Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Socioeconomic Isolation (From Youth Violence: Prevention, Intervention, and Social Policy, P 145-170, 1999, Daniel J. Flannery and C. Ronald Huff, eds. -- See NCJ-184963)

• NCJ Number: 184969
• Author(s): Jeffrey Fagan Ph.D.
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter examines the changing nature of youth gangs, gang involvement with drugs, and gang members' socioeconomic isolation.

Abstract

Gang members today often remain in a gang longer, resulting in gangs whose members' ages range from preteen to young adults. For some gangs, entrepreneurial goals, especially involving drug selling, have replaced the cultural goals of ethnic solidarity and neighborhood defense and a few have loose but functional ties to adult organized crime groups. The chapter describes varying styles of gang membership and gang behaviors. It also examines the apparent increase in lethal gang violence and its relationship to gang involvement in drug use and sales. The article studies the link between gang formation and the social and economic makeup of communities, the impact of deindustrialization, disruption of intergenerational job networks, institutionalization of drug markets, drug markets and the erosion of social controls, the redistributive function of drug selling, isolation and insulation of neighborhoods, institutionalization of gangs, and the changing roles of young women in gangs. References