, 2013), risk-seeking tendencies (Cox, 2011; Young, et al., 2013), and impulsivity (Alleyne & Wood, 2010)
A 2008 study by the Home Office established that nearly 6% of adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 in England and Wales belong to some form of gang. In London alone, police have reported approximately 171 "dangerous" gangs, and have found almost half of all teenage deaths in the city to be gang-related (Castella & McClatchey, 2011)
Owing to this lack of information on the nature and operations of gangs, and the effect of misrepresentation on the part of the media, we have developed this common perception that urban groups nurture attitudes and values that encourage delinquency. What is even more worrying though is that we do not stop to consider the effect of external push and pull factors that contribute to gang membership and gang involvement (Cox, 2011:1)
Studies have shown that contrary to what was reported in the past, ethnicity is not so much of an issue in the composition of the modern gang (Rizzo, 2003). Mixed results have actually been reported in this regard, with some studies showing gangs to be ethnically homogenous (Esbensen & Weerman, 2005) and others showing them to be heterogeneous (Aldridge & Medina, 2006)
Most of the girls interviewed in the Miller study reported that they had run away from their family environments and joined gangs as a way of seeking refuge from abuse (Miller, 2001). In another study, Hawkins and his colleagues showed that the lack of positive interaction between children and their parents also had a hand in the weakening of the parent-child attachment and created breeding grounds for delinquency (Hawkins, et al
The Home Office, for instance, avoids using the term "gang" in its reports, choosing instead to use the term "delinquent youth groups" (Cox, 2011:5). Other researchers refer to them as "troublesome youth groups" (Klein, et al
Miller (2001), for instance, in her analysis of factors that drive female youths to join gangs, was able to show that most gang-affiliated females have a history of domestic and sexual abuse, the latter often perpetrated by close family members. Most of the girls interviewed in the Miller study reported that they had run away from their family environments and joined gangs as a way of seeking refuge from abuse (Miller, 2001)
There is contention in the literature though that gang membership is driven by the need to fill some form of void that would, under normal circumstances, be filled by pro-social institutions such as school and family (Rizzo, 2003; Cox, 2011). The Urban Underclass Charles Murray's "underclass thesis" forms the basis of family-delinquency studies in the UK (Murray, 1996; Young, et al
S., gang membership in the UK is characterized mainly by young persons between the ages of 12 and 25 (Rizzo, 2003)
This perhaps explains the rising number of children from traditional households joining gangs. In their study on UK youth, for instance, Smith and Bradshaw (2005) found the gang involvement rates for such youth to have risen significantly between 2000 and 2005; and by 2005, one in every 5 youths involved in gang activity was from a non-traditional setting (living with both biological parents) (Smith & Bradshaw, 2005)
Recent decades have seen UK researchers shed off the "Eurogang" and attempt to come up with definitions that are better-suited to the UK context Stelfox (1998), for instance, defined a gang as any group, excluding terrorists and football hooligans, that uses violence to further criminal intentions. Based on this definition, he identified a total of 72 gangs in the country (Stelfox, 1998: 398)
Statistics show that these initiatives have largely been ineffective, particularly because in as much as they appreciate the role of the family in the youth criminality problem, they do not recognize that familial dysfunction is not a single-factor phenomenon, but an interplay of multiple factors including family structure, the entry of women into the workforce, equality rights and so on. Family Structure and Gang Involvement/Delinquency Studies have reported higher delinquency rates among children brought up in non-traditional families compared to their counterparts in traditional family settings (where both parents live with their children) (Williams, 2004; Alleyne & Wood, 2010)
Other researchers refer to them as "troublesome youth groups" (Klein, et al., 2006) or "on-road" youth (Young, et al
In Wichita, Kansas, drive-by shootings rose 3,000% from 1991 to 1993, and today Oklahoma City is home to more than eighty separate gangs (Youth3 pp). In Rhode Island, only 15% of teens surveyed said that they did not have gang member in their schools (Crowther pp)
Youth Gangs, How Police Can Stop the Violence Youth gangs appeared in New York City and Philadelphia at the end of the American Revolution and their numbers and violence correspond to peak levels of immigration and population shifts that occurred in the 1800's, 1920's, 1960's and the late 1990's (Johnson pp)
¶ … Youth Gangs Evolutionary Perspective on Gangs Young men join gangs for several reasons, including their need to "enhance prestige" or improve their "status" among their peer group, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (Bilchik, 1998)
Henceforth, on the basis of variant external awareness of the group's activities, it formally turns out to be a gang as it gives out reactions to the awareness. (Esbensen, & Huizinga, p
Henceforth, on the basis of variant external awareness of the group's activities, it formally turns out to be a gang as it gives out reactions to the awareness. (Esbensen, & Huizinga, p
Henceforth, on the basis of variant external awareness of the group's activities, it formally turns out to be a gang as it gives out reactions to the awareness. (Esbensen, & Huizinga, p
Discoveries from a variety of cross-sectional analyses are associated to these theories of gang accession. Gang membership is more recurrent in vicinities in which gangs function and vicinities with high crime proportions and extreme provision of drugs (Fagan, p