and many gang members indicate that sex is a motivation for joining a gang, prior research is limited in its ability to account for self-selection into a gang, variations in involvement across gender, and different forms of sexual activity. This research addresses these limitations by using Add Health data and propensity score matching to examine the relationship between gang membership and sexual behavior inside and out of a romantic relationship as well as how this relationship differs by gender. While findings indicate that gang membership increases the likelihood of sexual intercourse, nonromantic sex, and the number of nonromantic sex partners, no unique gender differences were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yet, what Stuart reveals, is that the young men's perceptions of success in his study are not only a reflection of what is in the media, but also is contingent upon the young men's own ability to utilize social media as a way to compete for notoriety in the online attention economy. IN CLOSING Despite Stuart's nuanced analysis, it is interesting that he acknowledges that schools are important staging areas for the Corner Boys and their drill careers, but yet writes little about the young men's relationship to education, particularly as a possible means for upward mobility. Stuart documents how these young men, confronting the increasing loss of opportunities in both the informal and formal economies, turn to the "unique affordances provided by digital social media to capitalize on a burgeoning market for urban gang violence (or, more accurately, a market for the I representation i of urban gang violence)" (p. 2). [Extracted from the article]

How do criminal groups organize, operate, and govern in Denmark? We argue that organized crime groups face governance challenges in the form of principal-agent problems and transaction costs. Based on interviews with law enforcement officers, former gang members, and prisoners, we provide evidence for how people involved in crime respond to these organizational dilemmas. We find that the more severe the principal-agent problem, the more gangs vet possible members during recruitment. We also find that as transaction costs rise, people who are engaged in illicit activities that are more complicated will rely more on internal structure and centralization. Our findings support existing rational choice theories of criminal organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to identify developmental patterns of gang membership among a sample of juvenile offenders during adolescence and early adulthood. Examine the relevance of PTSD for predicting development. The Pathways to Desistance data were used in analyses. Group-based trajectory modeling was used to identify developmental patterns of gang membership. Multinomial logistic regression examined if PTSD predicts trajectory group membership. A five-group model best fit the gang membership data. Meeting lifetime criteria for PTSD at baseline predicted membership to a trajectory group characterized by chronic gang membership. Results indicate that screening for PTSD may help to identify juvenile offenders who may be at-risk for becoming chronic gang members. Providing trauma-informed care may help to reduce the impact of PTSD on gang membership risk by providing treatment that helps juvenile offenders manage emotions and establish and maintain social support relationships outside of a gang context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade, while national homicide rates have remained flat, New York City has experienced a second great crime decline, with gun violence declining by more than 50 percent since 2011. In this paper, we investigate one potential explanation for this dramatic and unexpected improvement in public safety—the New York Police Department's shift to a more surgical form of "precision policing," in which law enforcement focuses resources on a small number of individuals who are thought to be the primary drivers of violence. We study New York City's campaign of "gang takedowns" in which suspected members of criminal gangs were arrested in highly coordinated raids and prosecuted on conspiracy charges. We show that gun violence in and around public housing communities fell by approximately one third in the first year after a gang takedown. Our estimates imply that gang takedowns explain nearly one quarter of the decline in gun violence in New York City's public housing communities over the last eight years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study (179 participants, mean age 19. 98, 85% female) examined how violence justification via avatar role manipulations affected first-person shooter game players' subsequent feelings of guilt and self-empowerment attributed to bearing guns in the real-world. In support of the moral disengagement in violent video games model, an independent samples t -test suggested that participants assigned to play as gang members shooting at police officers felt guiltier than those assigned to play as police officers shooting at gang members. In support of Proteus effect predictions linked with self-perception and priming mechanisms, a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance suggested that self-empowerment attributed to carrying guns for both avatar roles increased from baseline to after gameplay, but avatar roles did not influence the increase. The lack of influence could be because participants did not adopt avatar behaviors with undesirable connotations. The results highlight avatar-user bonds through which the associations raised by virtual personas affected players' emotions and self-perception when engaging in simulated violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gang literature increasingly reflects the importance of social media in gang lifestyle, as gang members adopt new communicative practices. Yet, because of the multifaceted nature of online gang activity and the diversity of methodologies employed, a general overview of research outcomes is not easily achieved. This article seeks to remedy this by analysing academic studies of gang use of social media. A