Risk Factors for Youth Gang Membership
GANG JOINING DYNAMICS
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RISK FACTORS FOR YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP |
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Community |
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- Social disorganization, including poverty and residential mobility - Underclass communities - Presence of gangs in the neighborhood - Availability of drugs in the neighborhood - Availability of firearms - Barriers to and lack of social and economic opportunities - Lack of social capital |
- Cultural norms supporting gang behavior - Feeling unsafe in the neighborhood; high crime - Conflict with social control institutions - Low neighborhood attachment - Community disorganization - Transitions and mobility - Law and norms favorable to drug use |
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Family |
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- Family disorganization, including broken homes, and parental drug/alcohol abuse - Troubled families, including incest, family violence, and drug addiction - Family members in a gang - Lack of adult male role models - Lack of parental role models - Low socioeconomic status - Poor family supervision |
- Sibling antisocial behavior - Poor family discipline - Family conflict - Family history of antisocial behavior - Parent attitudes favorable to antisocial behavior - Parent attitudes favorable to drug use - Extreme economic deprivation, family management problems, parents with violent attitudes |
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School |
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- Poor academic achievement or failure - Low educational aspirations, especially among females - Negative labeling by teachers - Trouble at school - Few teacher role models |
- Educational frustration - Low commitment to school, low school attachment, high levels of antisocial behavior in school - Low achievement test scores, and identification as being learning disabled |
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Peer Group |
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- High commitment to delinquent peers - Low commitment to positive peers - Street socialization - Gang members in class - Friends who use drugs or who are gang members |
- Friends who are drug distributors - Interaction with delinquent peers - Peer antisocial behavior - Sensation seeking - Peer rejection |
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Individual |
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- Prior delinquency - Deviant attitudes - Street smartness; toughness - Defiant and individualistic character - Fatalistic view of the world - Aggression - Proclivity of excitement and trouble - Locura (acting in a daring, courageous, and especially crazy fashion in the face of adversity) - Higher levels of normlessness in the context of family, peer group, and school - Social disabilities - Rebelliousness |
- Early initiation of antisocial behavior - Attitudes favorable to antisocial behavior - Attitudes favorable to drug use - Illegal gun ownership - Early or precocious sexual activity, especially among females - Alcohol and drug use - Drug trafficking - Desire for group rewards such as status, identity, self-esteem, companionship, and protection - Problem behaviors, hyperactivity, externalizing behaviors, drinking, lack of refusal skills - Victimization |