GANG PREVENTION AND GANG INTERVENTION:
Preliminary Results From the 1995 Project GANGPINT
National Needs Assessment Gang Research Task Force
Special Report of the:
NATIONAL GANG CRIME RESEARCH CENTER
COPYRIGHT: 1995, National Gang Crime Research Center.
PRINCIPAL CO-INVESTIGATORS:
George W. Knox, Ph.D.
Bradley J. Martin, J.D.
Alice P. Franklin Elder, Ph.D.
Shirley R. Holmes, Ph.D.
Robert E. Morris, M.D.
Kathleen Aquino, B.A.
James G. Houston, Ph.D.
Barbara H. Zaitzow, Ph.D.
Edward D. Tromanhauser, Ph.D.
Thomas F. McCurrie, M.S.
John A. Laskey, M.S.
Zheng Wang, Ph.D.
Curtis Robinson, M.S.
Dorothy Papachristos
Jean Chang, Ph.D.
Jodet-Marie Harris, Ed.D.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We especially thank a number of research assistants who provided assistance to this project in terms of data entry during the data processing and data reduction stage of the research. We very grateful for this labor of love from the following volunteers and interns working with the National Gang Crime Research Center. We especially thank Laura Rizzardini, M.A., a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, who at the time was a volunteer to the National Gang Crime Research Center for her tireless work in data reduction and other tasks in this large research project. We are also indebted to two student interns: Shemei Levi, B.S.; and Seglinda Lake. Both of these interns at the National Gang Crime Research Center provided invaluable, reliable, quality work that we could reward only with praise for labor well done.
We want to thank a great many persons at the 24 different sites in eight states (California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin). We want to extend a special appreciation for all of the juvenile correctional facilities and their staff: Terry Timm, Lincoln Hills School, Irma, Wisconsin; Billy Schlitz, Cook County Day Reporting Center (DRC); Steven P. Kossman, Superintendent, McLean COunty Juvenile Detention Center, Normal, IL; and the probation, court, school, and facility staff in California, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Texas. Several different staff from each of the 24 sites provided much needed help and support during times of data collection. A complete list of their names and titles will appear in the final version of this report, as we have not had time at this junction to secure their permission to identify such facilities. The same holds true for community context research sites: schools, programs, youth homes, etc.
We assert that this is not an oversight or a slight to the many such persons who therefore helped make this research possible, rather we have simply not secured their permission yet to be able to acknowledge their help in writing in this report. Either way, we do extend our heartfelt thanks to each and everyone of the many staff of these 24 different research sites in 8 states who gave us such assistance.
Finally, we want to thank the over 3,000 youths who helped as well: by being participants in this anonymous national survey research project.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
George W. Knox, Ph.D., is the director of the National Gang Crime Research Center, founded in 1990 and currently based at Chicago State University where he is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice. He has authored several books and numerous articles based on his 20 years of ongoing gang research.
Bradley J. Martin, J.D., is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Findlay in Ohio. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Resource Development, specializing in training, at the University of Toledo. He is also an attorney admitted to practice in the state of Michigan and the U.S. District Court in Detroit, Michigan.
Alice P. Franklin Elder, Ph.D., administers the Office of Correctional Research for the Ohio Department of Youth Services in Columbus, Ohio. She is a sociologist/criminologist. She graduated from Ohio State University's Department of Sociology under the tutelage of the renowned criminologist Simon Dinitz.
Shirley R. Holmes, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Education and Special Education at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. Her research interests including bullying, gangs and deviant behavior among school children, gang behavior in rural areas, as well as prevention and intervention programs.
Robert E. Morris, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Senior Physician of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court Health Services supervises the adolescent rotations at the Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall for the University of California, Los Angeles. He also directs and or consults with HIV education and research protocols for Los Angeles adolescent detainees.
Kathleen Aquino, B.A., has worked with incarcerated youths in Los Angeles County for six years. Her specialization is health education services (e.g., HIV/STD prevention, violence, substance abuse, teen parenting, etc). She is currently working towards a masters degree in Public Health at California State University, Long Beach.
James G. Houston, Ph.D., is an associate professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University. He has over 20 years experience in prisons, jails, and community services and is author of Correctional Management: Functions, Skills, and Systems. He has been involved in numerous gang research projects and is currently completing a book entitled Criminal Justice and the Policy Process for Nelson-Hall, Inc.
Barbara H. Zaitzow, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at Appalachian State University. Her current work involves assisting local and state officials seeking the increased use of intermediate sanctions as alternatives to imprisonment.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Continued
Edward D. Tromanhauser, Ph.D., is the chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at Chicago State University. His criminological research on gangs dates back to 1981 and continues today. He has numerous publications in the area of gang research.
Thomas F. McCurrie, M.S., is the managing editor and a founding staff member of the Journal of Gang Research and serves as the publications manager for the National Gang Crime Research Center. He also teaches various criminal justice courses at Chicago State University. He served for many years as the chief investigator for the Cook County Public Defender's Office.
John A. Laskey, M.S., is a college instructor and active police officer, serving as a homicide detective for many years. He has also taught criminal justice courses at Morton College. He is active in the Army Reserve. He is active in providing gang training to numerous groups: police, teachers, social workers, academics, etc.
Zheng Wang, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in Administration of Justice at Texas Southern University. He serves as co-chair of the Houston Mayor's Asian Anti-Gang Advisory Board and teaches at the Houston Police Academy. He has conducted research and published on various aspects of gangs, Asian gangs, and organized crime.
Curtis Robinson, M.S., has a decade of experience in the field of juvenile probation in Lake County, Indiana, where he currently works in a new capacity of developing resources to confront the prevention and intervention needs of juveniles in his area.
Dorothy Papachristos is co-founder of Communities Dare To Care. Dorothy's efforts confronting the problem of violence has focused on both community activism and one-on-one relationships with "at risk" youths and their families. Her work in assisting communities has been commended at the national, regional and local level.
Jean Chang, Ph.D., is currently a research associate at the Research Institute of Illinois TASC. She received her Ph.D. from Western Michigan University in 1993. She has conducted a number of studies in the area of drug and crime, and street gangs.
Jodet-Marie Harris, Ed.D., is a lecturer at Illinois State University where she teaches special education courses. She has taught in the Chicago Public School system for six years and prior to this numerous research and service programs in the field of criminal justice.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Sixteen gang researchers working together in a national study organized by the National Gang Crime Research Center conducted a survey of 3,348 youths, 1,994 of which were self-reported gang members. The gang research took place at 24 sites in 8 states (California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin), and included alternative schools, juvenile correctional facilities, private programs, and jails.
The gang members included the broad spectrum of gangs found in large urban centers like Chicago and Los Angeles, but also included most of the well-known gangs known to exist in America today.
Among the major findings of this research about the gang members themselves:
Background: Most are males (91.3%) 14 to 18 years of age (88.8%).
Family: Nearly all (91.6%) worry about the safety of their family members. Nearly all (93.5%) of the gang members would like to get a legal job, get married, and have children. Nearly all (91.2%) felt their family worried about them being killed. A third (32.9%) said their father never punished them for misbehavior. The gang members seem to have a more positive attachment to mother than father. A fourth (27.9%) did not get help with homework at home. A fifth (19.1%) agreed that if parents cannot keep kids out gangs the kids should be taken away from the parents. Two-fifths (44.1%) felt that some parents benefit financially from having a child who is a gang member. Two-thirds (69.9%) have had family or friends killed because of gang violence. Most (83.4%) would not want their own children to join a gang. Over half (60.4%) have another family member who is a substance abuser. Over two-thirds (72.4%) did have a good relationship with an adult who tried to keep them out of gang life. Most (79.2%) would discourage their own children from joining a gang. Four-fifths (80.5%) want to eventually get married. Over two-thirds (69.8%) of these gang members have family members who are also in a gang; the same proportion (68.3%) indicated that in their gang their are members whose parents are also active gang members. Most (70.8) said their parents disapproved of their gang involvement; about the same proportion (73.2%) said they would quit gang life if they had the chance to get married, get a good steady job, and live somewhere else.
School: Two-fifths (41.6%) of the gang members had been bullied in school, and even more (66.5%) were bullies themselves. Mostly all (95.1%) had not yet completed high school. Half had been demoted, even more (88.7%) had been suspended from school, and two-thirds had been expelled from school.
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Executive Summary: Continued
Religion: A third of the gang members had some religious training (37.1%). Three-fourths (75.9%) liked their experiences with church. Half (54.2%) indicated they rarely if ever attend church though. Still, most (89.3%) said they do believe in God. A third (32.3%) expect to go to hell, two-thirds (67.7%) expect to go to Heaven.