systematic literature review was conducted in Scopus and Google Scholar databases, which led to the identification of 73 publications. We then undertook a content analysis of each publication using an exhaustive evaluation model, comprising 20 variables and 71 categories. A bibliometric analysis was also performed to determine the structural characteristics of the research community that generates these publications. Our results point to an emerging universe of publications with different themes, methods, samples and ethical protocols. The challenges, risks and recommendations for future social media research with youth street groups are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While killing is delegitimised by law, gangs who kill their rivals are legitimated within their social group. The central analytical argument is that the killing of gang rivals is a form of "capital" (Bourdieu 1986) that forges and produces enduring social networking relationships among gang groups. Killing is a celebrated practice within certain gang groups. The act of killing is also a rite of passage, which establishes a member within the gang group. Killing defines the "commanders" of gang groups and those who have the potential to lead a gang in the future. Killing is a source of identity and recognition. It produces certain kinds of statuses within the gang group. Those who kill the most are honoured in the gang group, while feared by the rivals. While this paper argues that killing sustains gang practices, it also examines the increased invisibility of gangs as victims of the same violence that they perpetrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mombasa is well known for problems with gangs. Some of them are composed of a high proportion of youths under 18 years, with some as young as 7 years old. Many use drugs, some carry out thefts, and some are known for large-scale violent robberies with the use of knives, severely injuring members of the public. In an attempt to manage the problem, the killing of perpetrators through mob justice or in police operations is commonplace. This paper contributes to our understanding of youths in gangs and interventions to tackle gang violence. We argue that not all "gangs" are involved in criminal activity. However, some gang members may be viewed as perpetrators of violent crime but also as victims of marginalisation and unfavourable environments, which constrain life choices, making violent crime a frequent path. Moreover, criminal justice approaches have failed these youths. The current inconsistent, corrupt and brutal approach by police serves to compound the problem, while external actors benefiting from youth gangs' operations are tolerated by the state. Increased resistance is evident as youth gangs tend to increase their violence against the public in order to take "revenge" against the police. Structural violence is an important cause of the problem and is also replicated in current mitigation approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of escalating levels of crime in South Africa, correctional centres have become overcrowded because new inmates swell the numbers of those already serving sentences or awaiting trial. Moreover, overcrowding worsens the fundamental design challenges of correctional homes as large numbers of inmates in most of these centres approach. This study focuses on the effects of overcrowding in South African correctional centres. To achieve this goal, a review of empirical research studies was conducted. It was found that even though bunk beds are used at the centres under study, they are placed too close together to utilise every available space in overcrowded conditions which compromise reasonable living space for the inmates. Moreover, owing to the shortage of staff, inmates are habitually locked up for the greater portion of the day and, in some instances, only released for a couple of minutes to exercise outdoors. Overcrowding, thus, has a number of dire effects on the effective functioning of correctional centres, such as self-injury and injury to others, increased levels of aggression, violence, increased drug use, and a number of health issues. Overcrowding also results in an increase in gangsterism as well as smuggling of drugs into the facility, which makes life extremely difficult for non-gang members. Not only does overcrowding affect the inmates, but it also affects the safety of the staff members. In a number of incidences, correctional staff members on duty were accosted, assaulted, raped or even killed by inmates. The conditions at most correctional centres are considerably worse than is commonly believed; and inmates live in little hope that conditions would change in the near future. On the whole, it is obvious that the limited space and high population numbers make inmates more violent and irritated with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important aspect of gang disengagement that has been largely overlooked is the role of identity in the time following membership. Research has shown that former gang members often retain social and emotional ties with their former gang peers and may experience role ambiguity as a result. Despite this, there has been virtually no examination of role residual—the lingering aspects of one's former identity—that may exist among these individuals. Using life history interviews, the current study addresses this gap by examining role residual among a sample of 30 former gang members. A total of 25 participants (83%) identified three types of role residual—symbolic, demeanor, and worldview. In contrast to previous scholarship, role residual appeared to manifest as passive and strategic occurrences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Gothic Sovereignty: Street Gangs and Statecraft in Honduras" by Jon Horne Carter, which challenges the prevailing perception of gangs in Central America as wholly outside of society. Carter argues that poor urban youth who join gangs have tapped into the truths behind power and understand how things really work in their society. The book provides a nuanced understanding of gangs and their existence, focusing on their vitality and creative lifeforce rather than their destructiveness. It also explores the historical context of gangs in Honduras and the state's use of extralegal means to combat them. The article highlights the importance of Carter's work for anthropologists, criminologists, and sociologists studying gangs, and emphasizes the need to address the underlying issues that contribute to gang violence rather than suspending the rule of law. