Youth Gangs

Our community is not the only community currently having gang problems. Many small towns and rural areas are experiencing gang problems for the first time. In small communities, citizens jump to the mistaken conclusion that gangs are present. This occurs because small groups of delinquents are common, even in the smallest rural communities. Juveniles enjoy hanging out together, and the reality is that juvenile delinquency is often committed in groups. The visibility of these groups, hanging out in shopping malls and on street corners and their frequent problem behavior may suggest some gang involvement. Another factor that may lead to the mistaken conclusion that a gang problem exists is that our youth culture appears to admire and emulate gang culture. Certain clothing styles and colors commonly worn by gang members have become faddish in the popular youth culture. If you watch MTV for a short period of time, you can see the popularity of what once were considered exclusively to be gang symbols. Open up any magazine and see how hip-hop has influenced the fashion industry.
Even if local youths are displaying gang symbols such as the colors of big city gangs, this alone does not necessarily signify a ‘real' gang problem. Local groups of youths often imitate big city gangs, generally in an attempt to enhance their self-image or to seek popularity and acceptance among other juveniles. Although community officials or residents occasionally may encounter random signs of gang activity in an area such as graffiti, arrest of a non-local gang member, or other isolated incidents, this is not necessarily indicative of a new and dangerous gang problem that is permanent.
In most cases, the gang problem is short-lived and dissolves as quickly as it develops. Most often, this is mainly because small towns and rural areas do not have the necessary population to sustain gangs and any disruption such as arrest or members dropping out may weaken the gang. For prolonged survival, gangs must be able to attract new members to replace short-term members and older youths who typically leave gangs toward the end of adolescence. Research across a number of cities with typically longer-standing gang problems has found considerable movement in and out of gangs. For instance, approximately half of the youth who join leave the gang within a year (Egley, 2004).
The more long-term gang members are also a part of a community's emerging gang problem and usually prove to be the most serious part. Their commitment to the gang as a permanent lifestyle change will forever negatively affect the community.
An often-overlooked feature of youth gangs is that they are a symptom of deeper community problems, not an isolated problem (Huff, 2002). Gangs and related gang problems tend to emerge from larger social and economic problems in the community and are as much a consequence as they are a contributing factor. One noted gang researcher has outlined four community conditions that often precede the transition from typical adolescent groupings to established youth gangs (Moore, 1998). First, conventional socialization, such as families and schools, are ineffective and alienate youngsters. Under these conditions, conventional adult supervision is also absent. Second, the adolescents must have a great deal of free time that is not consumed by other healthy social development roles. Third, for the gang to become established, members must have limited access to appealing career lines or good adult jobs. Finally, the young people must have a place to congregate, such as a well-defined neighborhood.
The 1980's saw an increase in youth gang violence with the rise of the crack cocaine epidemic. The public linked these two developments together as one causing or affecting the other. This problem seemed to be evaluated solely by public perception rather than scientific knowledge and the relationships among youth gangs, drugs, and violence are more often talked about than understood.
In The Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Violence Connection, James Howell and Scott Decker add to our understanding of the interrelationships of these factors and address important questions such as the following: "Is drug trafficking a main activity of youth gangs?" "Is drug trafficking a major cause of violence in youth gangs?" "Are there other important sources of youth gang violence?" There are critical distinctions between drug gangs and street gangs that further enhance our understanding of the gang phenomenon, as does the exploration of the connections between youth gangs and adult criminal organizations and the role of firearms in gang violence.
The abundance of youth gangs since 1980 has fueled the public's fear and magnified possible misconceptions about youth gangs. To address the mounting concern about youth gangs, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's (OJJDP's) Youth Gang Series delves into many of the key issues related to youth gangs. The series considers issues such as gang migration, gang growth, female involvement with gangs, homicide, drugs and violence, and the needs of communities and youth who live in the presence of youth gangs. The popular image of youth gangs ties them directly to drugs and violent crime (Klein, 1995). How interrelated are youth gangs, drugs, and violent crime? Is drug trafficking a main activity of youth gangs? Is drug trafficking a main cause of violence in youth gangs or only a correlate? Are there other important sources of gang violence? These are all good questions that we need to address.
Changing demographics in some small towns and rural areas may contribute to the emergence or escalation of gang problems. This may be related to the immigration of newly arrived racial or ethnic groups into an area. For example, language barriers and being isolated by the dominant population of youths at school and on the streets may lead excluded youths to band together and form a permanent youth group and potentially come to be recognized as a gang.
The fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States is Latinos. This ethnic group has grown to be the second-largest group in the country, to approximately 40 million in 2003 (The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, 2004). Latinos are now the largest ethnic minority in nearly half of the states, and their numbers are growing fastest in the South, although the largest Latino concentrations are in the West, South Florida, and a few large cities.