Mass Media: Less than half (44.2%) felt that television news coverage of gangs makes others want to join gangs. But nearly two-thirds (65.5%) did feel that gang members like seeing themselves on television, and in the newspapers (63.9%). Half (51.1%) felt that gang members would like to be a part of a study where an important professor might be willing to hang out with them in the hood. Some 42 percent felt if less attention was given to gangs in the mass media that fewer people would join gangs. A third (35.5%) felt that if the confidentiality of the juvenile justice system were eliminated, this might prevent some juveniles from committing a crime. Asked about the effects of intense news coverage of their gang: only 28.9 percent viewed it as an embarrassment, 72.9 percent felt more members would get involved in the gang, and 79.4 percent felt more new members would join the gang.
Their Beliefs About Prevention: Only half agreed that programs can effectively prevent kids from getting involved in gangs or prevent kids from joining gangs. More disagree than agree with the idea that gang problems can be prevented by school education, or drug prevention/education, or strict law enforcement. They were most likely to believe job training and employment opportunities are the best solution to the gang problem. Between a fourth to a third of the gang members believe some of the most common approaches to gang prevention/intervention are a waste of time for kids at risk of joining a gang: educational programs (33.6%), counseling programs (36.9%), and job training programs (25.6%). About half question whether social workers can have any effect: in reaching out to persons who might want to quit a gang (43%), in helping kids stay out of a gang (49.1%), or in combination with other services whether this could have prevented them from joining a gang (52.8%). Given the choice of program service components, though, most would prefer employment programs. Three-fourths (74.7%) believe that most people in gangs want out sooner or later. Three-fifths (60.1%) do not believe a boot camp could influence someone to drop out of a gang.
Their Own Experiences With Programs and Intervention Services: These gang members have not been neglected in terms of being recipients of a number of social services and prevention or intervention services. Half have been in group therapy (52.6%), or in court-mandated therapy (53.7%), or in some counseling program (59.7%). Two-fifths of this gang population have been in a
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Executive Summary: Continued
substance abuse counseling program (42.3%), a job skills program (44.1%), a job training program (40.2%), the YMCA recreation program (43.7%), and completed the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program (45.4%). A third (33.8%) had the benefit of a professional one-on-one tutor. A fourth (28.9%) had parents active in the PTA. Only 19.3 percent had been in the Big Brother/Big Sister program. And only 15.9 percent had ever used a crisis hotline for help. Thus, few of these gang members actually slipped through the cracks of society in terms of a complete lack of any social services being available to them.
Gang Involvement Through the Human Development Lifespan: By age 11 most (79.1%) had already first heard something about gangs. Most (83.6%) had first met a gang member before they were 13. Half (53.9%) had first fired a pistol or revolver before the age of 13. Half (48.9%) had seen someone killed or seriously injured by gang violence before the age of 13. Half (50.5%) had first got a permanent tattoo before the age of 14. Half (49.9%) had first been arrested before the age of 13. Half (52.6%) thought they would be married before the age of 24. Half (48.1%) had first joined a gang before they were 13. A fourth (25.1%) of these gang members did not believe they would live to see their 28th birthday.
Personality: Over a third (37.3%) agreed that success is more dependent on luck than on real ability. Most (80.7%) worry about the future facing today's children. Some 62.1 percent felt that people can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong.
Their Personal Experiences in the Gang: Almost all (84.7%) have five or more close gang friends. Most (71.9%) were still active gang members, and many of the rest were now gang associates. Nearly half (46.7%) have tried to quit the gang. Two-thirds (65.3%) have held rank or leadership in their gang. Two-fifths (44.3%) have been "violated" by their gang. Over half (60.7%) have committed a crime for financial gain with their gang. Half (51.5%) have fired a gun at someone over their gang's drug business, but this variable did not vary much by race. Two-thirds (67.2%) had fired a gun at someone defending their gang turf. Half (50.5%) have been a shooter in a gang drive-by shooting, motivated more often than not by concerns for gang reputation. Half claim to be willing to die for their gang. The most common reason they gave for joining the gang was it offered a "family" for them. Over two-thirds (70.9%) have recruited others into the gang, the most common recruitment source being the neighborhood context.
Their Descriptions of Their Gang Group/Organization: While almost all major American gangs were represented in the large national sample, about a fourth were Crips and Bloods; a third were Folks. Over half (58.9%) indicate their gang has a special
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Executive Summary: Continued
language code. Two-thirds (66.1%) indicate their gang has written rules. Most (84.8%) indicate their gang has older leaders who have been in the gang a long time. Most of the gangs (74.8%) exist in multiple geographical areas. Half indicated their gang did arise locally, and half indicated their gang did not arise locally on its own without contact from a gang from outside the same area. Only a fourth (25.2%) indicated their gang copied the symbols and name of an out of town gang. Half have had contact with the same gang in another city. Three-fourths (73.9%) indicate their gang provides money to needy members in or out of custody. Over a third (35.6%) said their gang has a private attorney used for defending its members in criminal matters. Some 43.7 percent said their gang keeps an account that pays for only legal defense. Three-fourths (76.2%) indicated their gang holds regular meetings. Some 70.3 percent of the gang members indicated their gang had been around for ten years or more. Some 60.9 percent indicated their gang was an official branch of a larger national gang, while 40.2 percent described their gang as "homegrown" (emerged on its own in their city). Over half (59.8%) indicated their gang maintains a treasury. Two-fifths (40.9%) indicated their gang collects regular dues from its members; the same proportion (39.2%) indicated that criminal activity is a required part of gang membership. A number of characteristics these gang members use to describe their gang also tend to describe authoritarian cults: a third (34.8%) fear to express their opinions in the gang, most (60.6%) cannot simply leave the gang by resigning at anytime, half (49.8%) indicate their personal life is known to other members, nearly two-thirds (63.3%) indicate the things the gang does are approved by a higher up leader, two-thirds do not simply accept everyone who wants to join, half say their gang does keep a list of the names of its members (50.7%), and in about half the cases (57.3%) the gang member can be fined for making a mistake. Some 47.1 percent indicated that they did have Asian members in their gang. About two-fifths (41.7%) report that persons who make big money are looked up to in their gang. Only 12.6 percent indicated their gang never fights with another gang over money. About a third agreed that making big money is a way of gaining respect among rival gangs.
Gang Behavior While Incarcerated. Some of the gang members had been in custody for as long as five years. Two-thirds had privileges taken away while in custody. Half have been in fights while in custody. Half have threatened others with violence while in custody. Nearly half (46.5%) have fought with rival gang members while in custody. A fourth (27.8%) have tried to recruit new members to their gang while in custody. A fourth (28.4%) have carried a homemade weapon while in custody. Over a fourth (29.7%) have threatened a correctional officer or employee while incarcerated. Most have had one or more disciplinary reports, a third of the gang members having 5 or more while in custody. Two-fifths (43.9%) have started a fight with someone or attacked
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Executive Summary: Continued
someone while in custody. A fourth have tried to smuggle drugs into the correctional facility. A fourth indicated that some gangs use religious or cultural fronts for their meetings while in custody.
Major Life Events For Gang Members: Using a human development lifespan approach, a series of questions addressed at what age these major life events occurred for the gang members. A clear pattern emerged here having many implications for gang prevention and gang intervention programming. The mean or average ages are used here. At age 8.9 they first heard anything about gangs. Age 9.2 were first bullied in school. Age 10.4 first made the transition to bullying someone else in school. Age 11.3 first fired a pistol or revolver, and saw first killing or injury due to gang violence. Age 12.0 first joined the gang and first arrested for any crime. Age 12.3 first got their own real gun. Age 13.0 first got a permanent tattoo. Age 16.5 their current average age in this study. At the time some of them were interviewed, those in correctional institutions had already served an average of 8.9 months of their sentence. For those who think they will eventually get legally married to someone, it will occur at an average age of 24.1 years of age. They expect to die at an average age of 59.5 years of age.
Differences Comparing Gang Members and Non-Gang Members: In chapter 4, among the strong differences that emerged from comparing gang members and non-gang members, gang members were more likely to be bullies in school, and therefore suspended and expelled from school, have a permanent tattoo, having friends or family killed in gang violence, much less likely to believe boot camps will flip a gang member, much more likely to want their own children to be gang members, much less likely to believe the mass media exacerbates the gang problem, much more combative and disruptive (physical fights, threatening violence, carrying an improvised weapon in custody, threatening staff, starting fights, and trying to smuggle in drugs) in custody than their non-gang member counterparts.
