Vezner posted:While it's true that there are many factors that influence why a person may want to join a gang, a broken home is a very common one if not the most common reason. Just do a google search and you will find a plethora of research that says this. Sure, many kids can grow up with a single parent and have no problems but there are TONS of kids that do and it's primarily because of the problems at home. If there was more respect for the family unit and a more active role being undertaken by BOTH parents to actually PARENT their kids, I would be willing to bet my life that you would see a huge decline in gang membership in the world.
PubMed posted:J Adolesc Health. 2000 Mar;26(3):176-86. Links Developmental risk factors for youth violence.Herrenkohl TI, Maguin E, Hill KG, Hawkins JD, Abbott RD, Catalano RF. Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle 98115, USA. PURPOSE: To replicate earlier research findings on risk factors for youth violence and to explore the effects on violent behavior of constructs shown to increase risk for other problem behaviors, within a developmental frame. METHODS: Data were from the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP), a prospective study involving a panel of youths followed since 1985. Potential risk factors for violence at age 18 years were measured at ages 10, 14, and 16 years. Bivariate relationships involving risk factor constructs in the individual, family, school, peer and community domains and violence were examined at each age to assess changes in their strength of prediction over time. Attention was also given to the additive strength of increasing numbers of risk factors in the prediction of violence at age 18 years. A final set of analyses explored the extent to which youths were correctly classified as having committed a violent act (or not) at age 18 years on the basis of their overall level of risk at ages 10, 14, and 16 years. RESULTS: At each age, risk factors strongly related to later violence were distributed among the five domains. Ten of 15 risk factors constructs measured at age 10 years were significantly predictive of violence at age 18 years. Twenty of 25 constructs measured at age 14 years and 19 of 21 constructs measured at age 16 years were significantly predictive of later violence. Many constructs predicted violence from more than one developmental point. Hyperactivity (parent rating), low academic performance, peer delinquency, and availability of drugs in the neighborhood predicted violence from ages 10, 14, and 16 years. Analyses of the additive effects of risk factors revealed that youths exposed to multiple risks were notably more likely than others to engage in later violence. The odds for violence of youths exposed to more than five risk factors compared to the odds for violence of youths exposed to fewer than two risk factors at each age were seven times greater at age 10 years, 10 times greater at age 14 years, and nearly 11 times greater at age 16 years. However, despite information gained from all significant risk factors, the overall accuracy in predicting youths who would go on to commit violent acts was limited. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from the study have important implications for preventive intervention programs. Prevention efforts must be comprehensive and developmentally sensitive, responding to large groups or populations exposed to multiple risks. J Gen Intern Med. 1996 Feb;11(2):77-82.Links Comment in: J Gen Intern Med. 1996 Feb;11(2):128-9. J Gen Intern Med. 1996 Jun;11(6):381-2. J Gen Intern Med. 1996 Jun;11(6):381; author reply 382. The experience of violent injury for young African-American men: the meaning of being a "sucker".Rich JA, Stone DA. Boston City Hospital and Boston University School of Medicine, Massachusetts, USA. OBJECTIVE:To explore the experience of violent injury among young African-American men with gunshot or stab wounds to better understand violent injury. DESIGN: Convenience sample, using open-ended, semistructured interviews. SETTING: An urban, municipal hospital in Boston. PATIENTS: Eighteen African-American men between the ages of 18 and 25, who had been shot or stabbed. RESULTS: Analysis of the interviews revealed that these young men identify with a concept called "being a sucker". They perceive that a person who fails to retaliate when he is disrespected or injured will be viewed as weak and will be the target of future victimization. CONCLUSIONS: This study reveals an important perception among these young male victims of violence that if they fail to respond violently to injury or the threat of injury, they will be at risk of further victimization. The social environment in which young male victims of violence live and the meaning of being a sucker must be considered in efforts to decrease recurrent interpersonal violence. Providers who care for young men who are victims of or at risk of violence should understand the implications of the social context on individual behaviors. Ethological data: Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Dec;1036:233-56. Links Collective Violence: Comparisons between Youths and Chimpanzees.Wrangham RW, Wilson ML. Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. wrangham@fas.harvard.edu. Patterns of collective violence found among humans include similarities to those seen among chimpanzees. These include participation predominantly by males, an intense personal and group concern with status, variable subgroup composition, defense of group integrity, inter-group fights that include surprise attacks, and a tendency to avoid mass confrontation. Compared to chimpanzee communities, youth gangs tend to be larger, composed of younger individuals, occupying smaller territories and having a more complex organization. Youth gangs also differ from chimpanzee communities as a result of numerous cultural and environmental influences including complex relations with non-gang society. These relations are governed in important ways by such factors as perceived economic and personal constraints, policing, family structure, and levels of poverty, crime, and racism. Nevertheless, the concepts that sociologists use to account for collective violence in youth gangs are somewhat similar to those applied by anthropologists and biologists to chimpanzees. Thus in both cases collective violence is considered to emerge partly because males are highly motivated to gain personal status, which they do by physical violence. In the case of youth gangs, the reasons for the prevalence of physical violence in status competition compared to non-gang society are clearly context-specific, both culturally and historically. By contrast, among chimpanzees the use of physical violence to settle status competition is universal (in the wild and captivity). The use of physical violence in individual status competition therefore has different sources in youth gangs and chimpanzees. Regardless of its origin, however, its combination with an intense concern for status can explain: (1) why individual males form alliances among each other; and hence (2) how such alliances generate social power, closed groups, and a capacity for defense of territory or pre-emptive attacks on rivals. This comparison suggests that the use of physical violence to resolve individual status competition is an important predictor of collective violence at the gang level. We therefore view the similarities in aggression between humans and chimpanzees that we review here as being adaptive responses to local conditions, predicated on an inherent male concern for social status.
