CRIME: Life as a Gangsta is Short-lived

www.imranomerart.com

Although membership in a gang often is depicted as a lifelong commitment,
the typical gang member joins at age 13 and only stays active for about two years.
Apparently, there are as many stereotypes about being in a gang as there are about anything else the media covers.  The 30-second sound bite obviously simplifies things down to the point of distortion to the detriment of us all.

 This report from Sam Houston State University attempts to clarify several of the issues, and our suggested reading, a biography of a gang member will offer additional insight into the culture of gangs.

 For a historical retrospective, the book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld by Herbert Asbury is one I recommend.  And don't worry, it has nothing to do with the movie of the same name - other than a few of the characters share a name.  One thing I remember from this book is that many of the members of these gangs of he 19th century were adolescents as well.  From what I've read and heard, life in a gang now is not that different than it was 150 years ago in the gangs that led to the Mafia and other groups.

 Here's the report:

 Although membership in a gang often is depicted as a lifelong commitment, the typical gang member joins at age 13 and only stays active for about two years, according to a study at Sam Houston State University.

Suggested reading
"Gang membership is not a fixed identity or a scarlet letter," said David Pyrooz in an article published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. "Media and popular culture have led to misconceptions about gangs and gang membership, chief among them the myth of permanence, as reflected in the quote from West Side Story -'When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dyin' day'."

The study was based on the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a national representative sample of nearly 9,000 youth between the ages of 12 and 16 who were tracked and interviewed annually until their early twenties. The study found that only 8 percent of those youth identified themselves as gang members. Less than 10 percent of the members stayed in gangs beyond two years, and 20 percent joined gangs as adults.

Recommended reading

"First, the results of this study demonstrate that gang membership is strongly age-graded, much like criminal offending," said Pyrooz. "While gang membership is overwhelmingly an adolescence-oriented phenomenon, the findings indicate that youth cycle in and out of gangs at distinct points in the life-course."


Six pathways to gang membership
There are six pathways into and out of gangs, which include three that occur during adolescence, two that are maintained over a long period, and one that starts late in the teenage years and continues into adult. The study also found that 40 percent of the gang members were active as adults. Adult gangs were found to be a combination of carryovers from youth gang involvement and those initiated into gangs as adults.

Another interesting phenomenon from the study is that the youth gang population identified in the study didn't match the demographic profile from police. At age 13, females constitute 30 percent of gang members and Blacks and Hispanics about 45 percent of gang members. But by age 20, female gang involvement reduced to about 15 percent and Black and Hispanic gang involvement increased to nearly 55 percent of gang members. Alluding to the demographic disparities, "gender better mirrors law enforcement records than race and ethnicity," said Pyrooz.

This study can be used to develop better prevention and intervention programs by targeting appropriate age groups for these initiatives. For example, gang prevention programs targeting students in the 6th or 7th grade would be a good use of resources because most youth who join gangs begin in their early teenage years, and as early as ages 10 and 11. In addition, because many members join gangs as adults, it is important to understand and develop programming for this demographic.

Related posts:
*  *  *  *  *
Story Source:  Materials provided by Sam Houston State University. David C. Pyrooz. “From Your First Cigarette to Your Last Dyin’ Day”: The Patterning of Gang Membership in the Life-Course. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2013.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Being Humble: E.B. White was Right in Charlotte's Web

Image
It seems the best authors have a knack for accurately describing the personality traits of their characters.  For example, the character change experienced by Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens A Christmas Carol is considered by research psychologists to be spot on for how the process of change works. How true to life was Scrooge's change? Is this ability to describe a character strictly from watching others?  Business writer Peter Drucker says in his semi-autobiographical book, Adventures of a Bystander that he and many of the other writers he knows are essentially bystanders, observing what is going on around them. Another example of a writer getting it right is E.B. White's popular children's book, Charlotte's Web.  Research psychologist Peter Samuelson and his team are researching the deeper meaning of humility.  Among their conclusions?  E.B. White displayed insight into humility and its underlying attributes. Here's the story : *  *  *  *  * The Two
Read more

Workout supplements: An emerging eating disorder in men?

Image
therewontbeanydoves.wordpress.com When developing a fictional character, you may not think about the character using large amounts of over-the-counter dietary supplements.  Especially a man who uses large amounts of workout supplements. While there has been widespread publicity on the dangers of the non-prescribed use of anabolic steroids, not much is said about legal, over-the-counter supplements.  Are there risks?  And if so, what are they?  There are several things the writer should consider. Supplement use is becoming an eating disorder with many men who use them to prepare for and recover from a workout. There is growing evidence of a link between muscle-building supplements and testicular cancer. There is evidence that over-the counter medications and supplements are the most common causes of drug-induced liver failure (a rare event, but still a risk.)  There is even evidence that, “certain popular herbal and dietary supplements can also cause liver damage,"
Read more

The Downside of Being 'Class Clown'

Image
Source:  Bart's Blackboard Down side of being dubbed 'class clown' Class clowns' off-task antics amuse and delight their classmates during first and second grades, making them the most sought-after playmates on the playground in early elementary school.  But by the time these mischievous boys are promoted to third grade, they plummet to the bottom of the social circle as classmates' disapproval of their behavior grows, a new study found. Perhaps most worrisome is that by third grade, playful boys may be internalizing others' negative assessments and begin viewing themselves as social failures, possibly setting them on a course for a host of poor academic and developmental outcomes, said researcher Lynn A. Barnett, an educational psychologist and professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois. These sudden reversals in playful boys' social fortunes from first to third grade may be classmates' mirroring of teachers
Read more

Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Violence. . . or to Control It?

Image
Dell EMC InFocus A staple of science fiction is a future where artificial intelligence (AI) is used to control people's behavior, or, in which AI supplants the human element. I have mixed feelings about AI, its uses, and our future.  For one thing, it's questionable that the human brain can increase in size or complexity without causing the system to slow down.  The brain of a "genius" isn't larger than yours or mine, its simply organized differently.  The difference between early versions of humans and modern humans is in large part, size.  Yes, brain organization plays a role, but until the latest iteration of us, brain size was the critical factor. If we as a species have survived based on brain size, and brain size has maxed out, how do we continue to evolve intellectually?  Better organization?  Yes, but can we ever hope to create and control this type of evolutionary activity? One solution to maxed human brain size is creating an interface
Read more

Remember faces but not names? You got it wrong.

Image
Source:   Daily Excelsior So, you think you're good at remembering faces, but terrible with names? New research has revealed we are actually better at remembering names than faces The cringe-worthy experience of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name leads many of us to believe we are terrible with names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. With the Christmas party season fast approaching, there will be plenty of opportunity to re-live the familiar, and excruciatingly-awkward, social situation of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name. This cringe-worthy experience leads many of us to believe we are terrible at remembering names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. The authors of the study, from the University of York, suggest that when we castigate ourselves f
Read more