The greater the level of involvement in gang life: the greater the skepticism such persons have towards gang prevention programs; the less they worry about the future facing today's children; the more they believe that traditional programs (education, counseling, job training) are a waste of time for kids at risk of joining a gang; the more they are likely to have a background of being bullies in school; the more they are likely to have been incarcerated in a juvenile correctional institution; the more likely the persons father did not punish them for misbehavior; the greater the tendency toward dogmatic beliefs, like stereotypy; the more these persons also had the benefit of societal responses (court-mandated psychological counseling or therapy, being involved in group therapy or counseling programs, etc); the less the believe - ix -
Executive Summary: Continued
"Boot Camps" could help anyone drop out of a gang; the greater
their individual school failure (not finishing high school, being suspended or expelled); the less satisfying their church experiences; the more they believe they will go to hell in the afterlife; the more likely they are to have a permanent tattoo; the less likely they are to be female; the less they believe social work can make a difference in prevention and intervention with gangs; the less they believe the media has a negative impact; the more likely they are to have had family/friends killed in gang violence; the more they want their own children to be in gangs; the higher the substance abuse in their family; the less they believe lifting the secrecy of juvenile court would prevent additional juvenile crime; and a long list of threat behaviors in the correctional environment: including - disciplinary problems, fighting behavior, threats of violence, fighting with rival gangs, gang recruiting while in custody, carrying improvised weapons, threatening staff or correctional officers, attempts to smuggle in illegal drugs into the correctional institution, and using religious or cultural fronts for gang operations. All of these hypotheses were supported from a gang involvement or gang risk analysis undertaken in chapter 5.
Chapter 6 looked at the gang as a collective social entity it was possible in this research to identify a number of factors in the nature of the group or organizational structure including its features and capabilities that were significantly related to low or high gang risk behavior at the individual level.
The profile that emerged here was that higher threat levels of individual gang behavior were associated with the following features of more sophisticated gangs: using violence to enforce internal rules; having a special language code; having written rules; having adult leaders who have been in the gang for many years; being a gang that exists in several different geographical areas; being a gang that arose due to exogenous formation (i.e., first arose by contact with the same gang in another city); having a private attorney used for criminal matters; having an account that pays for legal defense; having members from the same family members in a gang; having a treasury; paying regular dues; being required to participate in illegal activities before being considered a full member; having parents as members; parents approving of gang membership; being a gang that knows each member's personal life; being vertically structured gangs (i.e., the things the gang does are approved by a higher up); being a gang that maintains a membership list; being able to fine a member; and having Asian members.
A primary research finding here was that the interaction between gang structure and gang behavior showed a strong clustering effect towards two polar extremes. One tendency was for the less dangerous individual gang member to cluster around less sophisticated and less complex social group formations. The other tendency was for the higher threat gang members to be concentrated in more sophisticated types of gang structures.
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Executive Summary: Continued
Having shown how the many ways in which gang behavior is a function of the structure or organizational sophistication of the type of gang the youth was a member of, the research also examined the scope and extent of social service experiences. This matter of social service consumption involved developing a scale that allowed for comparisons of low and high level of such prior experiences that are commonly regarded as gang prevention and gang intervention service components. It was shown that this consumption also varied by gang risk classification, the tendency being for the gang member to have had more not less of such help from larger society.
Some peculiarities did emerge in examining the consumption patterns of social services among gang members. This showed for example that those in the greatest need, that is those significantly less likely to have had high doses of intervention and prevention services, were Mexican American youths. Other factors were shown to differentiate service consumption levels.
The final chapter examined the differences between female gang members and female non-gang members. There were no exceptions: the female gang members shared much of the same "profile" that is found among male gang members. A variety of such factors were described.
Described as well are the conclusions and recommendations of this large scale national consortium project for knowledge development on gang prevention and gang intervention.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: The Issues of Gang Prevention and Gang Page(s)
Intervention...................................... 1 - 21
Introduction.......................................... 1
A Basic Issue: The Public Health Model of Prevention.. 1 - 2
A Basic Issue: The Assumption that Gang Problems
Can Be Prevented.................................. 2
A Basic Issue: Programs Without Theories Are
Risky Business.................................... 2
A Basic Issue: Some "Gang Programs" of the Past
Did Produce Greater Gang Problems for Society..... 2 - 3
A Basic Issue: We Are Talking About Criminal Gangs... 4
Understanding the Medical Model of Prevention......... 4 - 5
Gangs Running Gang Programs: A Bad Idea............... 5 - 8
Programs Without Theories Are Risks Not Worth Taking.. 8 - 9
Primary Prevention in the School Setting.............. 9
Primary Prevention in the Neighborhood Context........ 9 - 10
Secondary Prevention: Working With "At Risk" Youths... 10 - 11
The Community-Based Consortia Approach................ 11
Confused Gang Prevention: An Example of a Program
Without A Theory.................................. 11 - 12
A Gang Outreach Program That Made Recent History...... 12 - 14
The Federal Government Funding for Gang Programs...... 14
Programs to Establish "Gang Truces"................... 14 - 15
A Look at Components of Service in Gang Programs...... 15 - 18
Why This National Study Was Conducted................. 18
What is Project GANGPINT.............................. 18
What is the National Gang Crime Research Center....... 18
Methodology for Project GANGPINT...................... 19
National Sampling Strategy............................ 19
Value of the Research................................. 19
Researchers Involved in Project GANGPINT.............. 19
The Task Force Approach Used in Project GANGPINT...... 19
Benefits to Host Sites................................ 20
Process for Collecting Data........................... 20
Option to Remain A Totally Anonymous Site............. 20
Summary and Conclusion................................ 20 - 21
Chapter 2: Methodology.............................. 22 - 37
Formation of the Project GANGPINT Task Force.......... 22 - 23
Sampling Gang Members in Multiple Social Contexts..... 23
Item Development and Pretesting the Survey Instrument. 23 - 24
Sampling Nearly 2,000 Gang Members.................... 24 - 26
Internal Controls on Data Quality..................... 26 - 30
1. Covert Observation............................ 26
2. Overt Observation............................. 26 - 27
3. Zero Tolerance for Data Entry Errors.......... 27
4. Few Unusable Survey Instruments Detected...... 27
5. An Acceptable Level of Trust Was Established.. 27 - 28
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Table of Contents: Continued
6. High Cognition on the Meaning of the Survey
items Implies Clearly We Are Measuring What Page(s)
We Purport to Measure......................... 28 - 29
7. Built-in Lie Tests............................ 29 - 30
Other Issues of Validity.............................. 30 - 34
Reliability........................................... 34 - 36
Other Issues of Validity and Reliability:
For Improving Future Research..................... 36 - 37
Types of Gangs Represented in the National Sample..... 37
Why We Know The Gang Members Are in the Gangs They
Purport to be Members Of.......................... 37
Chapter 3: A Description of the Gang Members
in the Present Study.............................. 38 - 89
Introduction.......................................... 38
Basic Demographic Factors............................. 38
Family Factors........................................ 38 - 46
High Level of Fear: Worry About Family Members... 38 - 39
Almost All Want A Conventional Lifestyle......... 39
The Wartime Hysteria Phenomenon.................. 39
A Third Never Punished By Father for Misbehavior. 39
Belief in Use of Fear to Control Children........ 39 - 40
The Love Mother - Hate Father Pattern............ 40
Parents as Facilitators of Gang Crime............ 40
1/4 Never Got Help at Home with Homework......... 41
1/5 Agree: Take Kids Away from Inept Parents..... 41
2/5 Agree: Parents Benefit From Gang Kids........ 41
2/3 Report Family/Friends Killed in Gang Violence 41 - 42
Most Do Not Want Their Own Children in Gangs..... 42 - 43
High Rate of Drug Problems in Gang Families...... 43
What Gang Members Would Give To Their Children... 43
2/3 Had Adults Trying to Keep Them Out of Gangs.. 43 - 44
4/5 Would Discourage Their Kids From Gang Life... 44
4/5 Want To Eventually Get Legally Married....... 44
2/3 Have Other Family Members Who Are in Gangs... 44 - 45
Parents Who Are Active Gang Members.............. 45
Parental Disapproval of Their Gang Involvement... 45
Why 2/3 Would Quit Gang Life Entirely............ 46
School Factors........................................ 46 - 48
From Victim to Victimizer........................ 46
Educational Attainment........................... 47
Half Have Been Demoted in School................. 47
Most Did Not Get Help With Homework at Home...... 47
