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This paper examines microsocial contexts of violent and nonviolent dispute-related incidents involving gang members. Data consist of reports of field observations of twelve black and eight white youth street gangs in Chicago between 1959 and 1962. Dispute-related incidents (N = 2,637) were classified according to three primary pretexts: normative or order violations, identity attacks and retaliation. Findings show that disputes associated with each of these generally unfolded consistently with expectations based on the extent to which status concerns were likely to be outweighed by such situational constraints as a close relationship between disputants and audience intervention. We suggest that understanding violence in the gang context will be enhanced greatly by further consideration of the microsocial level of explanation and linkages to its macro-and individual-level counterparts.

Community notification laws have been passed by the federal government and legislature of every state. At the very least, these laws require local law enforcement officials to publicize the personal and residential information of known sex offenders. Although researchers and other social commentators have begun to assess the effects of community notification on targeted sex offenders and on criminal justice practices and practitioners, the potential consequences of the policy for different types of communities have received only scant attention. Using sex offender registry and US Census data for two states (Nebraska and Oklahoma), we examine the relationship between community characteristics and the residential patterns of sex offenders. Findings from mapping and regression analyses suggest a greater concentration of sex offenders in disadvantaged communities than in more affluent communities. To the extent that community notification allows residents of more affluent communities to mobilize resources in order to remove identified sex offenders, it may increase the geographical clustering of these offenders in areas already facing a greater risk and having fewer resources to manage the problem. Implications of findings in terms of "concentrated disadvantage" are discussed.

Data from Short and Strodtbeck's () study of gangs in Chicago, 1959–1962, are used to examine the association between intragang friendship networks and violent and delinquent behaviors among 248 boys from 11 different gangs (9 Black and 2 White). Contrary to expectations of tightly connected gangs being the most dangerous, estimates from multilevel overdispersed Poisson regression models showed significantly increased mean levels of violence among gangs with relatively low group cohesion. No relationship was observed between delinquency and gang cohesiveness, regardless of the specific network measure employed. At the individual level, popular boys were at a significantly increased risk for both delinquency and violence, suggesting a link between prestigious positions within the structure of gang friendship networks and conformity with group processes. The implications of these findings for detached worker intervention are discussed.

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