Measuring Gang Involvement in a Justice-Referred Sample of Youth in Treatment

Abstract

Gangs are present in about 34% of all jurisdictions in the United States. Given elevations in violence and victimization associated with gang involvement, effective means are needed for measuring involvement among individual youth. This is especially the case among youth receiving services for problem behavior who might benefit from targeted treatments helping them reduce involvement in gangs. We assessed gang involvement among 421 youth referred by the justice system for intensive home-and community-based mental health treatment. Using self-report survey and therapistrecorded data, we identified 94 (22%) youth as gang involved. Risk factor measures provided support for our classification, driven primarily by self-reported indicators of gang involvement as opposed to therapist-recorded indicators.

Perceptions of Gangs and Crews by Justice-Involved Youth and Implications for Best Practice Work

“…The project, however, has been difficult to start because of the lack of engagement of gang-involved youth and their families (see http://www.ccjs.umd.edu/projectprofile/823). Research on another proven violence-reduction program, Multisystemic Therapy (MST), has shown that youth who were self-identified gang members displayed more risk factors and were more likely to drop out of the MST treatment than those who were not gang members (Boxer et al, 2015). These findings reinforce the importance of engagement and relationship building (Chablani & Spinney, 2011) throughout the process of intervening with high-risk classes of youth.…”

“…Service providers had to go into the field to make those connections and provide treatment in the streets in order for the young parents to receive the level of necessary treatment support services to be successful. Other research reinforces the problems with providing services to these youth (Boxer et al, 2015). One proven violence-reduction program, Functional Family Therapy, is being tested on gang members in Pennsylvania.…”

“…Youth who are part of crews are likely to be grouped into a gang category according to professional judgment but without any differentiation in services (Boxer, Veysey, Ostermann, & Kubic, 2015). Because so little is known about what risk and needs uniquely constitute gang or crew membership, some scholars also call for using broad criteria of a "gang member" for basic prevention and intervention programming by service providers and using more restrictive criteria for suppression efforts by law enforcement (Matsuda et al, 2012).…”

Internationalizing the Study of Gang Membership: Validation Issues from Latin America

“…Significant associations with expected variables (and in the expected direction) are taken as evidence of the validity of the measure of gang membership (e.g., Thornberry et al, 2003;Matsuda et al 2012;Boxer et al, 2015). Cronbach and Meehl (1955) designated this strategy as the construction of 'nomological networks', with Cronbach (1988) subsequently distinguishing between 'strong' (theoretically articulated) and 'weak' (empirically sought) networks.…”

“…associated with other variables of theoretical significance (e.g., Thornberry et al 2003;Boxer et al 2015). They have also made arguments for criterion validity, pointing to the overlap between selfreports of gang membership and the police's identification of gang members (Curry 2000).…”