Recruitment to a Youth Gang

• NCJ Number: 88530
• Journal: Youth and Society Volume: 14 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1983) Pages: 281-300
• Author(s): J W C Johnstone
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 20 pages
• Grant Number(s): A-70-52R; 1-09-25-0410; 75-NI-00-0013; 2-09-25-1410-3; 76-JN-99-0004; 2-09-25-1138-04
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice; IllinoisCriminal Justice Information Authority
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study found that youth gangs exist primarily in communities characterized by social and economic deterioration and that recruits join voluntarily when they lose attachment to immediate and future conventional goals.

Abstract

The study hypothesized that gang life should appeal most to boys who are not confident either about their adjustment to conventional adolescence nor about their chances as conventional adults. The data consisted of survey responses from adolescents about their experiences with street gangs. The population studied consisted of black adolescents in suburban and suburban fringe areas of the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. Respondents were divided into (1) 'members,' who said they were or had been a member of a gang; (2) 'recruits,' who denied having been a gang member but said they had been asked to join; and (3) 'uninvolved youth,' who had neither been affiliated with a gang or been approached. Of 216 respondents, 13 percent were members, 22 percent recruits, and 65 percent uninvolved. The variables examined for each respondent were in the general categories of community characteristics, social attachments, and measures of self-image. Additional variables measuring experiences as offenders, defendants, and victims of crime were also added to the discriminant analysis as control variables. Gang recruiting was found primarily in communities characterized by social and economic deterioration. The decision about whether or not to join a gang was found to be affected by social and institutional attachments and by definitions of self. Strong support was found for Hirschi's proposition that boys who have weak attachments to conventional others and few stakes in a conventional future are free to become deviant. Gang membership appears to be a last option rather than a preferred option for most urban youth. Also, gangs target their recruiting at boys who have already been in trouble with the law, such that they cultivate rather than create delinquents. Tabular data and 26 references are provided.