NCJ Number
134327
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1991) Pages: 379-397
Date Published
1991
Length
19 pages
Annotation
The central thesis of this study is that demographic and economic transition have contributed to crime and to the presence of youth gangs in U.S. cities, even in the presence of controls for several possibly competing explanations: opportunity factors related to the ease and profit of crime, age structure, racial and income heterogeneity, and economic deprivation.
Abstract
The results of a multivariate analysis of quantitative data from all U.S. cities of 25,000 or more in 1970 and 1980 and further investigation of a subset of cities provide support for the thesis that demographic and economic transition seem to have some influence on crime and on the presence of youth gangs in U.S. cities. Results of the logit model developed to explain gang presence showed that decline in wholesale and retail positions was a significant predictor of gang presence as was the size of the population aged 15 to 24. Other indicators of urban conditions in the multivariate model, including race, ethnicity, inequality, population size, and density, failed to have a statistically significant impact on urban gangs. The study findings suggest that higher crime rates and more youth gangs are among the unintended consequences of patterns and postindustrial development in the United States. 3 tables and 52 references (Author abstract modified)