The impact of race, income, and place on gangsm | Street Gangs Resource Center

The impact of race, income, and place on gangsm

Posted by StreetGangs.Com Staff on Oct 5th, 2010 and filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Print This Post | Email This Post

Streetgangs.com Staff
October 5, 2010 | 2:26 p.m.

Why do some cities have more gang activity than others?

Why does it seem that Los Angeles has more gangs, gang members, and gang homicides than, say, Houston or New York City? LA is the entertainment capital of the world, so it is not surprising that what happens in LA spreads through newspapers, movies, and television. But is there other evidence that accounts for why some cities have more gang activity than others?

Until recently, answering questions such as these were left to speculation. Criminologists from Arizona State University—David Pyrooz, Andrew Fox, and Scott Decker—recently published an article examining this issue. The article, titled “Racial and Ethnic Heterogeneity, Economic Disadvantage, and Gangs: A Macro-Level Study of Gang Membership in Urban America,” is forthcoming in Justice Quarterly. The study examined patterns of gang membership in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.

The researchers used the social disorganization perspective as a starting point, which argues that factors such as social and economic disadvantage (i.e., poverty, family breakup) and racial and ethnic heterogeneity (i.e., diversity) are tied to a variety of crime and victimization problems because they break down the norms and solidarity of communities. The researchers found that cities with more disadvantage and more diversity had higher levels of gang activity, but the effect of diversity was twice as strong as disadvantage. Perhaps the most interesting finding was that disadvantage did not matter as much in cities that were more homogenous (i.e., less diverse). In fact, a very disadvantaged city that was not diverse had less gang activity than an advantaged city that was diverse.

Of course, there are many other factors that tells us why some cities have more gang activity than others. Larger social forces such as immigration, birth rates, inequality, residential segregation, legitimate employment opportunities, and educational opportunities all play a role. This study only examined a few of the factors and only examined patterns of gang membership. Nevertheless, findings such as this have important implications for how the public thinks about gangs in cities.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The impact of race, income, and place on gangsm | Street Gangs Resource Center