Polar Opposites: Research Paper on Exploring Youth and Gang Violence

Youth and Gang Violence Research

Wrote this for a client and they didn't pay so posting it here. Hopefully somebody can get some use out of it.

Introduction

Understanding why youth join and form gangs is crucial for understanding how to prevent them. Solomon Kobrin's 1951 article on the conflict of values in delinquency areas explores the conditions that lead to crime in high-risk areas, and the concepts that he provides are useful to look at youth gangs and youth crime. Understanding how and why youth join gangs is an important area of research, because if we understand why youth join gangs, we can better understand how to prevent this from happening. In this paper, I will discuss Kobrin's 1951 article to create an argument that can be used to think through the next portion of the paper, the case study presented on youth membership in gangs based on secondary research. Finally, an analysis portion will relate Kobrin's article to the research available on gang membership. I will argue that the focus of youth gang prevention should be in discovering the relationship between conventional and criminal values in an area, in order to understand the values and attitudes of youth as they relate to crime and delinquency.

Theory

Kobrin suggests that delinquency is widespread in urban high-risk areas and "represents normative behaviour" (Kobrin 1951: 656). This means that there are norms and values that come from delinquency that are spread through the community. Boys who grow up in urban areas with high delinquency have a very different experience than those that grow up in middle class areas because the idea of being a non-delinquent is more ambiguous (657). However, even in areas with high levels of delinquency, there are a significant number of boys who are not engaging in this behaviour (656). This leads to a "duality of conduct norms" in high-risk areas, which means that rather than being dominated by either criminal or conventional behaviours, both work simultaneously (656). Even in areas with high rates of crime, there are people who commit criminal activities without becoming official criminals, people who have criminal records becoming good members of society, or people without juvenile records becoming adult offenders " meaning that delinquency is flexible (656). This would not be possible, according to Kobrin, unless the individual is participating "simultaneously in both criminal and conventional value systems" (656).

When children from high-risk areas play together, the group could include those who are occasionally delinquent, those who are actively delinquent, and those who are never delinquent (656). While it would be expected that delinquents would interact more often with other delinquents, there are still many contacts between delinquents and non-delinquents, and this leads to the norms and values from both groups being exchanged, even in youth (656). The degree of delinquency also varies not only within groups but on an individual level " a person is not necessarily a delinquent all the time, or non-delinquent all the time. They can be non-delinquent, delinquent, or occasional delinquent and experience the value systems associated with these as they move within the same group or groups (Kobrin 1951: 657). This is one of the core concepts that Kobrin is putting forward - individuals are always participating simultaneously in conventional and criminal value systems. To separate individuals into categories of delinquent or non-delinquent would be incorrect because "in a real sense they are neither and they are both" (657).

Korbin argues that high-risk areas are different in how criminal and conventional value systems are integrated with each other, resulting in two 'polar types' of delinquent areas (Kobrin 1951: 658). On one hand, there are areas with high integration between conventional norms and criminal ones because of the system and organization of illegal entities (658). For example, Kobrin talks about leaders in illegal enterprises maintaining their positions and support in conventional institutions like the church. The leaders of illegal enterprise participating in the conventional elements in the population makes the conventional players operate (and by proxy, support) a system sustained by illegal activity (658). While delinquency is not inherently related to programs and education for youth, they may recognize that their chances for economic success in high-risk areas are improved by participation in criminal groups because of the stability of these groups. In this way, gangs become like a "training ground" for youth in violence, evasion of arrest, and concealment of offense (658). This leads to delinquency becoming a "tolerated means for the acquisition of an approved role and status" (658).

On the other hand, there are areas that are characterized by the absence of systemic criminal activity, despite the violence committed in these areas. In this system, criminal and conventional belief systems are in extreme opposition to one another (658). These types of areas happen when there are big changes in the class, ethnic, and race composition of its population " this destabilizes conventional institutions and allows criminal institutions to flourish (658). This leads to one of two outcomes " either the implicit criminal value system becomes explicit, and the system moves towards a convergence of conventional and criminal values, or this doesn't happen, and the youth become wild and untamed. This leads to violence for the sake of violence, and groups becoming isolated and dedicated to avoiding any form of constraint (Kobrin 1951: 659).

