Juvenile gangs: a literature review and synthesis

Juvenile Gangs

Gangs have been thorns on the flesh of the citizens of the United States no wonder they have occupied a prominent position in American criminological literature. Gang wars between the Crips and the Bloods in Los Angeles are testament to the gang culture among certain communities in the United States. As opposed to the Dutch youth who are interested in music and romance of the West Side Story, especially the video clips and compact disc with gangster rap, the Americans juveniles appear to have negative associations (Klein, 2001). The language of the youngsters perceived to be engaging in juvenile gang activities is characterized by hyperbole and contains refers to competition and violence. The youth style personified by rappers like Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. who appeared to talk about the hard life in their neighborhoods referred to juvenile gangs. This research paper seeks to review literature on criminal gangs from credible peer academic sources.

Literature Review

Monod (1967) while conducting structural analysis on Juvenile gangs in Paris assumed that juvenile gangs were a normal phenomenon. Besides, they had a particular historical significance. Monod alluded that juvenile subcultures other than being pathological was a cultural diversity in a world grappling with issues pertaining to uniformization. The diversity was characterized in Parisian gangs in a number of variants that were complimentary and opposed to each other. This diversity defined the juvenile's relationship with their environment, the bigger society, the past, uncertain future, and their mutual relationships. Monod attributes the evolution of the Parisian gangs to their past common style. These youths were influenced by watching certain American movies. The youths were torn between integrating positive tendencies, negative tendencies, and tendencies to disintegration. These Parisian delinquent gangs maintained their identity by strengthening conflicts which opposed them to legitimations of normative society. These youths regarded official teenage culture as a positive tendency. Juvenile delinquency was considered a negative tendency.

Defleur (1967) in a study of delinquent gangs in cross-cultural set up interviewed sixty-three hard core juvenile offenders on the nature and characteristics of their gangs. The gangs never had established leaders. Membership was open to any boy who showed interest in joining and had shown willingness to engage in the gang's activities. The gangs supported deviant activities, argots, had strong interest in sports. They also fought with boys from other neighborhoods. The juvenile offenders also engaged in law breaking activities like theft. The stolen items were used or sold. Proceeds from the sales were used to purchase drinks, doing movies, and entertaining girls. This is often referred to as instrumental-theft subculture. Relative to the United States delinquent subcultures, Cordoba's juvenile gangs showed some restraint towards vandalism or stealing for non-utilitarian reasons. The Juvenile gangs had minimal contact with adult criminals. The members of different gangs were sworn enemies who fought perennially. Conflict among them never ceased. These delinquent gangs from Cordoba had no drug history. In fact, the theoretical formulations developed by the United States student of delinquency never seemed to apply to them.

Most juvenile crime related cases rarely come to the attention of the juvenile justice system. The Bureau of Labor's National Longitudinal Survey of Youth established that males were more likely than females to report engaging in behavior by age 17. White youths were more like to report having engaged in Vandalism than the black or Hispanic youths (Flores, 2006). Black youths were more likely to report having assaulted someone than the Whites or the Hispanics. Juvenile who lived with both of their parents were less likely to engage in law violating behaviors than those who lived in other types of families. Five percent of the youths aged 17 who lived with both of their parents reported their gang affiliations compared with 12% of youth who lived in other family arrangements (Flores, 2006). Presence of a family member in a gang determined whether a juvenile would report his involvement in gang related activities or not. Those with family members in gangs were three times more likely to report having engaged in vandalism, major theft, serious assault, illegally holding gun, or peddling drugs. Juvenile who were neither going to school nor working had greater risk of engaging in problem behaviors like smoking marijuana or using hard drugs. A juvenile engagement in a given problem behavior was a pointer that he was engaging in other problem behaviors. Affiliation to a given criminal gang was an indication that a juvenile had engaged in theft, serious assault, selling drugs, or handling a gun.

Loeber & Farrington (1998) in a bid to reduce the level of offending among the Serious and Violent Juvenile (SVJ) offenders came up with a raft of measures that included strengthening the family to instill moral values, supporting core social institutions like schools, religious institutions, and the general community, promoting delinquency, and prevention and immediate intervention when a delinquent behavior is witnessed among the juveniles.

Conclusion