Violence risk and gang affiliation in youth offenders: a recidivism study

Abstract

Youth gangs are ubiquitous around the world and have been problematic for the social and criminal justice agencies. Despite widespread public concern, there has been relatively scarce empirical scrutiny of youth gangs internationally and little outside of America and Europe. In particular, the activities of youth gangs, the function of gang membership, the criminogenic needs of gang-affiliated youth, and the risk of criminal recidivism for gang-affiliated youth remain unclear. Against this background, this study explored the sociodemographic characteristics, risk and rate of criminal recidivism in a cohort of 165 male youth offenders in Singapore, of which 58 were gang-affiliated. Multivariate analyses revealed that gang-affiliated youth offenders were significantly more likely to have histories of substance use, weapon use and violence than nongang-affiliated youth offenders. Gang-affiliated offenders also scored higher on measures of risk for recidivism (SAVRY and YLS/CMI), and engaged in violent and other criminal behaviors more frequently during follow-up. These differences indicate a significant relationship between gang affiliation and criminal recidivism in youth offenders. Furthermore, these findings have important clinical and policy implications, indicating an increased requirement for additional and more intensive assessment and tailored interventions for gang-affiliated youth offenders.

Criminal attitudes and psychopathic personality attributes of youth gang offenders in Singapore

“…Future research might determine whether the attitudes and personality traits common to gang-affiliated youth relate to the severity of criminogenic needs (i.e., common to higher risk offenders) or if these also relate to other non-offending youth. Consistent with Chu et al's (2012) findings, the present study found that gang-affiliated youth offenders were more likely to have committed a violent index offense(s) and have a history of substance use. In particular, it appears that gangaffiliated youth offenders tended to use tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, sedative, and hallucinogens.…”

“…As with Chu et al's (2012) study, there was a relatively higher percentage of gangaffiliated youth (63.7%) in the sample when compared to youth gang studies in America and Europe (see Klein & Maxson, 2006 for a review). The differences are to be expected considering that the current study focused on institutionalized youth offenders instead of a general community-based youth population.…”

“…The proportion of sample that is gang affiliated is higher than the figure cited in Chu et al's (2012) (63.7% vs. 35.2%). This is likely due to Chu et al's (2012) inclusion of both community-based and institutionalized youth offenders, whereas the current sample included only institutionalized youth offenders within the juvenile justice system in Singapore. This figure is also higher than that in most Western studies on youth or street gangs, but the discrepancy could be an artifact of the comparison group (i.e., this sample comprised entirely youth offenders whereas many other studies included nonoffenders).…”

Gender and Risk Assessment in Juvenile Offenders: A Meta-Analysis

“…These mainly included studies that looked at risk domains and had a goal of comparing the coefficients of the separate risk domains between males and females, rather than determining the predictive validity of the tool. These were not included because they did not address the research question (Carnes & Martin, 2011;Costigan, 1999;Chu, Daffern, Thomas, & Lim, 2012;Illaqua, Coulson, Lombardo, & Nutbrown, 1999;Jara, Garcia-Gomis, & Villanueva, 2015;Jack, 2000;Jung, 1996;Taylor, 2009;Vitopoulos, 2011;Vitopoulos, Peterson-Badali, & Skilling, 2012).…”

Rude Boy Subculture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Collaborative Construction of an Analytic and Evocative Autoethnography

“…Indeed, studies on youth subcultures in Singapore are few and far between. For literature on youth more broadly, studies are typically framed in terms of behavioral and pathological issues (e.g., Kee et al 2003;Yiu 2009;Chu et al 2012) on the one hand, and research on consumption, style, and identity on the other (e.g., Chua 2003 on Ah Bengs; Mattar 2003 on hip-hop consumption through the Internet; Williams and Ho [forthcoming] on K-pop fan identity). Because schooling becomes a primary institution in which young people's identities are shaped, studies often deal with youths in the formal educational system and focus on low academic achievement or other forms of (quasi-)criminal and deviant tendencies.…”