The Importance of Cohesion for Gang Research, Policy, and Practice

Ethnic Homophily and Triad Closure

“…Moreover, police contact can ipso facto increase gang cohesion (Decker, 1996;Klein, 1995), thus altering the composition of the network (see Papachristos, 2013). Nevertheless, police records remain an important source for gang researchers.…”

“…But gang interactions and processes are typically assumed rather than observed by criminologists (Papachristos, 2013). For Klein (1995), gang cohesion is the "quintessential group process" (p. 45).…”

Friends in locked places: An investigation of prison inmate network structure

“…Though several studies have examined the network structure of delinquent populations, often gangs (Grund and Densley 2014; Hughes 2013; McCuish et al 2015; Papachristos 2006, 2013; Sarnecki 2001), these tend to focus outside the prison. Only a limited set of researchers have entered the prison to investigate social structure with formal network methods.…”

Civil Gang Injunctions

“…This article provides a nice supplement to Maxson, Hennigan, and Sloane's article published in this journal in 2005; one can see the progression of knowledge about CGIs as an intervention tool. The two policy essays by Melde (, this issue) and Papachristos (, this issue) highlight the fact that although progress has been made, there is still much to be learned. These three publications acknowledge that not only is it important to assess the extent to which various policies and interventions achieve their desired effects, but also it is equally important to assess how or why these strategies do or do not achieve their desired goals.…”

“…How can the same intervention produce diametrically opposing results? Hennigan and Sloane, as well as the two policy essays (Melde, ; Papachristos, ), shed some light on this question.…”