NCJ Number
147628
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: (1967) Pages: 63-75
Date Published
1967
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study examined selected qualitative differences between juvenile gangs and other groups that have been the more traditional subject of empirical research, with attention to cohesiveness and gang-related delinquent behavior.
Abstract
After a review of the literature, the authors conclude that available concepts and approaches to the measurement of group cohesiveness are unsuitable for application to gang research. With the use of data from a study of 576 male African-American gang members in Los Angeles, the authors illustrate several alternative measurement procedures. As part of the project, researchers received daily "contact reports" from the gang workers assigned to four large gang clusters that involved 16 gang groups. For any given gang member, the contact reports provided information on how often he was seen by the worker during a certain time period and with which other gang members he was most often observed. Measures of subgroup or clique cohesiveness were the number of cliques, the percentage of gang members in cliques, the percentage of clique members with 50 percent or more of their contacts within their own cliques, the average within-clique all-contacts ratio, and the percentage of clique membership with core status in the gang. One of the interesting aspects of the cohesiveness matrices constructed was that a number of gang members were never seen together, yielding many empty matrix cells. Preliminary data show that the increase in cohesiveness among the younger boys and the decrease among the older boys parallels similar trends in recorded offense rates. The authors conclude that the interaction patterns of measures of gang cohesiveness and juvenile offenses require more attention in research on the group delinquency phenomena. 3 tables and 35 footnotes