Transcript Gangs and Crime

Gangs and Crime
The Consensus Based Approach to
Defining Gangs: Walter Miller
• Surveyed police and youth workers in 26
cities
• Asked respondents “How would you define
a gang?”
• Five criteria most commonly mentioned
Characteristics of Gangs:
Miller, 1975
Violence
73
Organization
91
Identifiable
leadership
100
Continuous
association
95
Territoriality
100
0
20
40
60
Percent Reporting Criterion
80
100
The Result of Survey Findings:
A Consensus Based Definition of
Gangs
A gang is a group of recurrently
associating individuals with identifiable
leadership and internal organization,
identifying with or claiming control over
territory in the community, and engaging
either individually or collectively in
violent or other forms of behavior
Extent of Gang Problem According to
Law Enforcement
• The National Youth Gang Survey conducted since 1995
• In 2002, over 2100 LE agencies surveyed
• Youth gangs defined in survey as group of youths or
youth adults in your jurisdiction that you or some other
responsible persons in your agency or community are
willing to identify or classify as a ‘gang’.
Number of Gangs Reported
Nationally
31,000
30,500
28,700
26,000
23,888
24,500
21,500
1995
1996
1997
Source: National Youth Gang Survey
1998
1999
2000
2002
Number of Gang Members Reported
Nationally
846,000
816,000
840,500
780,000
772,500
731,500
664,906
1995
1996
Source: National Youth Gang Survey
1997
1998
1999
2000
2002
Gangs & Gang Members in Las Vegas
7,216
6,660
6,232
5,805
5,098
4,263
3,508
119
146
159
167
1995
1996
1997
1998
Gangs
179
1999
Gang Members
321
308
2000
2001
Are These Groups Gangs?
Police Perceptions v. Research
Findings on the Nature of Gangs
Characteristics of Gang According
to Police
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Organized
Clear leadership
Continuous association
Territorial
Distinctive dress
Violent
How Organized Are Street Gangs?
Two Perspectives
1. Gangs as organized crime
• Martin Jankowski
• Influential gang structures
– no formal leadership, leadership shifts
• Horizontal gang structures
– several leaders with equal authority
• Vertical gang structures
– formal and fixed leadership structures
Second perspective
2. Gangs as disorganized “non-groups”
• Leon Yablonsky
• Street gangs comprised of sociopaths
• No leadership structure
• Shifting memberships
• Limited cohesion
• Little normative consensus
• Gangs are something between a mob and a
group
What Research Shows About Gang
Organization
• Gangs are loose collections of agegraded cliques
• High member turnover
• Little normative consensus
• Generally no hierarchical leadership
• No collective goals
Are Gangs Territorial?
• Historically true
• Degree of territoriality varies greatly
• Autos have decreased territoriality
Do Gangs Have Distinctive Styles of
Dress?
• The diffusion of gang culture
• Adoption of gang garb and mannerisms
What is Being Counted As Gangs by
Law Enforcement?
• Reality NE to LE perceptions
• Counts primarily “law violating youth
groups”
• Concept developed by Walter Miller
The Law Violating Youth Group
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3 or more youth
Temporary and casual relationships
Leadership shifting and undefined
Engage recurrently in illegal activities
Crimes not systematic
Recalculating Number of Gangs and
Gang Members
• Ratio of law violating youth groups to
street gangs in typical urban area is 80 to
1
• Ratio of law violating youth group
members to gang members is 30 to 1
• Thus, revised LE counts
• 300 street gangs
• 26,000 street gang members
Gangs and Crime
The Threat Posed by Street
Gangs
The Gang-Violence Nexus
• Gang members more likely to commit
crimes
• Particularly true for violent crimes
• Also commit crimes at a higher rate
Cross-Sectional Evidence of Link
Between Gangs & Violence
• Interviews with samples of gang members
and non-gang members in Denver, Aurora,
and Broward County, FL
• Gang identified through social service
referrals and self-reports
• Self-reported criminal behavior
Huff’s Findings on Gang vs. NonGang Violence
Auto theft
Assault
Mugging
Gang member
45%
Non-gang
member
51 %
11 %
4%
35 %
4%
Drive-by
Homicide
40 %
15 %
2%
0%
CCW
Drug sales
Shoplifting
79 %
19 %
30 %
22 %
8%
14 %
Problems with Cross-Sectional
Studies
• The problem of causal order
• A selection effect
– gangs recruit violent youth
• Need different methodology to isolate
effect of gang membership on violence
Longitudinal
Studies of Gang-Crime Nexus
• Denver and Rochester Youth Development
studies
• Follow sample of youth over course of
early adolescence into early adulthood
• Find more violent during active gang
membership
Putting Gang Violence
into Context
Few Youth are in Gangs
• 7-9 percent of all young males report gang
membership at some point
• active for only a few months to a year
• According too NYGS - 731,500 gang
members in 2002- almost all male
• That year, were 28 million males age 10-24
in U.S.
• Or, roughly 2 percent of all males gang
members
Gang Crime Represents Small
Proportion of All Crime in
Communities
• How “gang-related” crime defined
affects statistics
• Affects extent of gang crime reported by
LE
• Two ways “gang-related” crime is
defined
1. Motive-based definition
• Crime that is function of or motivated
by gang goals
• Used in Chicago
2. Member-Based Definition
• Any crime committed by known gang
member, regardless of motivation
• Used in Los Angeles
How We Know Gang Crime is
Small Proportion of All
Crime
4 Sources of Information
1. National Estimates of
Gang Crime from LE
• 1994 NIJ Gang Survey
• LE asked for number of gang-related
crime
• 580,000 gang-related crimes reported
• 14 million Part I crimes that year
• Roughly 4% of all serious crimes
2. Survey of State Prison
Inmates
• Find similar proportions
• 6 percent report having been gang
member at time of the arrest
3. National Crime Victimization
Survey
• Only 6 % of all serious offenses
involved 2 or more juveniles
• 5 % of victims reported crime involved
gang members
Gangs and Guns
What We Know
• Gang members more likely to report
gun ownership
• No evidence gangs routinely possess
sophisticated weapons
• Guns seizures from gang members in
Chicago and LA
Gangs and Drugs
The Gangs-Drugs Connection
• Jerome Skolnick’s research
• Concluded gangs were highly organized
drug distribution networks
• LA Crips and Bloods migrating across U.S.
• Search for new drug markets
Majority of research has failed to
confirm gangs-drugs link
• LA DA study
• Malcolm Klein study
• McCorkle and Miethe study
Responding to Gangs
Gang Suppression
• Priority given to law enforcement,
legislation, & prosecution
• Low priority to prevention and
treatment
• Establishment of police gang units
• Gang rosters and tracking systems
• Focus on surveillance and sweeps
Gang Legislation
• Some states have adopted new criminal
codes in response to gangs
• Two forms of legislation enacted
• Laws targeting specific “gang” activity
– drive-by shootings, graffiti, victim intimidation
• Adoption of comprehensive gang statute
– enhanced penalties for gang-related crime
Gang Prosecution
• Special problems posed by gang cases
• Creation of specialized prosecution
units
• Created in 1/2 of large jurisdictions
• Low caseloads
• Vertical prosecution