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: This study examines gang group processes on the digital street to understand if gang processes in the online environment mimic those on geographic street corners. Specifically, this paper examines what conditions influence whether gangs interact negatively or positively in online spaces and how online interactions relate to geographic proximity of gangs. Methods: This study uses digital trace data web scraped from a public Facebook about Chicago Latina/o gangs combined with geographic locations of gang territories. Negative binomial regression models are used to investigate the conditions under which gangs interact with one another. Results: This study finds that interactions among gangs are conditional on the type of post displayed and negative gang interactions in online spaces are moderately correlated with geographic proximity. Conclusions: The tendency to show identification with the gang group or hostility to rival groups is not always evident. Rather, interactions are contextualized in the situation of the online environment. In addition, in our sample geographic proximity is not a primary condition of gang interactions. The digital street enables gang members to interact with other gangs in faraway locales and individuals in close geographic proximity. We find gang members take the opportunity to interact with both groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Trump administration placed ever-new categorical limits on asylum, its opponents countered that asylum decisions have to be made on an individualized basis. The government, they claimed, cannot categorically exclude groups, like former gang members or victims of gender-based violence, from protection against persecution. Successful as this insistence on case-by-case adjudication has recently been, it stands in tension with past cases in which groups such as nuclear families or gay men were categorically deemed eligible for asylum. The litigation and rulemaking currently reshaping asylum law suggest that neither side in this debate fully understands whether, when, and why case-by-case rather than categorical decision-making is required. In fact, it turns out that what at first seems like confusion over procedure actually stems from unclarity about the substantive tests being adjudicated: the "social distinction" and, even more, the "particularity" requirements that are currently (mis)used as the primary reason for denying asylum claims, especially those brought by the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing gang- and gender-related violence. Properly understanding these tests allows for a better understanding of whether they can be categorically applied-either to bar asylum claims or, perhaps in the Biden administration, to make them possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the criminal histories of outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members during adolescence and early adulthood to determine whether the profile of young members has changed over time. The recorded offence histories of three cohorts of members--those born between 1979 and 1983, 1984 and 1988, and 1989 and 1993--were compared. Seventy-eight percent of OMCG members across all three cohorts had at least one recorded offence between the ages of 12 and 24. The majority of offenders did not desist but continued offending at a steady rate into adulthood. The youngest cohort in the study was more likely than the middle and older cohorts to have a criminal history and follow a high-rate offending trajectory. Members of the youngest cohort were also more likely to have been apprehended for violence and intimidation, weapons and ongoing criminal enterprise offences by their early twenties. These results suggest that OMCGs are recruiting younger members, who are becoming involved in gang-related offending earlier in life, or that individuals with a history of offending are becoming more likely to join or be recruited into OMCGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited research has examined the links among violent victimization, mental health, and service utilization among gang‐involved individuals. This mixed‐methods preliminary study examined narratives of psychiatric distress, current psychiatric morbidity, and mental health treatment experiences among a sample of former gang members (N = 32; M age = 44.4 years, 87.5% male; 56.3% Hispanic or Latino, 31.3% African American). Participants completed online questionnaires to assess trauma exposure and current psychiatric symptoms as well as a semistructured interview to examine histories of psychiatric distress and mental health treatment. Participants reported exposure to an average of 10.2 discrete traumatic events (range: 3–21). On average, participants reported exposure to five to six community violence–related events, ranging from never or one time up to monthly and weekly exposure. Participants generally described histories of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance abuse, although a thematic analysis revealed PTSD symptoms predominated the psychiatric distress described, including symptoms related to intrusions, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and alterations in arousal. Grounded theory analysis revealed barriers to traditional models of mental health treatment included self‐isolation, gang rules, and social stigma, especially in the context of interpersonal disconnect with providers. Given conditions of limited resources to access treatment, participants engaged in peer support services, which may have reduced their psychiatric distress to currently low levels. Implications for understanding these notable findings of recovery and resilience for some individuals and building trauma‐informed communities that improve access to traumatic stress resources for marginalized populations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, we must point out the loose, spontaneous, informal, and unstructured nature of gang life: "To repeat, most gang members' behavior is not criminal, and most gang members' crimes are not violent. See James Diego Vigil, The Established Gang, in GANGS: THE ORIGINS AND IMPACT OF CONTEMPORARY YOUTH GANGS IN THE UNITED STATES 95,96 (Scott Cummings & Daniel J. Monti eds., 1993); VIGIL, BARRIO GANGS, supra note 10, at 6. 