The rapid growth of immigrant population groups is not limited to Latinos. From 1990 to 2000, the foreign-born population in the United States increased 57 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). About half of the foreign-born population in the United States in 2000 was from Latin America (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). The remaining foreign-born was from Asia, Europe, and North America. Latin-American or Asian regions accounted for nine of the top ten countries from which foreign-born immigrants came to the United States in the 1990s (Mexico, China, India, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador).
Such rapid growth of any of these ethnic groups can contribute to local gang problems. For example, the growth of Latinos in North Carolina and Salvadorans in northern Virginia has been said to be contributing to growing gang problems in those areas. However, it is very important to be mindful that the overwhelming majority of youth gangs are "homegrown" (Klein, 1995). They grow in the cracks of our society and local communities, where social institutions such as families and schools are ineffective, and social controls on young people and adults are weak.
The predominant image of youth gangs is consistent with a California study of adult (also referred to as criminal) gang members conducted by Skolnick and colleagues (1988) a decade ago. These researchers contended that the two major Los Angeles gangs, the Crips and Bloods, had become entrepreneurial and were expanding their drug-trafficking operations to markets in other cities and where drug markets appeared, so did violent crime. Although this research did not address the order of occurrences and the overlap of adult gang violence and street drug sales. Youth gangs are still characterized mainly by public perceptions conveyed in the California studies and by popular media images rather than by scientific knowledge (Klein, 1995).
Little mention is made of gang drug use and trafficking in gang studies published before the 1960's and 1970's (Klein, 1995). By all accounts, gang involvement in drug use and trafficking was either very limited or unnoticed before the 1960's. Heroin and some barbiturate use among Los Angeles gang members in the 1940's was mostly after they left gangs. In the 1950's and into the 1960's, youth gang members displayed ambivalence about gang member drug use and trafficking. (Egley, 2004) Some gangs of that era used marijuana. Heroin cliques were common in East Los Angeles gangs by the middle of the 1950's. Other gang cliques, the partying members of gangs, began to use barbiturates. Even in the 1970's, drug use did not appear to be a dominant form of illegal activity among gang members, either as a proportion of their own arrests or in comparison with arrested non-gang youth. (Egley, 2004)
Some began to study the process by which this disruption of social controls occurred in the employment arena. The decline in manufacturing jobs in the 1970's and the development of technological and service industries led to economic restructuring in many cities. New jobs were created, but they were in the suburbs, leaving unqualified minorities in the inner cities. Dramatic increases in unemployment resulted, especially among minority males, and high unemployment rates were mainly concentrated in specific geographic areas. Drug markets provided "work" for displaced workers, and the growing popularity of crack cocaine opened new opportunities for youth to make money. Traditional pathways from gang life (jobs, marriage, starting a family) were constricted by the changed economy, prolonging gang involvement and making drug trafficking more attractive. The decline of meaningful lifetime employment prospects weakened the influences and traditional forms of social controls and strengthened gang influence as a dominant force. It was reasoned that these conditions facilitated the transformation of youth groups into loosely structured gangs. As the size and stakes of the cocaine economy grew, violence increasingly came to be used in the regulatory process. Work and social interactions were now organized around these criminal activities, enforced and regulated increasingly by violence.
Because the growth in youth gang violence coincided with the crack cocaine epidemic, the two developments were generally perceived to be interrelated. This same conclusion was reached in assessments conducted at all governmental levels, suggesting that youth gangs were instrumental in the increase in crack cocaine sales and that their involvement in drug trafficking resulted in a growth in youth violence.
The early to mid-1980's saw rapid growth in the use of cocaine as crack became the drug of choice in the inner cities. Whether gang members were responsible for the increased prevalence of cocaine use during this period is still debated. However, several studies document considerable youth and adult gang involvement in the drug trade after the cocaine epidemic began around 1985. The Chicago Vice Lords, a large and violent criminal street gang grew during this era, providing one example that suggests gangs and crack sales emerged concurrently. Research conducted in the 1980's and 1990's has documented extensive youth and adult gang member involvement in drug use and generally higher levels of use compared with non-gang members. However, gang members do not all use drugs or do not use them extensively.
There is little evidence of gang formation for the explicit purpose of setting up drug-trafficking operations in distant locations. Youth gangs sometimes obtain guns, drugs, and ammunition from gangs in other cities. Some gangs expand their operations to other markets. These fit the stereotype conveyed by the media and investigatory agencies. Yet there does not appear to be a large number of youth gangs that fit the stereotype. Moreover, interstate drug trafficking appears to be mainly the province of adult criminal organizations.
It is obvious that youth gang problems are prevalent across the United States and there need to be numerous aggressive and innovative strategies and programs in place to combat this growing phenomenon. At the same time, the composition of youth gangs is changing. Smaller, less structured gangs are emerging, and although drug trafficking is generally not an organized activity managed by gangs, drug gangs are more predominant now than in previous decades. The racial and ethnic composition of gangs is changing, and gangs are becoming more organized. In order to implement these programs, we must realize that most gang problems are homegrown. Gang migration appears to contribute little to local gang problems, including drug trafficking, except within geographic regions. There is some discrepancy between research results and investigatory reports on youth and adult gang migration and drug trafficking; however, much of this can be explained by the studies' use of different research methods, definitions, and information sources.

