NCJ Number
150210
Date Published
1992
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This summary surveys existing United States gang research and presents a general introduction to United States gang activities.
Abstract
The first chapter emphasizes that a reliable framework of gang information is missing because all available sources (media, gang members, police, politicians, etc.) express their own biases. The second chapter depicts the heterogenous characteristics of today's gangs, new trends in gang behavior (e.g., the growth of violence), and some estimates on the number of gangs and gang members in the United States. Chapter 3 presents the history of gang research in four successive stages since the 1930's and introduces prevalent research methods. Chapter 4 surveys the topics covered in gang research (gang organization, the social contexts of gang formation, theoretical analyses, and policies for repressing gangs), while Chapter 5 points to the numerous gaps in gang research. The final chapter synthesizes how American research can apply to French gang problems. The text concludes that future research should focus less on the gangs themselves than on a more comprehensive social unit (e.g., a neighborhood) to explore how the gangs interrelate with their environment. 40 references