The Attention-Surplus Disorder................... 47 - 48
Most Have Been Suspended From School............. 48
2/3 Have Been Expelled From School............... 48
The Role of Religion.................................. 48 - 49
1/3 Have Had Some Religious Training............. 49
3/4 Have Had Positive Church Experiences......... 49
1/2 Rarely If Ever Attend Church................. 49
Nine Out of Ten Do Believe in God................ 49
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Table of Contents: Continued
Page(s)
1/3 Expect to Go to Hell, 2/3 To Heaven.......... 49
The Role of the Mass Media............................ 49 - 52
2/5 Agree: News Coverage Brings New Gang Members. 50
2/3 Like The Attention They Get in the News...... 50
2/3 Like Seeing Themselves in the Newspapers..... 50
1/2 Would Like to Hang Out With A Professor...... 50 - 51
2/5 Agree: Less Media = Fewer New Gang Members... 51
1/3 Agree: Juvenile Coverage Could Prevent Crime. 51 - 52
Intense Media Coverage = Intense Benefit to Gang. 52
Beliefs About Gang Prevention: Views From Gang
Members Who Might Know........................... 52 - 61
1/2 Agree: Programs Can Stop Kids From Getting
Involved in Gangs................................ 53
1/2 Agree: Can Prevent Kids From Joining Gangs... 53
A Current Real Story on Gang Prevention Services. 54
How Gang Members Feel About Five Contemporary
Prevention Issues................................ 55 - 56
1/4 to 1/3 Think Some Efforts = A Waste of Time.. 57
Ratings of the Efficacy of YMCA.................. 58
Half Don't Think Social Workers Can Do the Job... 59 - 60
Program Preferences From Gang Members............ 60
3/4 Agree: Most Want Out of Gang Life Eventually. 60 - 61
3/5 Agree: Boot Camps Won't Do Any Good.......... 61
The Value of a Real Needs Assessment: Looking at the
Service Utilization Backgrounds in the Gang
Member Population................................ 61 - 65
A Big Long List of Intervention Experiences...... 61 - 62
Crisis Hotline Telephone Services................ 63
High Prevalence of Mental Health Services........ 63
1/2 Have Been in Group Therapy................... 63
1/3 Had a 1-on-1 Professional Tutor.............. 63
2/5 Have Been in Substance Abuse Programs........ 64
2/5 Have Been in Job Skills Programs............. 64
2/5 Have Been in Job Training Programs........... 64
1/4 Had Parents Active in the PTA................ 64
3/5 Had Been Involved in Counseling Programs..... 64
4/5 Never Been in Big Brother/Big Sister Program. 64
2/5 Involved in YMCA Recreation Program.......... 64
2/5 Completed D.A.R.E. Drug Prevention Program... 65
Gang Involvement Through the Human Development
Lifespan......................................... 65 - 68
Age First Heard Anything About Gangs............. 65
Age First Met a Gang Member...................... 65
Age First Fired a Pistol or Revolver............. 66
Age First Saw Gang Violence Trauma............... 66
Age They Were First Bullied in School............ 66
Age They First Bullied Someone Else in School.... 66
Current Age of the Gang Members.................. 66
Age First Got a Permanent Tattoo................. 66 - 67
Age First Arrested For any Crime................. 67
Age They Expect to Get Legally Married........... 67
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Table of Contents: Continued
Page(s)
Age First Got Their Own Real Gun................. 67
Age First Joined A Gang.......................... 67
Age The Gang Members Think They Will Die......... 67 - 68
Age They Believe They Will Quit the Gang......... 68
Personality Factors................................... 68
Belief in Luck as a Subcultural Value............ 68
4/5 Worry About Future Facing Today's Children... 68
Authoritarian Stereotypy Among Gang Members...... 68
The Nature of Their Personal Experiences in the Gang.. 69 - 82
Almost All Have Gang Friends...................... 69
Age They First Joined the Gang.................... 69 - 70
What Gang Names Are Represented in This Sample.... 70
What Gang "Nations" Are Represented in the Sample. 70 - 71
Tenure in the Gang: Number of Years of Gang
Involvement....................................... 71
Current Active Gang Membership.................... 71
Not Currently Active, But Separately Report They
Are Still Gang Associates......................... 71
Surprise: Nearly Half Have Tried to Quit the Gang. 71 - 72
2/3 Have Held Rank or Leadership in the Gangs..... 72
2/5 Have Been "Violated" By Their Gang............ 72
1/2 Are in Gangs With a Special Language Code..... 72
2/3 Are in Gangs That Have Written Rules.......... 72 - 73
Most Gangs Are Adult Controlled Organizations..... 73
Most Gangs Exist in Multiple Geographical Areas... 73
The Indigenous Formation Controversy.............. 73 - 74
1/4 of the Gangs Copied Symbols and Names of
An Out-of-town Gang............................... 74
Half Had Contact With Same Gangs Out of Town...... 74
3/4 Are in Gangs That Give Money to Needy Members. 74
1/2 Have Committed A Crime For Financial Gain
With Their Gang................................... 75
1/3 Are in Gangs That Have Private Attorneys...... 75
2/5 Are in Gangs That Keep a Fund for Legal Help.. 75
3/4 Are in Gangs That Hold Regular Meetings....... 75 - 76
How Long Their Gang Has Existed in Years.......... 76
Another Test of the Indigenous Formation Issue.... 76
1/2 Are in Gangs That Have A Gang Treasury........ 76
2/5 Are in Gangs That Require Payment of Dues..... 76
Deadly Violence Over Drug Income.................. 76 - 77
Deadly Violence Over Turf Issues.................. 77 - 78
1/2 Have Fired At Someone in A Drive-By Shooting.. 78 - 79
Motivation for Shooting in a Drive-by Shooting.... 79
1/2 Are Willing to Die For Their Gang............. 79
2/5 Are in Gangs that Require Crime From Members.. 79
A Retrospective Analysis of Reasons for Joining
Gangs............................................. 79
2/3 Have Recruited Others Into Gang Life.......... 79
Where The Gang Recruiting Takes Place............. 79 - 80
Characteristics of the Gang As a Cult Organization.... 80 - 81
Half of the Gangs Have Asian Members.................. 82
- xv -
Table of Contents: Continued
Page(s)
Individual and Gang Income: Less 1/3 is Legal......... 82
Do High Rollers Gain Status in the Gang?.............. 82
How Often Gangs Fight With Each Other Over Money...... 82
Does the Accumulation of Wealth Result in Gained
Respect From Rival Gangs.......................... 82
Gang Member Behavior While Incarcerated............... 82 - 85
Duration of Their Present Incarceration Sentence.. 83
Removal of Privileges............................. 83
1/2 Have Been in Fights While in Custody.......... 83
1/2 Have Threatened Violence While in Custody..... 83
1/2 Have Fought Rival Gangs While in Custody...... 83
1/4 Have Tried to Recruit New Gang Members
While in Custody.................................. 83 - 84
1/4 Have Carried Weapons While in Custody......... 84
1/4 Have Threatened Staff While in Custody........ 84
Most Have Had Disciplinary Reports................ 84
2/5 Have Been Violent Aggressors in Custody....... 84
1/4 Have Tried to Smuggle Drugs into the Facility. 84
1/4 Report: Gangs Use Religious Front Groups...... 84 - 85
Summary of Findings in this Chapter................... 85 - 89
Background........................................ 85
Family............................................ 85
School............................................ 85
Religion.......................................... 85 - 86
Mass Media........................................ 86
Their Beliefs About Prevention.................... 86
Their Own Experiences With Programs/Services...... 86 - 87
Gang Involvement Through the Human Development
Lifespan.......................................... 87
Personality....................................... 87
Their Personal Experiences in the Gang............ 87
Their Descriptions of their Gang Organization..... 87 - 88
Gang Behavior While Incarcerated.................. 88
Major Life Events for Gang Members................ 88 - 89
Chapter 4: The Differences Between Gang Members
And Non-Gang Members.............................. 90 - 108
Introduction.......................................... 90
Strong Difference: Having a Permanent Tattoo.......... 90
Strong Difference: Friends or Family Being Killed
in Gang Violence.................................. 90
Strong Difference: Suspended or Expelled from School.. 90 - 91
Strong Difference: Beliefs About The Value of Boot
Camps As a Gang Deprogramming Tool................ 91
Strong Difference: Gang Members More Likely To Have
Been in Juvenile Correctional Institutions........ 91
Strong Difference: More Gang Members Believe They
Are Going to Hell................................. 92
Strong Difference: Gang Members Are More Likely to
Want Their Own Children to be in a Gang........... 92
- xvi -
Table of Contents: Continued
Strong Difference: Gang Members Are Less Likely to Page(s) Believe the Mass Media Has a Negative Effect...... 92 - 93
Strong Difference: Having Privileges Removed or
Taken Away While in Custody....................... 93
Strong Difference: Having Been in a Physical Fight
With Someone While in Custody..................... 93
Strong Difference: Having Threatened Someone With
Violence While in Custody......................... 93
Strong Difference: Carrying an Improvised Weapon
While in Custody.................................. 93 - 94
Strong Difference: Threatening Correctional Staff or
Officers While in Custody......................... 94
Strong Difference: Starting a Fight or Attacking
Someone While in Custody.......................... 94
Strong Difference: Trying to Smuggle Drugs into the
Correctional Institution.......................... 94
Moderate Difference: Gang Members More Likely to
Believe Educational Programs Are a Waste of
Time for Kids at Risk of Joining a Gang........... 94 - 95
Moderate Difference: Gang Members More Likely to
Believe Counseling Programs Are a Waste of
Time for Kids at Risk of Joining a Gang........... 95
Moderate Difference: Gang Members More Prone
to Stereotypy..................................... 95
Moderate Difference: Gang Members Report More
Substance Abuse in their Families................. 95
Moderate Difference: Gang Members More Likely to
Report That Gangs Use Religious Front Groups...... 95
Weaker Significant Differences Between Gang Members
and Non-gang Members.............................. 95 - 98
Non-Significant Differences........................... 98 - 99
Summary of Major Findings in this Chapter............. 99 - 108
Strong Differences Between Gang Members and
Non-Gang Members................................. 99
