Violent Crimes in City Gangs

Abstract

The urban street gang plays a central role in the imagery of violence currently being disseminated by the mass media. Testing the reality of this image requires careful empirical studies of actual gangs. A study involving 150 gangs in "Midcity," a slum district of an eastern metropolis, and focusing on seven gangs subject to intensive field observation, reveals marked differences between the public imagery and research-derived findings. While members of slum street gangs engaged in violent crime to a greater degree than middle- class adolescents, violence was not a central preoccupation of the gangs, and most "violent" crimes were of the less serious variety. Cruel or sadistic violence was rare; violence was seldom "senseless" or irrational. Property damage was rela tively uncommon. Participation in violent crimes had little to do with race, but was directly related to sex, age, and social status; most active were males of lower social status during late adolescence. The control of gang violence is seen to in volve techniques for altering motivations similar to those which undergird national wars.