NCJ Number
179324
Date Published
1999
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This article examines the associative relationships among adverse social conditions and temporal attitudes and perspectives about past, present, and future conditions in thinking about gang behavior; the data integrate a qualitative and quantitative approach shaped largely by adolescents in New York City.
Abstract
Participants for the study were drawn from a larger pool of students from a network of four New York City alternative high schools. One school from within the network was randomly selected, and a sample of 50 male students who attended classes 50 percent or more of the time during the previous grading period was randomly selected for data collection. For 47 male students who actually participated in the study, data on gang affiliation were obtained from a self-report section of the survey instrument. In addition, other data were collected using the Time Attitude Scale and the Motivational Induction Method. Study findings showed gangs were perceived as by-products of troubled neighborhoods and interventions were of two basic types, socialization and removal. Socialization interventions involved community outreach workers and athletic and cultural programs. The focus was on gang members as an attempt to save gang participants from themselves. Removal interventions aimed to remove the gang organization or as many gang members as possible from the community. The author concludes that continued focus on deviant youth without consideration of the surrounding social environment will not support youth in a positive direction, that an ecological approach is needed to understand the cumulative effects of exposure to adverse social conditions, and that more attention needs to be directed to an appropriate mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies in conducting gang research. 37 references, 3 tables, and 5 figures