Moderate Differences Between Gang Members and
Non-Gang Members................................. 99 - 100
Weaker Significant Differences Between Gang Members
and Non-Gang Members............................. 100
Chapter 5: A Risk Analysis of Gang Member
Behavior Patterns............................... 109 - 131
Introduction......................................... 109 - 110
Gang Theory, Research, and Practice.................. 110 - 111
The Basic Screening Questions Used in the Gang
Risk Scale...................................... 111 - 112
The Raw Scores of the Gang Risk Index................ 112 - 114
Findings From the Gang Risk Classification System.... 115
The Greater the Gang Involvement, The Greater the
Skepticism About Gang Prevention Programs........ 115 - 116
The More Involved in the Gang, The Less Worry About
The Future Facing Today's Children............... 116
- xvii -
Table of Contents: Continued
Page(s)
The Higher the Gang Involvement, the Higher the
Belief That Some Programs Are A Waste of Time.... 116
Bullying: The Essential Resume Item for
Gang Involvement................................. 116
No Surprise: The Higher the Gang Involvement, the
Higher the Juvenile Correctional Experience...... 116 - 117
Family: The Role of the Father Revisited............ 117
Dogmatism and the Gang Personality................... 117
Gang Members Have Had More, Not Less Help............ 117 - 118
Beliefs About Whether A Boot Camp Could Influence
Some To Get Out of a Gang........................ 118
The Higher the Gang Involvement, The Higher the
School Failure................................... 118
The Higher the Gang Involvement, The Less Satisfying
Prior Experiences With Churches.................. 118
The Higher the Gang Involvement, The More The
Person Expects to Go to Hell..................... 119
The Higher the Gang Involvement, the More Likely the
Person is to Have a Permanent Tattoo............. 119
The Higher the Gang Risk Level, the Lower the Female
Representation................................... 119
The Higher the Gang Risk Level, the Lower the Belief
That Social Work Can Be An Effective Strategy.... 119
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Lower the Attribution
of Negative Effects to the Mass Media............ 119 - 120
Something Gang Recruiters Don't Mention: The Higher
the Gang Risk, the Greater the Likelihood of
Having Friends or Family Killed in Gang Violence. 120
The Higher the Gang Risk Level, the More the Person
Wants Their Own Children to Be in a Gang......... 120
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Higher the Substance
Abuse in the Family.............................. 120
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Lower the Perceived
Value of Lifting Juvenile Court Secrecy.......... 120 - 121
Gangs in Correctional Institutions: The Clear and
Present Danger of Increased Threats Along the
Gang Risk Continuum.............................. 121
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the
Disciplinary Problems in Corrections............. 121
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Higher the Fighting
Behavior Behind Bars............................. 121 - 122
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Threats of
Violence Behind Bars............................. 122
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Fighting
With Rival Gang Members Behind Bars.............. 122
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Additional
Gang Recruiting That Goes on Behind Bars......... 122
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Higher the Problem of
Inmates Carrying Homemade Weapons................ 122
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Threats
Against Correctional Staff and Officers.......... 122
- xviii -
Table of Contents: Continued
Page(s)
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Violent
Behavior Inside Correctional Populations......... 123
The Higher the Gang Risk, the Greater the Attempts
to Smuggle Illegal Drugs into the Institution.... 123
The Higher the Gang Risk, the More Likely the Inmate
Gang Members Are to Use Religious or Cultural
Fronts for Their Operations Behind Bars.......... 123
Summary and Conclusion............................... 123 - 131
Chapter 6: The Relationship Between Individual
Gang Risk Behavior and the Gang As a Group
or Organizational Structure...................... 132 - 149
Introduction......................................... 132 - 133
The Relationship Between Gang Involvement and
Gang Structures.................................. 133
The Basic Profile of the Gang Involvement
Risk Levels...................................... 133 - 134
The Gang as a Coercive Compliance Structure.......... 134
Gangs That Have A Special Language Code.............. 134 - 135
Gangs That Have Written Rules........................ 135
Gangs With Adult Leaders Who Have Been in the Gang
For Many Years................................... 135 - 136
Gangs That Exist in Several Different Geographical
Areas............................................ 136
Exogenous Formation.................................. 136
Gangs That Have A Private Attorney Used For
Criminal Matters................................. 137
Gangs That Keep An Account That Pays Only For
Legal Defense.................................... 137
Gangs That Hold Regular Meetings..................... 137
Familial Ties in Gang Life........................... 137
Gangs That Maintain A Treasury....................... 137 - 138
Gangs That Require Members to Pay Regular Dues....... 138
Gangs That Require Participation in Crime............ 138
Parental Complicity in Gang Organizations............ 139 - 139
Parents Who Approve of the Gang Membership of
Their Children................................... 139
Autonomy and Social Control in Gang Organizations.... 139
Vertically Structured Gang Organizations............. 139
Gangs That Maintain Membership Lists................. 140
Gangs That Can Fine Members for Mistakes............. 140
Heterogeneous Gangs: Having Asian Members............ 140
Gangs That Get Greater Member Mobilization From
Intense News Coverage............................ 140
Gangs That Gain More New Members From Intense
News Coverage.................................... 140 - 141
Commitment to the Gang Organization: Dropping Their
Flag for the Good Life........................... 141
Developing a Gang Organizational Scale............... 141 - 143
The Relationship of Gang Organizational Complexity
to Levels of Gang Involvement.................... 143 - 144
- xix -
Table of Contents: Continued
Summary and Conclusion.............................. 145 - 149
Chapter 7: Social Service Consumption Levels
Among Youths In Relationship to
Gang Risk Factors............................... 150 - 164
Introduction........................................ 150
Developing a Social Service Consumption Scale....... 150 - 152
A Look At Gang Members Only......................... 152 - 154
The Relationship Between Social Service Consumption
and Risk/Threat Behaviors in the
Correctional Environment........................ 154 - 157
Factors Differentiating Low and High Levels
of Social Service Consumption in the
Entire Sample................................... 157 - 163
Summary and Conclusion.............................. 163 - 164
Chapter 8: Factors Differentiating Female
Gang Members................................... 165 - 176
Introduction........................................ 165
Comparing Female Gang Members With Female
Non-Gang Members............................... 165
Female Gang Members Are More Skeptical About
Gang Prevention Programs....................... 165 - 166
Another Significant Difference: The Role of
Law Enforcement................................ 166
Female Gang Members Are More Likely To View
Education and Counseling in Secondary
Prevention Efforts as A Waste of Time.......... 166
Female Gang Members Fit the Profile of Male Gang
Members in Being More Likely to Have Engaged
in Bullying Behavior While in School........... 167
Female Gang Members More Likely to Have Been in
Court-Mandated Counseling or Therapy........... 167
Female Gang Members Less Likely to Report Parents
Who Are Active in the PTA...................... 167
Female Gang Members Put Less Faith in "Boot Camps"
As a Gang Deprogramming Tool................... 167
Female Gang Members Show Less Educational
Achievement Than Non-Gang Member Females....... 167
Like Male Gang Members, Female Gang Members Are
More Likely to Have a Permanent Tattoo......... 167
Female Gang Members More Likely to Be Possessed
With the Belief of Their Own Damnation......... 168
Female Gang Members Attribute Less Effectiveness
to Social Workers in Gang Prevention........... 168
Female Gang Members Are Less Likely to Blame
the Mass Media................................. 168
Female Gang Members Are Much More Likely to Have
Had Friends or Family Killed in Gang Violence.. 168
A Fifth of the Female Gang Members Want Their Own
Children to Be in the Gang..................... 169
- xx -
Table of Contents: Continued
Female Gang Members Are More Likely to Report
Coming From a Family With Substance
Abuse Problems................................. 169
Female Gang Members Were More, Not Less, Likely to
Report Having Had A Good Relationship With An
Adult Who Tried to Steer Them Away From Gangs.. 169
Like Male Gang Members: The Female Gang Membership
Profile Includes A Greater Likelihood of
School Failure................................. 169 - 170
Another Commonality Between Male and Female Gang
Members: Threat Behavior Behind Bars.......... 170
Summary and Conclusion.............................. 171 - 176
Chapter 9: Summary, Conclusions, and
Recommendations............................... 177 - 179
Overview............................................ 177
Summary............................................. 177 - 178
Conclusion.......................................... 178
Recommendations..................................... 179
Selected Bibliography on Gang Prevention and Gang
Intervention.................................... 180 - 196
Notes............................................... 197 - 200
- xxi -
CHAPTER 1
The Issues of Gang Prevention and Gang Intervention
INTRODUCTION
While it is hard to exactly quantify, it is safe to say that during the last four decades as much as a billion dollars may have been spent on gang research and gang programs. Annually, and currently, federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services spend millions on programs designed to treat or intervene with gang members or youths at-risk of gang membership.