Youth groups interested in delinquency develop shared attitudes in response to middle class judgment of their position and their low social class. Because this low social class comes from institutional shortcomings, the attitude in this situation among youth is to rebel against the middle class and develop status systems in response to them, where status is obtained by attacking middle class symbols (for example, by stealing) (Kobrin 1951: 659). Kobrin states that "the young male who occupies the role of delinquent in the delinquency area resorts to purposive destructiveness and exaggerates the differences between himself and conventional persons precisely because he cannot exclude from his system of values the conventional criteria of personal worth" (emphasis mine) (Kobrin 1951: 660). In the distinction between the middle class and youth from high-risk urban areas, the youth act out because they cannot see an alternative way to show their worth and defend their ego (660). Unlike in areas with high convergence of criminal and conventional values, where criminal activity may offer a legitimized means to success, criminal activity here is a violent ego response to conventional norms.

Realistically, these polarities would never occur perfectly " there's always a blend of the two. Changes in an areas composition can be due to or can cause changes in the polarity of this system (Kobrin 1951: 659). To understand both of the polarities that Kobrin describes, his theories can be applied to membership and recruitment of youth gangs.

Case Study " Youth Gang Membership and Recruitment

According to Gordon et al. (2004), boys who join gangs are more likely to be delinquent before entering the gang than those who do not join, and delinquency falls to pre-gang levels when they leave the gang (56). This could be because gangs select new members from boys who are already engaging in delinquent activities, or they become exposed to new criminal activities when they join the gang (56). They find that even activities like drug selling do not remain elevated when the youth leaves the gang, however increased violence and drug use among peers do not decrease when they leave the gang (Gordon 2004: 80). However, the positive relationship between gang membership and youth offending levels cannot be explained entirely through self-selection " highly delinquent youth are not the only ones who join gangs (Tita & Ridgeway 2007: 209).

Gang membership results from antisocial influences in neighborhoods, families, and peer groups. It comes from youth who are not successfully engaged in school, and have had problem behaviours initiated early (Hill et al. 1999: 315). Living in areas with high prevalence of gang membership was a risk factor, especially for minority groups (Hill et al. 1999: 308). Youth from neighborhoods where there was a lot of crime were three times more likely to join a gang (Hill et al. 1999: 309). Gang membership can also be predicted if youth in the area had a low attachment to school (309). Pyrooz (2013) find that youth join gangs at specific points in their life course. While most youth entered gangs between 13 to 15, there was also an adult onset trajectory for gang membership. Typical gang careers are less than two years, and race/ethnic differences are greater with older members (Pyrooz 2013: 366). Youth violence has a consistently strong association with drug use and drug selling (Fagan 1989: 634).

Taylor et al. provide research that suggests that gang members are more likely to experience serious violent victimization, but that this violence means something different to gang youth than it does to other youth " youth who are 'beaten into' a gang or violently disciplined for breaking rules by gang members may see this as a normal part of gang life or even initiation (Taylor et al. 2008: 17). Race, sex, and serious violent victimization are significantly associated with gang membership (Taylor et al. 2008: 11). There are significant racial and ethnic differences in gang homicide rates at different times even within cities, and the biggest growth in youth gang homicides occurred in tandem with the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, when crack cocaine allowed dealers to make extraordinary profits from street sales (Howell 1999: 209; Moore 1990: 12).

Research suggests that popular perceptions of youth gangs could be based on myths " for example, that youth feel that they need protection on the streets in their communities, and that gangs produce this service. However, few gangs actually provide this protection (Howell 2007: 39). Few youth gangs have become the highly evolved, entrepreneurial organizations that would be consistent with Kobrin's idea of cohesion between convention and crime (Howell 2007: 40). While the 'gang' label implies a high level of structure for criminal conspiracy, this exceeds the capacity of most gangs (40). Johnstone (1983) talks about recruitment of youth to gangs. Recruitment methods can either be by force, or by being "a much sought-after honor in a boy's life" (Johnstone 1983: 282). They find that gang membership is more often voluntary than forced (282). Their study finds that delinquent boys "are able to resist gang recruiting efforts as long as they continue to believe in their chances of success as conventional adults" (Johnstone 1983: 295). As soon as they believe they have no chance for a conventional future, they become "psychologically ready" for gang life (295). The importance of this is that gang membership represents a last resort, rather than a preferred option (Johnstone 1983: 297).

