The role of moral disengagement in street gang offending

Abstract

Previous research indicates a strong association between gang membership and increased offending behaviour. Several risk factors for gang membership have been identified and incorporated into integrated and developmental theories of gang membership. Despite this, little is known about the psychological processes that underpin gang membership and enhance the rate of offending within this context. Even less is known of the differences in such psychological processes between gang offenders and those who offend in other contexts. The current study builds on previous research by exploring the role of moral disengagement as one potential process in a prison sample of 269 offenders. The first part of the study found that street gang offenders were more likely than non-street gang offenders to utilise moral disengagement strategies in order to deactivate their usual moral standards. The second part revealed that street gang offenders were more likely than individual offenders or those who have affiliated, but not offended with, street gangs to morally disengage. There was no difference in the tendency to morally disengage between street gang and group offenders. Overall, certain conditions that exist within a street gang and other group contexts may increase an individual's tendency to morally disengage and enhance offending behaviour.

Rethinking How We View Gang Members: An Examination into Affective, Behavioral, and Mental Health Predictors of UK Gang-Involved Youth

“…Our findings that moral disengagement and rumination both predict gang involvement suggest that gang-involved youth ruminate on anger-provoking events, and probably adopt moral disengagement strategies to justify their rumination-elicited violence. These findings further support previous work such as that of Vasquez et al (2012), who also found that gang-affiliated youth were more likely to engage in rumination, and Niebieszczanski and colleagues (2015), who noted how street gang members, compared with non-gang youth, used moral disengagement strategies (e.g. attributing blame to others and employing reconstructive language, i.e.…”

“…Equally, research has shown that street gang members are more likely to morally disengage than are non-gang offenders by adopting a range of moral disengagement strategies, such as displacement of responsibility (e.g., to other gang members or to victims) and dehumanizing victims (Alleyne, Fernandes and Pritchard, 2014;Niebieszczanski et al, 2015). The more the individual benefits from the harmful behavior (e.g., positive reinforcement from other gang members for violence, which may boost self-esteem), the more morally disengaged the individual will become.…”

Beliefs in conspiracy theories, intolerance of uncertainty, and moral disengagement during the coronavirus crisis

“…These mechanisms were first described by Bandura et al (1996) to explain the self-exonerative cognitive processes that people use when they violate moral norms. Previous research showed that civic moral disengagement behaviors are related to violence and aggression (e.g., Caprara, Tisak, Alessandri, Fontaine, Fida, & Paciello, 2014;Maftei et al, 2019), street gang offending (Niebieszczanski et al, 2015), driving violations (Holman & Popusoi, 2018), and generally, lower self-restraints related to antisocial behaviors (Fontaine et al, 2012).…”

Desconexión moral y delincuencia juvenil severa: metaanálisis de su asociación

“…Respecto a estos delitos graves contra las personas, ello es muestra de cómo en aquellas infracciones penales en las que existe una víctima directa se ha de realizar un mayor esfuerzo cognitivo/emocional para eliminar las barreras inhibitorias ya comentadas. Además, es muy probable que en muchos de los individuos de los estudios recopilados, la propia institucionalización haya contribuido en modo significativo al incremento y cronificación en el uso de los mecanismos de desconexión moral (Férriz et al, 2018;Niebieszczanski, Harkins, Judson, Smith & Dixon, 2015), generando trayectorias delictivas cronificadas.…”