What is very curious about the history of gang programs is that for the last four decades a high level of spending has continued from funding by government agencies and private donors, and these gang prevention and gang intervention programs throughout the United States have not had the benefit of a national needs assessment. Implementing programs without a needs assessment is like traveling in a foreign land without a road map. More importantly, as will be shortly discussed, when we are dealing with social programs that have potential impact areas in crime and violence the issue becomes more acute.
In this chapter, we will explain the rationale for undertaking this large scale national research, called Project GANGPINT and some of the basic issues in gang prevention and gang intervention. We will outline the importance of a quantitative assessment of the prospects for gang prevention and gang intervention. We will explain how this effort could be useful in developing a coherent national policy towards the gang problem that now affects nearly all American communities in one way or another. Finally, we will explain the basic details of how the research was conducted. A more detailed description of the methodology is provided in Chapter 2 which provides details of validity and reliability.
A BASIC ISSUE: The Public Health Model of Prevention
In the public health model of prevention there are only three logical possibilities for "what is to be done to who". There is primary prevention, this means getting to the person before they are exposed to the problem. There is secondary prevention, this means getting to persons who are at risk from the gang problem, but who are not yet a part of the problem. And there is tertiary prevention, this means getting to those persons who have the problem.
So, applied to the gang problem, we can quickly summarize what the public health model of prevention means. Primary prevention is the pure version of prevention, it means getting to kids early in life before they have even heard about gangs or know anything about gangs, and insulating them against any future contamination from gangs or gang members. Secondary prevention in the gang context is basically intervention with those who are already at-risk of gang involvement, these may be kids who have gang friends, who are low on the ladder of the gang-risk continuum, but who show every sign of potentially becoming a future gang member. Finally, tertiary prevention basically means "rehabilitation", an effort to work with gang members and gangs and turn them around somehow.
A BASIC ISSUE: The Assumption That Gang Problems Can Be Prevented
We are willing to assume the affirmative: that in most cases prevention can be effective in heading off a number of different social problems like that presented by the American gang problem today. We are even more willing to assume that pure prevention is going to hold greater prospects for successful progress than tertiary prevention efforts. That is, the greatest dividend for society is in pure prevention. We would expect less success in tertiary prevention initiatives because we are aware of no "magic bullet" in the long history of offender services. We do recognize that education and employment are important ingredients to any tertiary prevention program.
A BASIC ISSUE: Programs Without Theory Are Risky Business
If the social program under analysis were simply that of a program design to enhance the social etiquette skills of young persons, it is hard to conceive of how the program could harm society in some way. That is, even if the children slept through the program, or did not learn from it, all we really have as a logical potential outcome are kids that could have less than good manners. So if the "good manners" program lacked a theory of human behavior for inculcating such manners, the risk to society is not very large.
The issue changes dramatically when we are talking about criminal justice, delinquency, crime, offender, and particularly "gang" programs. If a gang program without a good theoretical justification for intervention "goes bad", then we are facing more than a problem of bad manners from "program failures". If a gang program goes bad in terms of outcomes, then we could be in the situation of producing an even more dangerous gang problem.
A BASIC ISSUE: Some "Gang Programs" Of The Past Did Produce Greater Gang Problems For Society
The interested reader is urged to examine the chapters pertaining to this issue in An Introduction to Gangs (Knox, 1995), as we can only provide a sketch of this interesting American history here. This is the situation where truly "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and we might add a true lack of a theoretical model for expecting positive impact on a hardcore gang offender population!
Two books are available providing espousing the accomplishments of Rev. John Fry in the 1960's in Chicago. Obviously, the author viewed his work as successful (Fry, 1969; Fry, 1973). Why don't you be the judge.
Here is what Fry did. He tried to coopt the gangs, offering them a "bone", offering them jobs in running a gang program for their gang members, the context being a church in Hyde Park on Chicago's southside.
Fry's gang program therefore sought what many programs today seek: the blessing of the gang to work with the gang. It means recognizing the gang as a bargaining agent. It means conferring legitimate negotiating authority on a gang organization from larger society: it is a bad idea theoretically. Why? Because the gang leader then gains in prestige, certain concessions may be made to the gang, and any influence the gang has will only make that gang stronger as an entity.
Fry sought to use age-old basically good "service components": educational upgrading, vocational training, and job placement. We would not argue against the merits of any human capital development service component: we argue as all in the social professions argue today that this might be the most powerful way for a nation like the United States of America to actually continue to be a leading world power --- by producing better types of human beings, more educated, more skilled, more developed and self-actualized as human beings.
The flaw, then, was in the delivery process and the structure of authority: Fry enlisted the gang itself in controlling what gets done. The rest of the story unfolds quickly.
Will any criminal gang take government and foundation money that is offered to it? Certainly. And Jeff Fort, the leader of the Blackstone Rangers at that time which would later become the infamous El Rukn gang empire, was no exception. Jeff Fort eagerly got involved in Rev. Fry's new social program for Chicago's southside, something that aimed to significantly improve the quality of life in south Chicago.
So what happened? Well, the area affected is today desolate, and has had three decades of continued escalating gang violence. What happened to Jeff Fort? Jeff got his first federal criminal conviction by stealing thousands of dollars in federal money spent on the program. Jeff also got his first firearms arsenal and his first Mercedes Benz out of the deal. Jeff was able to catapult his small group into an empire over the years. It would finally take a major effort by the federal government to squash Jeff's gang. At the time of his last conviction, which landed Jeff in federal prison for life, Jeff's was on the verge of carrying out terrorism for hire acts in the USA for hostile foreign countries.
So what happened overall, over time? Jeff's gang benefited enormously from the largesse of Rev. Fry's social program. It meant an infusion of hard cash into the gang. It meant enormous positive publicity for Jeff. Jeff converted that into an even larger gang. Over time, the name of the gang changed. But what did not change was the crime: the crime threat only escalated.
A gang has no respect for a chump. A gang will only exploit a chump. A program that helps a gang become stronger or more effective as a gang is a program that is in the business of the production of further gang crime and more gang violence.
A BASIC ISSUE: We Are Talking About Criminal Gangs
It is popular in some circles to assume that all playgroups and even fraternities can be at some times considered a gang. We do recognize that the term gang is deservedly a label, a label that implies a risk or threat to society. We therefore reserve this label for those groups and organizations --- both formal and informal --- that are responsible for ongoing crime and violence. America does not fear "Spanky and Alfalfa" in the "Little Rascals". America fears criminal gangs. Criminal gangs are groups and organizations, formal and informal, that benefit from the known and approved criminal activity of its members.
That is why this study sought to find the real gang members in American society today: the Crips, the Bloods, the People, the Folks, and a very long list of very well known gangs operating throughout the United States today.
