SOC310H5 Lecture : Lecture #6
Document Summary
Explosion of discussion on gangs- but didn"t define gang . Seems more looser; more structure not just a bunch of people hanging out in the park. Need to have one structural feature: another take at defining a gang: Group of young people a gang if they identify their group as . These definitions seem to be loose: do we let young people define themselves, esbensen et al 2001. N= 5, 935 grade 8 students in 42 schools and 315 classrooms. 8% report being in a gang that does delinquent thing. 5% report being in organized gangs- leaders, symbols and initiation rights. 2% define themselves as being core" members of organized gangs. How do you assess the number of gangs: tanner and wortley study (2002) 11% indiciated that they were current or former gang members. If you look at what theyre doing, a lot of it is similar to ordinary youth behavior; normal social behavior (hanging out, going to parties, etc. )
