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Youth Gangs

Gang Prosecution  Manual 

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Introduction

The National Youth Gang Center estimates that there were approximately 778,000 gang members and 27,000 gangs active in more than 3,550 jurisdictions served by city and county law enforcement agencies in 2007. Gangs remain a serious problem in the United States, and local prosecutors and district attorneys play an important role in addressing gang‐related violence.  The vast majority of violent gang‐related crimes will be prosecuted at the local level by prosecutors in agencies where budgets are tight and resources for training are often minimal. Gang related crimes are, by their very nature, more difficult to prosecute than other sorts of crimes full of interconnected relationships and complex dynamics between rival gangs. Today’s gang member victim may be tomorrow’s perpetrator.  Witnesses and juries may be intimidated by the inherent and implied threat of violence from a gang involved defendant. The awareness and sophistication of court employees and judges in dealing with gangs vary from place to place...

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Youth Gangs: An Overview

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Introduction

The United States has seen rapid proliferation of youth gangs since 1980. During this period, the number of cities with gang problems increased from an estimated 286 jurisdictions with more than 2,000 gangs and nearly 100,000 gang members in 1980 (Miller, 1992) to about 4,800 jurisdictions with more than 31,000 gangs and approximately 846,000 gang members in 1996 (Moore and Terrett, in press). An 11-city survey of eighth graders found that 9 percent were currently gang members, and 17 percent said they had belonged to a gang at some point in their lives (Esbensen and Osgood, 1997). Other studies reported comparable percentages and also showed that gang members were responsible for a large proportion of violent offenses. In the Rochester site of the OJJDP-funded Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, gang members (30 percentof the sample) self-reported committing 68 percent of all violent offenses (Thornberry, 1998). ...

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Youth Gangs: Problem and Response

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ABSTRACT

This draft report represents the result of an extensive review of the research literature available on the youth-gang phenomenon conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Chicago, headed by Irving Spergel and sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), u. S. Department of Justice. The report explores the research on such topics as definitions of youth gang and related terms, the nature and causes of the gang phenomenon, and the effectiveness of various respons'es from law enforcement, the judicial system, social welfare agencies, schools, and communities. It concludes with a summary and conclusions regarding the nature of the problem, the responses offering the most hope, and the possible courses for further research. An extensive bibliography is also provided. with bibliography, the report numbers 301 pages.

INTRODUCTION

Youth gangs are not unique to contemporary urban America. They have existed across time and cultures. Youth gangs tend to develop during times of rapid social change and political instability.

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Teen Parties: Who Has Parties, What Predicts Whether There is Alcohol and Who Supplies the Alcohol?

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Abstract

This study explores which youth are more likely to have parties at home, what factors are associated with the presence of alcohol at parties, and who supplies the alcohol. We collected data in 2011 and 2012 through telephone interviews with 1,121 teens living in 50 mid-sized California cities. Overall, about a quarter of teens reported having had a party at their house in the past 12 months, of whom 39% reported that there was alcohol at their last party. Multiple sources supplied alcohol for most parties. Seventy-two percent of those having a party stated that at least one of their parents knew about their last party, and 64% reported that a parent was home at least part of the time. Seventy percent of youth who hosted a party with alcohol said that their parent(s) definitely knew that there was alcohol at the party, 24% replied that their parent(s) probably knew, and only 5% said that their parent(s) did not know

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The Risks of Unsupervised Teen Parties

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Responsible parents rarely give permission for their teenagers to have an unsupervised party. Nevertheless, these parties do happen, usually when unsuspecting parents are away from home. These parties frequently attract uninvited teens who learn about the event from mutual friends or from social networking sites. A large crowd of impulsive adolescents can often result in a situation that soon spirals out of control with disastrous consequences that the party organizers never imagined. (ref 7)

Violence
The National Youth Violence Commission claims that more than one in three teens report being in a physical fight within the last two years and that the most violence occurs in the late teens and early 20s. That teenage aggression is exacerbated by alcohol and drugs. The impulsiveness and high emotions of the teen years often lead to violent behavior. Fights often erupt at parties over romantic jealousies. Assaults with knives or guns might occur when trespassers are confronted, and it's not uncommon for deaths to occur at out-of-control teen parties.

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Youth Gangs And Their Families: Effect Of Gang Membership On Family’s Subjective Well-being

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ABSTRACT

Using a quasi-experimental design and self report methodology, this paper examines the effects of youth gang membership on families’ subjective well-being. Two groups of families consisting of 57 families with children in gangs or at risk of being in gangs and 57families with children not involved in gangs and not identified as at-risk of joining gangs are compared to (1) analyze differences in the levels of satisfaction and subjective well-being of families with and without children in gangs and (2) investigate the effect of the number of children in gangs on parental well-being. The families are matched on variables of (1) responding parents age (+/− 2 years); (2) the number of children a family had; (3) ages of children (+/− 1 year); (4) child's grade in school (+/− 1 grade); (5) family's socioeconomic status measured by total annual income (+/− $3000); (6) family structure; (7) church attendance; and (8) gender of the child in the program. The findings showed that parents with

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Female Gang Membership: Current Trends and Future Directions

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In the face of the overwhelming violence both perpetuated by and affecting the young men trapped in the world of gang conflict, it is all too easy to overlook the young women who are also stranded in this unsafe, unstable environment. These women, although they make up less than 10 percent of gang members, face the highest rates of victim-offender overlap and often endure cruel, dehumanizing treatment at the hands of the gang members whom they are attempting to appease.1

Motivation for Joining Gangs

In order to properly address and provide solutions to the issue of female gang membership, it is essential to understand why girls and young women join gangs to begin with. Research shows that, perhaps intuitively, they join gangs for many of the same reasons that young men do. These motivating factors include protection from other gangs or neighborhood violence, a source of income, preexisting social or familial connections to the gang, and a path to earning respect.

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