Theories of Gang Behavior and Public Policy
Gangs are very much a part of today’s society and are the leading cause of violent crime. According to criminologist James Short, academics can break down all gang activity into 3 sections: Macro-level, micro-level, and individual level. These three levels are all interconnected in their ideas, so it is hard to grasp the difference between them at times. Along with Short’s main idea of gang theory, many studies have been conducted over the past century to support his ideas and better understand how gangs function. Short realized that one must implement the ideas of all three sections and throw all your resources at it even to have a chance of denting the gang empires in the United States.
In macro-level theory, there are three major factors. You can break it down into social disorganization, poverty, and sub-cultural norms. The original macro-level theory came from the study based on Frederick Thrasher’s work in 1927 which in essence says gangs are prevalent in places where there is a lack of social organization or cohesion. About 20 years later, Shaw and McKay (1942) came out with a study that agreed with Thrasher. They defined the idea of social DISorganization as “Urbanization, residential mobility, poverty, and ethnic/racial heterogeneity.” They proposed that social disorganization was the big factor that contributed to the formation of gangs.
Micro-level provides us with a look at the inner workings of gangs and the sub-cultures within gangs as well. It is thought that gangs learn their criminal behavior from other gang members. Using the term differential association, coined by Edward Sutherland, we can see how people are born in that “disorganized” culture. Micro-level is also able to give us insight into the etiology of gangs. In the same study done by Shaw and McKay (1942), they point out that economically deprived areas are socially disorganized, which leads to gang behavior and violence. However, in 1959, this idea was contradicted by a study done by Cloward and Ohlin, who said that some areas can have strong ties and a strong sense of community but still have a very prevalent gang problem.
The last and final level is the individual level theory. This idea rests mainly on the ideas given to us by Thrasher (1927). He was able to generalize how the individual gets sucked into this kind of lifestyle. He says that gangs arise in interstitial areas because the individual is trying to fill that gap between two social groups of childhood and adulthood. This idea explains why most gang members are not children but are also not adults. Gangs are there to provide filler to that void of desire and excitement.
Studies have been conducted over many years to try and explain certain aspects of gang behavior. Already covered in this paper are the old school theories done by Thrasher (1927) and the study done by Shaw and McKay (1942), and of course, the study of gang ties to communities done by Cloward and Ohlin (1959). However, more recent studies are being done. In 1990, a study was done by Jeffery Fagan titled “The Social Organization of Drug Use and Drug Dealing Among Urban Gangs” which he comes out and says that of his random sample, 23% of people claim to be gang members. These gang members accounted for 67% of assaults and 66% of robberies in the area. He also notes a solid connection between gangs and drug use/dealing, but he did not see a connection between drug dealing and violence among all gangs he looked into. These findings were supported by many other studies done by Curry and Decker (1998), Klein (1995), Spergel (1995), and Thornberry (1998), whom all came up with the idea that gang members are more prone to commit crimes and their non-gang counterparts.
In Thornberry’s study, he does delve into more ideas. He coins the term “Cafeteria Style Offending” which is the idea that gang violence is very random and unplanned on other gang members. This notion was also prevalent in the study done by Decker and Van Winkle (1996), who stated that gang violence is very spur of the moment, excessive, and retaliatory. This term is now widely used among other criminologists. He also conducted the Rochester Youth Development Study, which found that 30% of the subjects were gang members that that 30% accounted for 65% of reported delinquency.
In 1997 yet another study came out that pointed out the major usage of guns in gang culture. This study connected gang membership with the number of people that owned guns.
Shortly after (1999), a new study was published. This study had many ideas that the academics had not heard yet. Researched and written by Elijah Anderson, it coined the term “Code of the street” which basically said there is a violent subculture in Philadelphia. This subculture existed within the disadvantaged African American communities. It sets up the rules on how to act, behave and think if you are to live in this community.
This fact gave way to the idea that even non-gang members are part of this subculture and that everyone has to be ready for violence to occur as a part of their daily life. He argued that these subcultures emerged from even larger subculture factors such as poverty, racism, and a shared cynical view towards public institutions and government. This idea explains why there is violent crime emerging from violent subcultures.
Many policies in this country have come as a result of these studies and theories. They have worked in the same direction, but not so much together. There are two major exceptions to that idea. These exceptions are the Spergel Model and the Boston Gun Project.
The Spergel Model combined suppression and intervention. It required all agencies and people to work together very closely. Within it, there were five strategies. These strategies were community mobilization, street outreach, provision of opportunity, suppression, and organizational change. The Spergel Model attempted this model many times: Little Village Project in Chicago, SafeFutures Program, Rural Gang Initiative, and Five Cities Initiative.
They were all based on three levels, similar to the theories provided at the beginning of this paper. Local law enforcement agencies offered counseling and crisis services to gang members and people at risk of becoming gang members at the individual level. At the group level (micro-level), there was a big outreach to try and help the gangs as a whole or the subculture. And of course, at the macro level, there was job training, job placement, and education. This project worked a little bit. Spergel claims it worked in Little Village but was very dependant on resources. There were no other examples of implementation working. Many believe it did not work because there was a lack of connection between the levels and that In the Little Villiage Project, Spergel argues that they hired the wrong people to implement the ideas of the project.
The other major project was the Boston Gun Project. It basically implemented the heavy presence of police, probation, parole, prosecution, social services, researchers, community groups, and religious groups to try and suppress the gangs. It focused mostly on the group process because it had the network and resources to do so. It used networking to try and find a theory that this project could fit into policy-wise.
This project worked in some areas. It was very hard on violent offenders, and they tried to get at them from every angle. It forced gang members to work with police, or their drug enterprise would be shut down. There are still to this day many mixed feelings on whether or not this idea worked.
Other gang models that were more comprehensive were too expensive. They forced agencies that were not used to working together to work together. Because of this, we see a lot more enforcement and suppression and not so much education. This is not because enforcement and suppression are the ideal models, but rather the easier and cheaper models to implement.
