NCJ Number
187260
Journal
Deviant Behavior Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Dated: January-February 2001 Pages: 73-89
Date Published
January 2001
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article considers gang membership, race, and social class in a test of the group hazard and master status hypotheses.
Abstract
The article examines the extent to which gang membership, race, and social class affect a youth's chances of being arrested, independent of self-reported delinquent behavior. The article couples the concepts of group hazard and master status to frame theoretical predictions. The odds of being arrested are roughly similar for gang and nongang members, controlling for the nature and level of self-reported delinquency. While being a gang member does not pose a group hazard to being arrested, a youth's master status based on race and social class is associated with arrest risk. Both being black and lower class increase a youth's odds of being arrested, independent of delinquency. Neither race nor class effects can be accounted for by the frequency with which youth hang out with their best friends. The article provides recommendations for reducing race and class profiling, including: (1) an ethnoracial political and demographic transition; (2) community development of more extensive after school and summer programming for youth; (3) study of police organization and professionalization to determine whether variation in these structures has implications for arrest practices; and (4) identification of law enforcement characteristics that are associated with profiling tendencies. Tables, references