Programs are needed to break the cycle of gang members moving from detention and corrections to prisons to communities. Research and program development are needed in several areas. Better screening and risk classification of gang members in juvenile and adult correctional facilities are imperative. This would help protect the public by giving correctional staff reliable information to classify gang offenders at the appropriate level of risk and to match juvenile offenders with gang treatment programs available in correctional facilities. Effective programs are needed in these facilities to prevent gang formation, membership, and victimization and also to break up drug operations inside prisons. There also needs to be an end to the recycling of adult gang members into gang-infested communities once they leave prison. Ex-convicts need marketable job skills and gainful employment opportunities to avoid the lucrative drug market. Breaking this cycle becomes all the more important as States are imprisoning younger and younger offenders, who will be returning to the streets at a younger age than is the case today. Making effective drug treatment programs available, along with legitimate job opportunities, would also help break the cycle.
Preventing adolescents from joining gangs should also be a top priority. One place to begin is preventing youth from dropping out of school. Discouraging children and young adolescents from joining gangs is particularly important because of the lure of the illicit economy and the drug kingpin lifestyle, which the media sensationalizes. Opportunities for success and access to them must be provided. At the same time, a community's social control of pregang and gang groups needs to be increased. Communities' comprehensive, coordinated approaches should include measures to increase social control of youth by strengthening social institutions and emphasizing the roles that residents, parents, youth workers, and community leaders play in supervising adolescents. Community businesses can play a key role by providing legitimate work opportunities. Focused prevention is the best way to ensure adequate resource allocation and to have the greatest impact.
Existing gun interdiction efforts can be enhanced and new ones implemented as part of a coordinated effort to reduce gang violence. A user-reduction strategy coupled with collaboration between police and probation officers, as in Boston's Youth Violence Strike Force is one way of removing guns from the streets and the possession of gang members. The case for removing illegal firearms from the possession of gang members is essential. Guns are vital tools for resolving gang conflicts. A reduction in gang related homicides would follow, even without a reduction in drug trafficking. A key issue in combating youth gangs is providing a uniform definition for them, distinguishing them from troublesome youth groups and adult criminal organizations. Youth groups and adult criminal organizations have different origins, and they serve unique purposes for participants. Efforts to develop effective long-term interventions must take these differences into account.
In order to effectively combat and prevent gangs from flourishing, we must identify the problem, implement effective strategies and programs to address the deficiencies, and continue to pursue more proactive ways of defeating these groups that continue to deteriorate our quality of life and produce fear in both small rural towns and large metropolitan cities.

References

Decker, S. and Howell, J. 1999. Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Violence Connection.
Youth Gang Series. - Bulletin.

Arciaga, M. 2001. Evolution of Prominent Youth Subcultures in America.
Tallahassee, FL: National Youth Gang Center, Institute for Intergovernmental
Research.

Egley, A., Jr., and Major, A. K. 2004. Highlights of the 2002 National Youth Gang
Survey. Fact Sheet (March 2004-01). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Altschuler, D., and Brounstein, P.J. 1991. Patterns of drug use, drug trafficking and other Delinquency among inner city adolescent males in Washington, D.C.
Criminology 29:589–622.

Bjerregaard, B., and Smith, C. 1993. Gender differences in gang participation, delinquency, and substance use. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 9:329–355.

Curry, G.D., and Spergel, I.A. 1992. Gang involvement and delinquency among Hispanic and African-American adolescent males. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 29:273–291.

Klein, M.W., Maxson, C.L., and Cunningham, L.C. 1988. Gang involvement in cocaine rock trafficking. Unpublished report. Los Angeles, CA