NCJ Number
228996
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 26 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2009 Pages: 644-669
Date Published
December 2009
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This study revisits prior research suggesting that gang member involvement in drug selling does not necessarily lead to increased violence, and that the relationship between gang membership, drug selling, and violence is unrelated to the neighborhood in which subjects reside, and tests two hypotheses regarding the intersection of neighborhood disadvantage, gang membership, drug selling, and violence.
Abstract
Results of the study indicate that (1) gang members who sell drugs are significantly more violent than gang members that do not sell drugs and drug sellers that do not belong to gangs; (2) drug sellers that do not belong to gangs and gang members who do not sell drugs engage in comparable levels of violence; and (3) an increase in neighborhood disadvantage intensifies the effect of gang membership on violence, especially among gang members that sell drugs. The overall findings strongly contradict prior research suggesting that gang member involvement in drug sales does not necessarily increase the frequency of violent behavior. This paper addresses two hypotheses pertaining to the intersection of neighborhood disadvantage, gang membership, drug selling, and violence. The first examines whether acquiring the status of gang member coupled with drug selling alters within-individual trajectories of violence. The second examines whether the relations referenced in the first hypothesis increase in magnitude as neighborhood disadvantage increases. Figures, tables, references, and appendix