G. David Curry

Gang Involvement and Delinquency among Hispanic and African-American Adolescent Males

The application of Rasch modeling to survey responses and official records of 139 Hispanic and 300 African-American males in the sixth through eighth grades at four Chicago inner-city schools is used to construct incremental measures of gang involvement and delinquency. Scale sequence and regression analysis suggest that different social processes operate in gang involvement for the two ethnic populations. In both sets of cross-sectional data, the fitting of linear structural models shows gang involvement to be an effective post hoc estimator of delinquency for these youth, whereas delinquency is not an effective estimator of gang involvement.

Gangs, gang homicides, and gang loyalty: Organized crimes or disorganized criminals

Gang members contribute disproportionately to homicide. This article examines gang homicide during its peak in the mid-1990s in St. Louis, a city with high homicide rates and large gang problems. The article addresses two related questions, the differences between gang and non-gang homicides, and the social organization of gang homicide. Marked differences between gang and non-gang homicides were found. These differences centered primarily on guns and the similarity of victim and offender characteristics. Gang homicides most often occurred within gang factions rather than between factions. Gangs were unable to organize homicides in an effective manner, which reflected the disorganized character of gangs and the neighborhoods in which they reside. The findings of this article raised important questions about the cohesiveness of gangs.

Addressing key features of gang membership: Measuring the involvement of young members

In recent years, the growth in knowledge of the characteristics and activities of gang members has been impressive. Little is known, however, about the key features of younger gang members, those in middle school. Ninety-six middle school students who self-reported current or former gang membership in a school-based survey form the sample for this analysis. This study examined four dimensions of gang membership: joining the gang, processes involved in gang life, organizational characteristics of the gang, and family characteristics. Gang membership appears to be transient, with a weak hold on members during periods of membership. This is especially true when the results of this study are compared to studies that used older members.

Female Gang Involvement

A review of the research literature on female gang involvement identifies three central research themes. These are the need for a feminist perspective, changes in the magnitude of the problem, and the degree to which membership can be a form of liberation. A research agenda is proposed that offers examples of how a common set of theoretical issues might guide studies of both male and female gang behavior.

Electronic Monitoring of the Drunk Driver: A Seven-Year Study of the Home Confinement Alternative

This article evaluates the success of a program using electronic monitoring (EM) as the “front end” of a probation term for drunk drivers during three different program phases lasting over 7 years. The data indicate that EM was implemented with few equipment problems or client complaints and was very cost-effective, with nearly all the clients completing their EM period successfully. There was no evidence of any “add-on” effect, nor was there much evidence of selection bias by gender, age, race, or socioeconomic status. Probation success declined, however, during the post-EM probation period.

Community Organization and Gang Policy Response

Analysis of agency response networks in 21 urban areas reveals that the adoption of policy responses is significantly related to social network location. In the 1988 National Youth Gang Intervention and Suppression Program survey, agency representatives were asked to list agencies with which regular contact was maintained in the process of dealing with the youth gang problem. Policy response is measured by the adoption of four policy responses: (1) making staff training available, (2) having a policy for dealing with youth gang problems, (3) having a policy in writing, and (4) attempting to influence legislation on the youth gang problem. Rasch modeling supports the scalability of the four items. The STRUCTURE program is used to identify elements of network structure within each community-specifically cliques and equivalence structures. A generalized linear model analysis of variance of the policy response scale reveals that structural equivalence and clique membership account for 54% of the variation in policy response. An examination of clique means indicates that network structure may retard as well as enhance policy response adaptations. In policy terms, this finding suggests that network structure should be mobilized by those who wish to develop a unified, national-level response to youth gang problems at the local level.

Women murderers and victims of abuse in a southern state

We consider the hypothesis that abused women who kill their abusers are not socially different from other abused women. Comparing two groups of women from a Deep South state, one group incarcerated for killing their partners (n=21) and the other served by a shelter for battered women (n=273), we find mixed support for the conclusion that the two groups represent a homogeneous general population of abused women. The women incarcerated for killing their male partners appear to be more isolated from the social mainstream and in greater perceived danger than the women who used the shelter.

Responding to gangs Comparing gang member, police, and task force perspectives

Abstract Perceptions of four groups of actors—members of a gang task force, police officers, gang members, and nongang youth—involved in the St. Louis gang problem response were compared. The two groups of youths regarded gangs as a significantly more serious problem than did either of the adult groups. Youths were significantly more likely to view gangs as instrumentally delinquent, while the adult groups were significantly more likely to view gangs as social organizations. Applying the Spergel-Curry categorization of gang strategies to these data revealed that none of the groups offered consistent response strategies for dealing with gang problems.

The Proliferation of Gangs in the United States

To speak of the proliferation of gangs in the U.S. in the last two decades requires some care. First, each of the three veteran scholars most closely associated with recognizing and documenting this proliferation has at one time implied the need for theoretical caution. The range of evidence for the existence of gangs historically and internationally prompted Irving Spergel’s suggestion (1990:174) that “youth gangs may be an endemic feature of urban culture.” While Malcolm Klein (1995b) has pointed out that the recent history of gang problems can only be described as an “extended upswing,” he has also spoken of “gang cycles.“In answer to the question of the possibility of “a new wave of gang violence” in the early 1970s, Walter Miller (1982:7) characterized the U.S. gang problem as a series of waves, There was no new wave, but rather a continuation of an old wave-a wave that strikes with great fury at one part of the shore, recedes, strikes again at another, ebbs away, strikes once more...

National Voluntary Service: A Humanist Alternative*

There was a time in our lives when one of us felt that the best expression of active citizenship was to serve in the U.S. military during the VietnamWar while the other felt it was to protest the war and support relief efforts for the Vietnamese. These days we both are committed to peace and still committed to active citizenship. We personally support the promise of national voluntary service to provide job training and placement for poor youth and promote an ethic of collective responsibility for middle class youth. We are particularly concerned, however, that such a program, consistent with humanist principles, be people-centered, egalitarian and designed and administered in such a way as to maximize potential benefits for both the volunteers and service organizations.