NCJ Number
136301
Journal
Aztlan Volume: 18 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1987) Pages: 27-44
Date Published
1987
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This essay argues that the gang cannot be characterized as criminal and contends that long-standing efforts to understand Chicano criminal deviance in terms of gang influence are misdirected.
Abstract
Chicano gang activities revolve primarily around the normal adolescent concerns of peer respect and approval, security and protection, group support and acceptance, and age and sex role identification. It is proposed that the gang be considered as "tropho-criminal," that is, permissive or supportive of individual deviance as an alternative to the perception of the gang as crimogenic. Gang membership interacts with certain family characteristics in the production of juvenile and adult criminality, but neither gang culture nor family structure and function provide an explanation for individual deviance. Most likely there are other interactions in which gang membership is an important yet not a determining factor in deviance. Gang membership emerges as only one in a complicated set of factors which leads to deviance. 28 notes