TY - JOUR
T1 - Continuity and Change in Gang Membership and Gang Embeddedness
AU - Pyrooz, David C.
AU - Sweeten, Gary
AU - Piquero, Alex R.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Pathways to Desistance was supported by funds from the following: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2007-MU-FX-0002), National Institute of Justice (2008-IJ-CX-0023), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Center for Disease Control, National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA019697), Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona Governor's Justice Commission. The authors are grateful for their support. The content of this paper, however, is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of these agencies.
PY - 2013/5
Y1 - 2013/5
N2 - Objectives. Drawing from social network and life-course frameworks, the authors extend Hagan's concept of criminal embeddedness to embeddedness within gangs. This study explores the relationship between embeddedness in a gang, a type of deviant network, and desistance from gang membership. Method. Data were gathered over a five-year period from 226 adjudicated youth reporting gang membership at the baseline interview. An item response theory model is used to construct gang embeddedness. The authors estimate a logistic hierarchical linear model to identify whether baseline levels of gang embeddedness alter the longitudinal contours of gang membership. Results. Gang embeddedness is associated with slowing the rate of desistance from gang membership over the full five-year study period. Gang members with low levels of embeddedness leave the gang quickly, crossing a 50 percent threshold in six months after the baseline interview, whereas high levels of embeddedness delays similar reductions until about two years. Males, Hispanics, and Blacks were associated with greater continuity in gang membership as well as those with low self-control. Conclusions. The concept of gang embeddedness broadens understanding of heterogeneity in deviant network immersion and is applicable to a wide range of criminal and delinquent networks. Gang embeddedness has implications for studying the parameters of gang careers and for a range of criminological outcomes.
AB - Objectives. Drawing from social network and life-course frameworks, the authors extend Hagan's concept of criminal embeddedness to embeddedness within gangs. This study explores the relationship between embeddedness in a gang, a type of deviant network, and desistance from gang membership. Method. Data were gathered over a five-year period from 226 adjudicated youth reporting gang membership at the baseline interview. An item response theory model is used to construct gang embeddedness. The authors estimate a logistic hierarchical linear model to identify whether baseline levels of gang embeddedness alter the longitudinal contours of gang membership. Results. Gang embeddedness is associated with slowing the rate of desistance from gang membership over the full five-year study period. Gang members with low levels of embeddedness leave the gang quickly, crossing a 50 percent threshold in six months after the baseline interview, whereas high levels of embeddedness delays similar reductions until about two years. Males, Hispanics, and Blacks were associated with greater continuity in gang membership as well as those with low self-control. Conclusions. The concept of gang embeddedness broadens understanding of heterogeneity in deviant network immersion and is applicable to a wide range of criminal and delinquent networks. Gang embeddedness has implications for studying the parameters of gang careers and for a range of criminological outcomes.
KW - criminal embeddedness
KW - gang membership
KW - life-course criminology
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U2 - 10.1177/0022427811434830
DO - 10.1177/0022427811434830
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84878028532
SN - 0022-4278
VL - 50
SP - 239
EP - 271
JO - Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
JF - Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
IS - 2
ER -