27. For works that trace the aftershocks of these destabilizing starts, see VIGIL, MULTIPLE MARGINALITY ANDGANGS, supra note 10, at 9, 11; VIGIL, THE PROJECTS, supra note 10, at 5, 7; Vigil, Streets and Schools, supra note 7, at 272, 214. They protest this placement but to no avail; they now live in the new barrio, so they must belong to the barrio gang.34 In a gang injunction case, an older, former gang member was arrested for fraternizing with a gang individual currently involved in the named gang.35 He was merely talking to the person when an officer in a police car stopped and arrested him for breaking the gang injunction. [Extracted from the article]

In doing so, Wolf demonstrates how these circumstances prompted the creation of - and the government's public rationalization for - the gang policies of Mano Dura and Súper Mano Dura in the postwar period, from 1992 to the present. Sonja Wolf's Mano Dura makes an important contribution to discourse on contemporary El Salvador and its failure to adopt comprehensive gang policy reform. According to Wolf, coverage by news organizations, especially the prominent daily newspapers La Prensa Gráfi ca and El Diario de Hoy, had a pro-government bias and aimed to create widespread public acceptance of Mano Dura. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: Reentry experiences for the 600,000 people released annually from federal and state prisons differ vastly. We contend that gangs, which rose to prominence alongside mass incarceration, are an overlooked source of variation in reentry experiences. Drawing on precepts from the street gang literature, we test whether patterns of recidivism differ by official and survey measures of current, former, and non-gang status. Methods: Data from a representative sample of 802 prisoners interviewed prior to their release in 2016 were linked to 36 months of post-release arrest, conviction, and imprisonment records. Survival curves and multivariable discrete-time survival analysis were used to test for differential patterns of recidivism. Results: The conditional risk of recidivism varied by gang status. Current gang members maintained the greatest risk for all recidivism types. While former gang members were more likely to get arrested than non-gang members, there were no differences in conviction and imprisonment. Official and survey gang measures mostly told the same story, although official measures appeared to be more reliable determinants of recidivism than survey measures. Conclusions: Distinguishing former from current and non-gang members is important for policy, practice, and research. These findings renew calls to understand and respond to social groups and networks like gangs for prisoner reentry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we offer a theoretical framework for conceptualizing the relationship between gang identification, place, and identity saliency. In our interviews with current and former street gang members, participants consistently described gangs as neighborhood-based entities, but also couched these local identities within much broader Crip or Blood affiliations. These amount to multiple, simultaneously claimed identities. However, we show that not all identities are equal—that as a social geographic area increases, identities become more diffuse and less salient, territorial, or "gang-like", resulting instead in expansive, symbolic "umbrella identities" that cover several distinct places and gangs. These umbrella identities proved quite fluid, such that Crip and Blood affiliations had little relationship to one's gang identity and even produced some gangs with mixed Blood and Crip memberships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reservation communities are among emerging communities for gang activity, in which reports of a rise in youth and/or criminal gangs began occurring after the 1980s. Gang membership has been found to pose a public health risk, strain community resources, and risk a number of individual negative life outcomes. Perceived increases in reservation gang activity have been observed by law-enforcement and community stakeholders, but comparatively little empirical research has focused specifically on these communities. Utilizing data from an existing public dataset, analysis of variance and regression analysis were utilized to examine cross sectional trends in gang involvement among 14,457 American Indian adolescents in reservation communities between 1993-2013. Results of this study failed to establish a consistent pattern of either growth or decline in gang membership across time when examining all reservations communities, with data suggesting that consistent trends may exist only within specific communities. Gang members were found to endorse significantly more alcohol and marijuana use, anger, depressed mood, and victimization as a whole. Only alcohol and marijuana use, violent behavior, and depressed mood demonstrated a significant interaction with time and gang membership. Finally, self-reported substance use, criminal behavior/delinquency, and violence perpetration significantly increased as gang affiliation increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case, United States v Perez, wherein the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals analyzed whether the Violent Crimes In Aid of Racketeering (VICAR) statute can apply extraterritorially after a U.S. gang member was convicted under the statutory scheme for an attempted murder in Mexico.