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Abstract
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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.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this research conducted by Curry and Spergel was to construct a model to detect differences in gang membership and delinquency among Hispanic and African-American youth.
METHODOLOGY:
The researchers employed a quasi-experimental, cross- sectional research design. The sample included all of the male students in grades 6, 7, and 8 at four middle schools in a district suggested by the Chicago Public Schools administration because of its high level of gang activity. Of the 975 males in these schools, only 439 (45%) completed the study. The sample was made up of 139 Hispanic (Mexican and Puerto Rican) students and 300 African-American students (the four schools were either integrated Hispanic/African-American or all African-American). The authors asked these adolescents to complete a self-report survey which included items about the individual's family, school, and peer group. In particular, the questions asked about the individual's self- esteem, goals and aspirations, family composition, relationships with other adults, and whether or not there were gang members present in his classes. This information comprised the independent variables in this study. The researchers categorized several of these indicators as being representative of intrapersonal variables (self-esteem, educational frustration) and interpersonal variables (exposure to gang members at school or at home).
There were eight items included in this questionnaire which were designed to measure the dependent variable, gang involvement. These questions were focused on respondents attitudes toward gang membership, association with gang members, and personal involvement in gang conflicts and violence. The researchers supplemented this survey data with police records and school reports. The researchers used a Rasch model to determine which items were "good" (where variation in answers was consistent) using an MSCALE computer program. Their scale was found to be reliable for seven of the eight items measuring gang involvement for both Hispanic youth and for African-American youth. For Hispanic youth, the indicator "being attacked by a gang" was not reliable, while for African-American youth the item "there are benefits of being in a gang" was not reliable.
Aside from gang involvement, the other dependent variable in this study was delinquency, which was measured using self-report information from the survey as well as from official police and school records. Six indicators were summed to form a delinquency scale: arrested once, arrested twice or more, reports of school discipline, and self-reports of violence, property offense, or substance abuse. These items also were modeled with the computer program and found to fit a Rasch model.
In addition to completing the survey, each student was also asked to list the gangs that he knew to be operating in his school or neighborhood. This list was cross-referenced with a list compiled by local authorities to ensure that the adolescents were defining the word "gang" in the way the researchers intended.
Data in this study were analyzed using multiple regression.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found a significant correlation between gang involvement and delinquency in both Hispanic and African-American adolescent groups. They pointed out, however, that for a large number of adolescents (14.4% of Hispanics; 14.0% of African-Americans) these two do not seem to be correlated at all; some adolescents were delinquent without being gang members while others were gang members and not delinquent. The authors noted that more African-Americans than Hispanics were nongang delinquents. The independent variables related to gang involvement and delinquency were significantly different for the two groups. For the Hispanic adolescents, the variables related to intrapersonal issues (self-esteem, educational frustration) were most closely associated with gang involvement and delinquency. For the African-American adolescents, gang involvement was found to be related to social or interpersonal variables (exposure to gang members at school or at home). The authors concluded that gang involvement is not always a chronological precursor to delinquent behavior.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors offered several recommendations for policy makers. They suggested that gang delinquency ought to continue being treated as a social problem and not just an individual problem and that school and family programs should be implemented with this in mind. They further recommended that researchers, parents, teachers and others involved with young people develop and test procedures for measuring gang involvement so that it can be identified and prevented. They argued that future studies need to distinguish between gang involvement and gang delinquency and between gang and nongang delinquency. Finally, the authors recommended that gang delinquency prevention programs be tailored to the ethnic background of the adolescents involved.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
Illinois
Juvenile Gang
Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile Male
Juvenile Offender
Juvenile Violence
Hispanic Gang
Hispanic Male
Hispanic Offender
Hispanic Delinquency
Hispanic Juvenile
Hispanic Violence
African American Violence
African American Juvenile
African American Delinquency
African American Offender
African American Male
African American Gang
Black-Hispanic Comparison
Male Gang
Male Violence
Male Offender
Offender Characteristics
Self Report Studies
Delinquency Causes
Gang Membership Causes |