Youth Gangs: Definitions

During the past two decades, research and criminal justice practitioner communities have turned increasing attention toward youth gangs. This attention is exhibited by the increases in funding for gang re­search, the creation of research institutes focused on gang activity, the development of specialized gang units in the law enforce­ment agencies, and the enactment of legis­lation directed at controlling gang activity. With this increased interest has emerged a debate as to what qualifies as a gang. Al­though at first glance the matter of finding an adequate definition of youth gangs can appear trivial, it has important impli­cations in a policy context. First, the defi­nition utilized can determine whether a group in a given community will receive directed attention from law enforcement agencies. Second, falling within an official definition of a gang can increase the legal ramifications for the members of these groups, with such actions as sentencing enhancements for gang crimes or the en­forcement of civil gang injunctions. Third, recognition as a gang can have an impor­tant implication for where social service agencies distribute their resources in order to reduce gang activity. Thus, developing an adequate definition of youth gangs is very important.

The point of contention over defining a group as a gang centers on what character­istics will form the checklist used to confer this title. The most common characteristic, and the most obvious, is that a gang must be composed of a group of individuals, which connotes the collective as opposed to the individual nature of gangs. Some definitions specify this characteristic by asserting a minimum number of indivi­duals who must belong to the group, al­though there is no consensus as to what this number should be. Further, in the con­text of youth gangs, the focus is on groups composed of juveniles and young adults as opposed to exclusively adult criminal orga­nizations. The characteristic of a group composed of young individuals alone, however, has little meaning since most acts of delinquency or crime committed by juveniles occur in a group context. Thus, other defining characteristics are re­quired to distinguish gangs from other groups.

Another characteristic is the use of symbols by the members to identify the gang. This characteristic is often repre­sented by the display of a name or insignia that is found on the attire of members (such as on their shirts or ball caps) or by tattoos. Some gangs will also adopt cer­tain colors associated with their gang that are displayed in their clothing, or they will wear their clothing in a certain manner that is associated with the gang (such as the right pant leg pulled up to the knee). Further, graffiti is often used to display a gang’s name or insignia in order to com­municate their existence to others. In addition, some will display certain hand signs to identify their gang and members. The use of such symbols not only provides an observable indicator of the gang’s exis­tence, but also personal acknowledgment by the members of their association with one another.

The permanence of a gang’s existence is another definitional characteristic. The in­tention of this characteristic is to avoid the inclusion of groups that form over a single time-bound issue and then disband a short period thereafter. One of the difficulties with this characteristic, however, is that the length of existence varies considerably across gangs. For example, large cities that have an extended history of gang activity, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, are com­prised of some gangs that have existed for multiple generations. Whereas, other smal­ler cities that have only recently seen gangs emerge in their community may have groups that have existed for less than two years. There is no consistent measure found within the various definitions as to the required length of existence. In fact, to create such a fixed qualification of, say, five years could be a limitation in the efforts to understand and address gangs. The failure of law enforcement and social service pro­viders to acknowledge groups that fall short of this criterion would hamper their ability to impact a gang before it becomes a fixed part of a community. Further, the exclusion of such groups in empirical research would limit our understanding of the early formation period for those groups that eventually progress past the five-year mark.

The claiming of turf or territory by a gang is also a characteristic commonly found in the various definitions. This geo­graphic area usually includes the location where the gang began, where members cur­rently reside, and/or where they currently hang out. This territory is usually marked with graffiti posted on various buildings, walls, and other fixed objects that carry the game name or insignia, which acts as a notice to community members and rivals of the gang’s existence and perceived control over an area. There is some debate, how­ever, about whether the claiming of turf should be a defining characteristic. There are a number of gangs who meet the four other characteristics listed here, yet they do not claim a specific territory as their own. For example, skinhead gangs often do not make such territorial claims.

A final characteristic often found in gang definitions is criminal activity. Some definitions simply state in a very general sense that the gang needs to be involved in ”illegal activity.” Alternatively, other definitions, particularly those related to antigang legislation, will specify the exact crimes that must be committed by the members to qualify a group as a gang. For example, California’s antigang legisla­tion specifies twenty-five specific crimes that include acts of serious violence, seri­ous property crimes, and the sale of a con­trolled substance. Further, it is required within this legislation that the crimes must occur over a multiple-year period so as to show some level of persistence in the gang’s criminal activity.

Although these five characteristics rep­resent those most commonly found in the definitions of gangs utilized by the research and criminal justice practitioner commu­nities, they are by no means the essential elements found in each. Currently, there is no nationally accepted definition of gangs on the part of law enforcement or corrections, a circumstance that does have some drawbacks. For example, there is likely little consistency as to what types of groups receive attention from law enforce­ment and social service agencies from one jurisdiction to the next. In addition, the lack of an accepted definition makes it difficult to accurately account for the prev­alence of gangs and gang members nation­wide or within given communities. Some researchers, however, have asserted that this definition dilemma does have a benefit. It is argued that adherence to a universal definition might cause researchers to ig­nore new variants of gangs that emerge in the future that do not it such a definition or to ignore present-day groups that would fall short of inclusion but are nonetheless important to understand. An illustration of this latter concern would be tagger crews (a group of graffiti artists), which some gang definitions would include and others not. Although these groups do not resem­ble some of the more notorious and violent gangs found across the nation, they repre­sent groups that are persistently involved in illegal activity that devalues or destroys public and private property, and as such they are of interest to the research and criminal justice communities.

See also: Age and Crime; Criminology; Ju­venile Crime and Criminalization; Juvenile Delinquency; Youth Gangs: Dimensions; Youth Gangs: Interventions and Results

References:

1. Ball, Richard A., and G. David Curry. 1995. The logic of definition in criminology: Pur­poses and methods for defining ”gangs.” Criminology 33 (2): 225-45.
2. Burisk, Robert J., and Harold G. Grasmick. 1993. Neighborhoods and crime: The dimen­sions of effective community control. San Francisco: Lexington. California Penal Code. 1995. Section 186.22.
3. Decker, Scott H. 2004. From the street to the prison: Understanding and responding to gangs. 2nd ed. Richmond, KY: National Major Gang Task Force, American Correc­tional Association.
4. Decker, Scott H., and Barrick Van Winkle. 1996. Life in the gang: Family, friends, and violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
5. Hagedorn, John M. 1988. People and folks: Gangs, crime, and the underclass in a rustbelt city. Chicago: Lake View Press.
6. Horowitz, Ruth. 1990. Sociological perspec­tives on gangs: Conflicting definitions and concepts. In Gangs in America, C. Ronald Huff, 37-54. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
7. Howell, James C., Arlen Egley, Jr., and Debra K. Gleason. 2002. Modern-day youth gangs. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven­tion.
8. Huff, C. Ronald. 1990. Gangs in America. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
9. Klein, Malcolm W. 1995. The American street gang. New York: Oxford University Press.
10. Maxson, Cheryl L., and Malcolm W. Klein. 1985. Differences between gang and non-gang homicides. Criminology 23: 209-22.
11. Moore, Joan W. 1978. Homeboys: Gangs, drugs, and prison in the barrios of Los Angeles. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univer­sity Press.