Programs that claim to be working with gangs and only work with low level groups of alienated kids not yet involved in crime or delinquency are really programs working at the primary level of gang intervention. There are literally thousands of such programs today. There are also many programs that work with real gang members. But what has been missing in all of the work of thousands of persons who work in this worthwhile field is a national needs assessment that examines the actual backgrounds of a large number of real gang members in different geographical areas of the USA. The present study sought to fill this void in our knowledge about what to do and about what should or should not be done about the gang problem today.
UNDERSTANDING THE MEDICAL MODEL OF PREVENTION
Many persons want to do something about the gang problem, and more often than not the response involves establishing some type of gang program. There are many, many different gang programs; some are simply better known than others. Most knowledgeable citizens want gang prevention programs. Prevention can mean: (1) primary prevention, (2) secondary prevention, and (3) tertiary prevention. Primary prevention means getting to the person before they have been exposed to gangs, attempting with a good theory of human behavior to prevent the person from ever having any involvement with gangs. Secondary prevention means getting to the person who has already been exposed to gangs, and with a good theory of human behavior and based on what we know from criminology and delinquency prevention, and attempting to extract them from gang influence and prevent them from further gang involvement. Tertiary prevention means basically an intent to "rehabilitate", and means getting to the person who is a self-reported gang member and attempting with professional guidance based on theory, research, and sound policy to reduce the future crime impact of such persons.
Prevention carries a somewhat different meaning than intervention. Intervention implies working with gang youths. Tertiary prevention therefore comes closest to the full meaning of intervention in that it implies that some type or combination of services need to be provided to "those in the gang". Given a limited number of resources, the preference assumed by the social polity here is that of primary prevention rather than intervention. Intervention implies some ability to "rehabilitate" and the literature on the success of such efforts is truly mixed. A somewhat less ambitious goal in terms of impacting on human behavior is implied in primary prevention where the emphasis is on "insulating" someone from becoming involved in the problem behavior.
As will be explained elsewhere, there are different levels of gang involvement. This is not simply the difference between "hard core" and "fringe" members. There are leaders. There exists in most formal organizational gangs a middle management as well. There exist those who are "honorary" members or "ancianos" (i.e., older less active, almost retired, or honorary members) from whom less is expected. There always exists the regular "foot soldiers". But there also exists those who are simply "associates", or wannabes. Knowing what level of social integration the person has into any gang will vary proportionately to the difficulty of prevention efforts. The higher the gang integration, the higher the difficulty of inducing individual behavior change.
The purpose of this chapter is to take a much closer look at gang programs; their ingredients (what they do), their structure (how they do it), their goals (what they hope to accomplish), their target groups (who they provide services to), and their assumptions if any (when and under what conditions do they logically expect to achieve a positive result based on the social sciences about human behavior).
GANGS RUNNING GANG PROGRAMS: A BAD IDEA
A good deal of our psychological literature and common sense would tell us that professional help is needed when it comes to restoring someone to good mental health. That is to say, an active criminal cannot rehabilitate another criminal nor rehabilitate himself. The idea behind professional trained expertise is that it is unrealistic to lock someone up and basically say "go rehabilitate yourself or someone else". On the other hand, the indigenous approach works well in some contexts, for some persons, at some times, for some specific purposes. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its many related forms (NA, etc) is viewed as an important and positive part of an overall solution throughout most of the literature and in common beliefs.
There are many examples of gang leaders and gangs being the primary administrators of "gang prevention/intervention" programs. These gang programs fit a definite profile. Once the government or foundation funding disappears, they disappear. Once the government or foundations discover they have misappropriated the funds, they disappear. They will resist to the bitter end any efforts to hold them "accountable" by the means of formal program evaluation research that involves a complete statistical accounting. They see "program evaluators" as the "G-men", the "funding five-oh". They want to be able to spend their money any way they want to. They do not want to have someone tell them they need a good theory of human behavior before attempting to intervene in the life of an individual regarding the protection of human subjects (e.g., what could happen afterwards if it really was not a good theoretically sound idea to do what they did to an individual in their field-service experiment).
How do gangs whose main goal is illegal income from criminal activity end up running gang programs? The fieldwork of Kotlowitz describes this process as it worked for Jeff Fort on Chicago's southside:
"By the late 1960s, the gangs had won some standing among the establishment, particularly with liberals who felt that these young hoodlums, given proper guidance, might turn their energies and enviable organizing and leadership abilities to bettering their neighborhoods" (Kotlowitz, 1992: p. 37).
Similarly, for the Vice Lords on Chicago's westside:
"At Henry Horner, the Vice Lords gained a similar standing when a local hospital bequeathed a former Catholic boys' school it owned, coupled with a grant of over $20,000, to local gang leaders in the hope that they would open a neighborhood center" (Kotlowitz, 1992: p. 37).
Just like Jeff Fort, the Vice Lords used those assets for something other than community improvement.
The Federal government has not been a leader in clarifying "what works" in terms of gang prevention/intervention. It has been a leader in funding a wide number of 1960's style programs that were specifically targeting gang members or potential gang members. The Federal government has, over the last three decades, supported a wide number of gang experiments seeking to intervene in the gang crime problem. Some have clearly and most certainly achieved dramatic results, but in the opposite direction! That is, some programs have inadvertently increased the wealth and power, and thereby the persistence, continuity and expansion, of certain specific gangs. It seems reasonable to conclude that this has also meant, in its limited context, increasing rather than decreasing the gang crime problem.
The well-intended work of a member of the clergy known as Reverend Fry is one such example. Whether he said it or not in his applications for federal funding, Rev. Fry assumed the theory that gang members could be easily "coopted" into leading a law abiding existence. Rev. Fry hired Jeff Fort, the leader of the Black P. Stones and the Main 21, to help "solve the gang problem". Jeff Fort quickly manipulated the situation, ciphering off funds, hiring "ghost workers", demanding "kickbacks" from fellow gang members whom he hired under the authority of the program, and outright misappropriation (e.g., program fraud).
This sudden influx of hard money into the treasury of Jeff Fort's gang, meant it accumulated more weapons and more capital with which to eventually enter large scale narcotic trafficking. Overall, it meant never asking Jeff Fort, nor any other gang member, to ever sign a "pledge" that they had dropped their gang allegiance, that they would "give up on crime". Rev. Fry was concerned about gang violence and convinced the Federal government he could "do something about it". Rev. Fry assumed that offering a context for a "peace treaty" and a helping hand to these troubled youths would have a positive result. The result was not positive, the result was the El Rukns: a formidable, highly organized, tight knit, highly selective, extremely violent, criminal gang that still operates today in spite of the incarceration of its top leadership.
A genuine "bad idea" is to basically turn over assets to a hostile group like a highly organized criminal gang. Such an example is detailed in the case of the program started in 1976 known as "GET GOING, INC" (Madden, 1993: 7). It was an aftercare program for "Pintos" (released prisoners) located in East Los Angeles. It was run by the Mexican Mafia (EME). It was clearly, then, aimed at "tertiary prevention": the hardest to accomplish. According to the report this program was "actually a front for the Mexican Mafia" (ibid). Thus, "Federal grants were used to purchase heroin in Mexico" and they used their access to the prisons to increase the gang presence throughout California. When someone was about to "spill the beans" in 1977 about this federal fraud, she was killed by an EME member (ibid).
The cases of Jeff Fort and the Get Going Inc program illustrate what not to do. Providing assets that can be readily converted to the use of the gang (a criminal enterprise) is not the best idea if the goal is to reduce the gang crime threat problem. Similarly, a Boot Camp or "Leadership Training" program for some gangs might fit right into the agenda of a gang leader. A physically stronger and better disciplined gang member is the ideal soldier of any gang leader. Thus, program intervention cannot be predicated on the "terms" of the gang, but must rather be based on the "terms" and expectations of the community that must eventually face the gang problem if it gets much worse. The goals of the law-abiding community and the goals of the gang may be antithetical outside of the generalized context of "we all want a better world". In the context of specific issues, community members do not want armed gangs shooting up the neighborhood. No gang truce or "peace treaty" has yet to surface where gang members truly turned in their weapons. Someone who thinks the "gang truces" in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and elsewhere have resulted in a sudden permanent decrease in gang violence should get a police scanner and start listening to their local police calls like the organized gang-controlled drug-distribution rings do themselves to avoid serious arrests.
Gangs do aspire to control government funding for gang programs and sometimes appear to be able to reach to the very top of the local politicians for such support. More often than not, however, it backfires. Such was the case in October, 1985 when the mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota met with John Scruggs, the local leader of the Disciples gang who was seeking $58,000 in seed money to start a youth center. The very next day, this same gang leader executed a 16-year-old female member --- Christine Kreitz --- because he feared she could link him to a crime that if discovered would jeopardize the government grant. Scruggs was convicted of first-degree murder and received a life sentence in prison.
