This article examines the complexity of street gang homicides and focuses on situational factors that lead to gang members' susceptibility to this violent behavior within the context of a disadvantaged minority community. This study is based on an analysis of 28 homicides involving Mexican American gang members. The absence of immigrant youth involvement in these types of violent crimes is discussed. Findings demonstrate how locally embedded social processes associated with specific gang types, ecology, drugs, circumstances, and motives unfold into homicidal events. These findings may contribute to the development of street-based social programs focused on gang mediation, dispute resolution, and crisis intervention.
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the streets: Decency, violence and the moral life of the inner city. New York: Norton.
2.
Bauder, H. (2002). Work on the west side: Urban neighborhoods and the cultural exclusion of youth. Boulder, CO: Lexington Books.
3.
Block, C., Antigone, C., Jacob, A., & Przybylski, R. (1996). Street gangs and crime: Patterns and trends in Chicago. Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
4.
Block, R., & Block, C. (1993). Street gang crime in Chicago: Research in brief . Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
5.
Curry, G., Ball, R.A., & Decker, S.H. (1995). An update on gang crime and law enforcement recordkeeping . St. Louis: University of Missouri, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
6.
Goldstein, P.J. (1985). The drugs/violence nexus: A tripartite conceptual framework. Journal of Drug Issues, 15(4), 493-506.
7.
Horowitz, R. (1983). Honor and the American dream: Culture and identity in a Chicano community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
8.
Howell, J.C. (1999). Youth gang homicide: A literature review. Crime & Delinquency, 45(2), 208-241.
9.
Hutson, H., Range, D.A., & Eckstein, M. (1996). Drive-by shootings by violent street gangs in Los Angeles: A five year review from 1989 to 1993. Academic Emergency Medicine, 3, 300-303.
10.
Hutson, H., Range, D.A., Kyriacou, D.N., Hart, J., & Spears, K. (1995). The epidemic of gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County from 1979 through 1994. Journal of the American Medical Association, 274, 1031-1036.
11.
Klein, M.W. (1995a). The American street gang: Its nature, prevalence, and control. New York: Oxford University Press.
12.
Klein, M.W. (1995b). Street gang cycles. In J. Q. Wilson & J. Petersilia (Eds.), Crime (pp. 217-236). San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies.
13.
Klein, M.W., & Maxson, C.L. (1989). Street gang violence. In M. E. Wolfgang & N. A. Weiner (Eds.), Violent crime, violent criminals (pp. 198-234). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
14.
Kubrin, C.E., & Weitzer, R.2003. "Retaliatory Homicide: Concentrated Disadvantage and Neighborhood Culture." Social Problems, 50(2): 157-180.
15.
Lizotte, A.J., Krohn, M.D., Howell, J.C., Tobin, K., & Howard, G.J. (2000). Factors influencing gun carrying among young urban males over the adolescent-young adult life course. Criminology , 38(3), 811-834.
16.
Luckenbill, D. (1977). Criminal homicide as a situated transaction. Social Problems, 25(2), 176-186.
17.
Luster, T., & Su Min, O. (2001). Correlates of male adolescents carrying handguns among their peers. Journal of Marriage & Family, 63(3), 714.
18.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2002). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence and the community. New York: Routledge.
19.
Maxson, C.L., Gordon, M.A., & Klein, M.W. (1985). Differences between gang and nongang homicides . Criminology, 23(2), 209-222.
20.
Moore, J.W. (1991). Going down to the barrio: Homeboys and homegirls in change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
21.
Sampson, R.J. (2008). Rethinking crime and immigration. Contexts, 7(1), 28-33.
22.
Sampson, R.J., & Lauritsen, J.L. (1994). Violent victimization and offending: Individual-, situational-, and community-level risk factors. In A. J. Reiss & J. A. Roth (Eds.), Understanding and preventing violence: Social influences (Vol. 3, pp. 1-114). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
23.
Sanders, W.B. (1994). Gangbangs and drive-by. New York: Aldine.
24.
Spunt, B., Brownstein, H., Crimmins, S., and Langley, S.1996. "American Women Who Kill: Self-Reports of their Homicides."International Journal of Risk, Security and Crime Prevention , 1(4): 293-303.
25.
Telles, E.E., & Ortiz, V. (2008). Generations of exclusion. New York: Russell Sage.
26.
Tita, G., & Abrahamse, A. (2006). Gang homicide in L.A., 1981-2001. In A. J. Egley, C. L. Maxson, J. Miller, & M. W. Klein (Eds.), The modern gang reader (3rd ed., pp. 291-305). Los Angeles : Roxbury.
27.
Umemoto, K. (2006). The truce: Lessons from an LA gang war. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
28.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2000). Quick tables: QT-PL. Race, Hispanic or Latino, and Age: 2000 for San Antonio city, Texas. Retrieved July 16, 2003, from http://factfinder.census.gov
29.
Valdez, A. (2003). Toward a typology of contemporary Mexican American youth gangs. In L. Kontos, D. Brotherton, & L. Barrios (Eds.), Gangs and society: Alternative perspectives (pp. 12-40). New York: Columbia University Press.
30.
Valdez, A., Kaplan, C.D., & Curtis, R.L., Jr. (2007). Aggressive crime, alcohol and drug use, and concentrated poverty in 24 U.S. urban areas. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 33(4), 595-603.
31.
Yin, Z., Valdez, A., Mata, A.G.J., & Kaplan, C. (1996). Developing a field-intensive methodology for generating a randomized sample for gang research [Special issue]. Gang, Drugs and Violence, 24(2), 195-204.
