Differentiating between delinquent groups and gangs: moving beyond offending consequences

Abstract

Even when controlling for high levels of delinquent peers, gang youth differ from their nongang counterparts on a variety of attitudinal and behavioral measures. Researchers have argued that differences can be attributed to the group processes present in the gang setting. This study explores the extent to which differences between youth in a gang and those in a delinquent group can be explained by Bandura's social cognitive theory. Much of the prior research in this arena has relied on cross-sectional data; in this study we expand on this prior research by using fixedeffects modeling strategies with a multi-site panel of youth. The results comparing time periods when youth were in a gang versus a delinquent peer group indicate that gang-involved youth are more violent and have fewer conventional bonds. This work is able to advance our knowledge on attitudinal and behavioral differences between gangs and other types of peer groups.

Family Structure and Delinquency in the English-Speaking Caribbean: The Moderating Role of Parental Attachment, Supervision, and Commitment to Negative Peers

“…All of the items and scales used in the present paper were adopted from Esbensen’s work evaluating the G.R.E.A.T. program (Esbensen & Osgood, 1999) and have been used in a vast body of subsequent work (Deschenes & Esbensen, 1999; Carson et al, 2017; Matsuda et al, 2013). 2 Other iterations of the items and scales have been used in large-scale surveys like the Denver Youth Survey.…”

On the Search for Social Esteem: An Ethnography on the Meanings of Football for Marginalized Male Migrants

“…These subcultures may be particularly important for young people who cannot meet educational expectations, for instance, due to economic deprivation, social neglect and adverse living conditions in their neighbourhoods. Subcultural values sometimes explicitly challenge the mainstream culture, as in the case of delinquent gangs (Carson, Wiley, & Esbensen, 2017). However, sometimes subcultural values do not contradict but rather complement societal values, as in the case of sport scenes which may value, for instance, such divergent characteristics as sportiness, technical skill, virtue, strength, muscularity, manliness, but also ambition, sense of achievement or toughness (Schwier, 2008).…”