Characteristics of Gangs in Schools

Chandler and colleagues (1998) reported that 28 percent of the surveyed students reported gangs in schools. However, their analysis used only one indicator of gang presence, responses to the question: "Are there any street gangs at your school?" To obtain a more complete measure of gang presence in schools, two additional questions from the 1995 SCS are considered here: "Do any of the students at your school belong to a street gang?" and "What about gangs that don't have members attending your school . . . have any of those gangs come around your school in the past 6 months?" When positive responses to any of these three questions were counted, gang presence in schools increased from 28 to 37 percent.

To assess the characteristics of these gangs, the SCS asked students who reported gang presence at school to indicate how they knew street gangs existed by responding yes or no to questions of whether gangs:

  • Had a name.
  • Had a recognized leader.
  • Had their own territory or turf.
  • Tagged or marked turf with graffiti.
  • Committed violent acts.
  • Spent time with other members of the gang.
  • Wore clothing or other items to identify their gang membership.
  • Had tattoos.

Between 33 and 80 percent of students used one of these criteria to define gangs (table 1). Students could use more than one indicator of gang existence. Most students used three of the indicators as evidence of a gang: having a name (80 percent), spending time with other members of the gang (80 percent), and wearing clothing or other items to identify their gang membership (71 percent). The fourth most frequently used indicator was tagging or marking turf (56 percent), followed by violent gang activity (50 percent). Thus, it appears that students often, but not always, associate the groups they call "gangs" with violent acts. The least frequently used indicators, in descending order of importance, were these: territory or turf (47 percent), tattoos (37 percent), and recognized leader (33 percent).1

Table 1

To explore further the issue of student association of school violence and gangs, the students' use of various gang indicators (characteristics) was compared with their reports of the degree of gang involvement in criminal activities at school. To measure gang involvement in criminal activities, a gang crime scale was created based on student answers to the following three questions:

  • How often have street gangs been involved in fights, attacks, or violence at your school in the past 6 months?
  • Have street gangs been involved in the sale of drugs at your school in the past 6 months?
  • Have any street gang members brought guns to your school in the past 6 months?

Table 2 shows the percentage of students who used the various gang indicators when they said gangs were involved in none, one, two, or three criminal activities at school. For brevity, this Bulletin refers to these criminal activities as violence, drug sales, and carrying guns, respectively.

Table 2

Table 2 shows that students use the gang indicators most frequently in reference to gangs that are involved at school in only one of the three types of criminal activities in the gang crime scale. The extent of gang involvement in school-related criminal activities in relation to the three criteria students most often use to define gangs (having a name, spending time together, and wearing identifying clothing) is shown in table 2. It is readily apparent that students do not use these three criteria to distinguish degrees of gang involvement in criminal activity.

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Youth Gangs in Schools Juvenile Justice Bulletin • August 2000