Application

Kobrin looks at a polarity between areas with high levels of organized criminal activity and less organized areas. Both areas represent urban areas with high levels of crime in general, but in the first one, youth are more likely to view crime as stable means to personal and economic success (Kobrin 1951: 2008). The research by Gordon et al. suggests that exchanging criminal values could lead to gang formation, as gang members were more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour (Gordon et al 2004: 56). What is interesting about this study is that gang membership is not a guarantee of a lifetime of delinquency " those who leave the gangs see their levels of delinquency decrease when they are no longer members (Gordon et al 2004: 80). This supports Kobrin's idea that criminal activity is a normative thing, that norms and value of criminal activity are something that is exchanged (Kobrin 1951: 656). Also supporting this point is the evidence from Hill et al. (1999: 308-309), which shows that neighborhoods and peer groups with more delinquency encouraged higher rates of gang involvement" again pointing to crime and gang violence being a 'norm' that can be spread.

Because very few gangs meet the criteria of organized, crime, the evidence put forward by Howell (2007) may suggest that gang crime leans towards low convergence on the polarity scale, as most gangs would not qualify as highly organized bodies. This goes along with the idea that gang recruitment is more likely when institutional factors fail " youth don't join gangs until it is apparent that they cannot obtain success through a conventional career path, and one of the risk factors for gang membership is low attachment to the education system (Johnstone 1983: 295; Hill et al. 1999: 309).

The last point that Kobrin makes is the idea that areas where criminal and conventional belief systems are in opposition to one another develop after big changes in the class, ethnic, and race composition of its population that destabilizes conventional institutions (658). Howell's point about how the biggest growth in youth gang homicides occurred in tandem with the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s speaks to this (Howell 1999: 209). Crack cocaine allowed for massive profits from street sales, creating massive class upheaval in many urban areas, and defining youth violence in the 1980s (Fagan 1989: 634; Moore 1999: 12). This is consistent with what Kobrin is saying about criminal and conventional opposition of beliefs.

Conclusion

This paper has demonstrated that Kobrin's polarity of values is applicable to the problems of youth gangs and gang violence. The focus of youth gang prevention should be in finding out the level of convergence between conventional and criminal values in an area, in order to understand the values and attitudes of youth as they relate to crime and delinquency. Further research should focus on separating studies into areas with high and low convergence of conventional and criminal values, in order to get a better idea of how these factors contribute to the development and prevention of youth gang formation.

References

Fagan, J. (1989). The Social Organization Of Drug Use And Drug Dealing Among Urban Gangs*. Criminology, 27(4), 633-670.

Gordon, R. A., Lahey, B. B., Kawai, E., Loeber, R., StouthmerLoeber, M., & Farrington, D. P. (2004). Antisocial behavior and youth gang membership: Selection and socialization. Criminology, 42(1), 55-88.

Hill, K. G., Howell, J. C., Hawkins, J. D., & Battin-Pearson, S. R. (1999). Childhood risk factors for adolescent gang membership: Results from the Seattle Social Development Project. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 36(3), 300-322.

Howell, J. C. (2007). Menacing or mimicking? Realities of youth gangs. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 58(2), 39-50.

Howell, J. C. (1999). Youth gang homicides: A literature review. Crime & delinquency, 45(2), 208-241.

Johnstone, J. W. (1983). Recruitment to a youth gang. Youth and Society, 14(3), 281.

Kobrin, S. (1951). The conflict of values in delinquency areas. American Sociological Review, 16(5), 653-661.

Moore, J. W. (1990). Gangs, drugs, and violence. Drugs and violence: Causes, correlates, and consequences, 103, 160-175.

Taylor, T. J., Freng, A., Esbensen, F. A., & Peterson, D. (2008). Youth gang membership and serious violent victimization: The importance of lifestyles and routine activities. Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

Tita, G., & Ridgeway, G. (2007). The impact of gang formation on local patterns of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 44(2), 208-237.

Pyrooz, D. C. (2014). "From your first cigarette to your last dyin'day": The patterning of gang membership in the life-course. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 30(2), 349-372.