PROGRAMS WITHOUT THEORIES ARE RISKS NOT WORTH TAKING
As used here a theory means a model of etiological logic that is consistent with prior research support and/or common sense application of validated explanations of human behavior; in this instance, human behavior involving deviance, more specifically, crime and delinquency, as well as substance abuse and violence. Intervention or prevention implies an effort to "interrupt" a sequence of human behavior, at an appropriate point in time, to motivate behavioral change. This also presumes we are talking about individual behavior; not the treatment of group behavior. It is not assumed here that an entire group (i.e., gang in this case) is subject to such change.
The idea that no theory is used to guide program intervention efforts means it is an atheoretical model. In an atheoretical model, basically anything could happen as a result of the intervention because there is no logical sequence or justification for "what might happen". It is a "flip of the coin" situation. It could just as easily go "wrong" as go "right". If it goes wrong we produce criminals rather than preventing crime. The idea of having a theoretically justified model of intervention is that the program can logically expect positive impact at a higher level of probability than a flip of the coin (50/50 chance). A good theory of human behavior increases the odds of having a positive impact, which is why it is needed.
That any program of intervention or prevention dealing with crime or delinquency --- in this instance gang crime --- needs a theory justifying what it proposes to do is now one of the areas of consensus not just among gang researchers, but among almost all criminologists and social scientists.
It is important to have rigorous evaluation research conducted on all gang intervention/prevention programs. This should include both process (what happens during the program) and product evaluations (what happens afterwards, the "outcomes"). An atheoretical evaluation is also not a good idea. The "measures" used in the evaluation (reduction in recidivism, increased self-esteem, reduced interaction with gang members, etc) need to be as closely as possible related to the specific theory of intervention being used by the program.
PRIMARY PREVENTION IN THE SCHOOL SETTING
A number of program approaches have been described in the gang literature that are useful in the school setting (Knox, Laske, and Tromanhauser, 1992). The idea is to combine anti-gang education with anti-drug education, because so often in the school setting these two problems go hand in hand. Actually, a third problem --- conflict and violence --- can also be highly correlated with gang and drug problems. Thus, in the Cleveland Public Schools a special Youth Gang Unit was created in its Division of Safety & Security. The concept behind this type of added expertise is that by training teachers on gang recognition issues, on conflict resolution, etc, and working with parents and community groups, that the school has a fighting chance to curb these inter-related problems. Most teachers do not get training about gangs in college, however they need it to effectively carry out their mission.
PRIMARY PREVENTION IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT
Recreational activities structured and supervised in such a fashion as to provide a viable alternative to what the gangs offer in terms of fellowship and "excitement" are a common ingredient for the primary prevention of gang problems. Boys and Girls Clubs offer such activities in their drop-in centers as do many others (e.g., the YMCA/YWCA). Special initiatives such as the "Take Our Daughters to Work Club" work with large corporate sponsors such as Ameritech and in addition to providing a daily safe haven for kids also provide some social skills upgrading. The goal is to prevent such "good kids" from ever joining a gang, and to keep them "off the streets" where the gangs are ever present.
A program that specifically incorporated such recreational activities as well as arts and crafts for youths, and which operated continuously for 52 years and is therefore regarded by some as the oldest anti-gang program in Chicago, is that started by the late Daniel "Moose" Brindisi who was the executive director of the Near Northwest Civic Committee. This neighborhood based program also acquired its own summer camp, Camp Pompeii, which is located in Park Forest, Illinois. This program also used the recommendation of Thrasher (1918) that Boy Scout and Cub Scout groups could provide valuable socialization experiences as a way of gang prevention at the primary level. Groups like Boys Nation and Girls Nation also provide such general positive socialization experiences in an adult supervised context of legitimate social control.
There is a potentially endless list of positive, pro-social, skill-building, adult-supervised projects, programs and experiences that can be provided to children in an overall strategy to prevent gang affiliation at the primary level of prevention. At an elementary school near Chicago's Cabrini-Green, a drum and bugle corp was formed; while the staff volunteers could handle 80 children ages 5 through 9, some 300 actually applied to use the 36 drums available. There are basically some very worthwhile programs that need to be funded that are not being funded. If we really want to do something for youths, then clearly there are a lot of ways to steer them away from gang involvement.
SECONDARY PREVENTION: WORKING WITH "AT RISK" YOUTHS
A common theme in secondary prevention is to target geographical areas that represent a "high risk". This has often meant targeting youths from 8 to 16 in public housing complexes. In such settings, the gang/drug/violence/crime problem is an ever present problem. Project FLOW (Future Leaders Of the World) in Philadelphia, for example, with $875,602 in funding for the first 17 months seeks to serve 490 such at-risk youths. As described in its literature, this program includes a number of traditional and unique service components:
"The program activities developed to benefit these youth will include an education component involving tutoring, homework assistance, study groups, etc; comprehensive drug related services such as drug and alcohol education, prevention education, refusal skills building (Drugs/Violence/Alcohol) and counseling. The comprehensive gang prevention services will provide mentoring, individual and family counseling, conflict resolution and anger control workshops. Other activities will include summer programs, sports and recreation and other related cultural activities including trips to museums, parks etc. Parent support groups will also be formed to support and stabilize the family structures.
All Project FLOW youth will receive basic Health Care through the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Another major component...will be the 'Rites of Passage' module which is designed to increase awareness and develop skills associated with positive culture and ethnic identities of the youth served".
As should be expected, the FLOW program is evaluated by a University in its area. All programs with direct contact with youths should be subject to such thorough independent evaluation.
Some consulting firms have arisen rapidly to the potential market for such services to local government. It is not unusual for such consultants to be paid $100 an hour for their services in helping establish such programs.
THE COMMUNITY-BASED CONSORTIA APPROACH
In recent years, the federal funding for gang programs has emphasized a community-based consortia approach. What it means is bringing together a number of different programs and services under a larger umbrella-style program; all of the actors targeting a specific population for intensive prevention services. An example of such a program that bases its expectations for impact on the prior research and on sound theory is that of the "Mujeres Y Hombres Nobles" (Noble Men and Women) program of the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Funded with a $3 million grant that will last five years the consortium will serve 30,000 residents and 350 school age children in East Los Angeles. Its program components include: "gang risk reduction, drug prevention and treatment, HIV/AIDS prevention, vocational training, cultural pride and esteem, spiritual and moral rencounterment, mentoring by Madrinas and Padrinos, intergenerational gang family systems intervention, conflict resolution and mediation, education and community awareness, and linkages to services".
This program is unique in being capable of dealing with the intergenerational gang family situation. Unfortunately, it is a not infrequent problem apparently, and one of the least researched aspects of the gang/family area. The Mujeres y Hombres Nobles program summary gives an example:
Teen Angel Magazine published exclusively for California gang members, regularly publishes pictures submitted by teen mothers of their children and babies dressed in gang clothing and giving gang hand signs; these teen mothers are unknowingly enculturating a new generation of gang members.
CONFUSED GANG PREVENTION: AN EXAMPLE OF A PROGRAM WITHOUT A THEORY
The Gang Project described here was funded by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). It had as its first broad purpose to "develop an action plan in the city which identified the community's vision for a gang-free city, the obstacles blocking that vision, new directions to take to overcome the obstacles, and implementation plans for each new direction". The strange idea here was that the gang problem could be solved with an administrative solution: some master plan that would take a couple years to develop. As the program "unfolded", it changed its goal away from "gang-free" to that of having gangs be less violent in their city. To quote their final report to DHHS:
"A shift occurred in the original language of the goals from 'gang free' to one that focussed on creating a climate in which gangs did not act in violent ways. It was felt that some hypocrisy would be in place if our goal was gang free but we said nothing about 'gangs' such as Rotary or Kiwanis or Lions."
The project offered "training" of an unspecified nature to community groups and nonprofit staff, which along with "community meetings" were not well attended. At some point, the project engaged in direct service to youths in schools and juvenile corrections; using former addicts and ex-gang members to speak to them on --- presumably --- the evil of gangs and drugs.
So what happened at the end of the project funding period? No such coherent strategic plan was ever actually written. The final report included a lot of vague generalities about the need for community empowerment. It evaluated itself, and felt it did a good job.
That is the danger of an atheoretical program: it can literally change its goals, which must be viewed with some criticism. The Project was probably not the best use of public monies. It probably sounded good to Washington (holding community forums, interfacing various agencies, etc), but the Project lacked any coherent theory and then changed its goals and began doing direct service work.