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Abstract
The study of gangs corresponds well with life course perspectives of crime as the onset, persistence, and desistance from crime parallel the stages of gang membership. This literature commonly draws on turning points to explain the onset and desistance from criminal behavior, which are often synonymous with life transitions such as marriage, military duty, employment –even gang membership itself. In this study we draw on life course perspectives to examine the impact of a specific life transition that is common during adolescence, school transitions, on a youth’s gang status as well as variables associated with a turning point in the life course. Specifically, we focus on two competing relationships that school mobility can serve as the impetus for joining a gang, or alternatively, act as a ‘hook for change’ and facilitate gang leaving. We use a mixed-methods approach by first drawing on qualitative data that examined desisted gang members and their interpretation of their school transition experiences. Second, consistent with a grounded theory approach, we examined these relationships quantitatively using a panel study of youth followed over a five-year period.
Notes
1. We note that dropping out of school can also facilitate the desistance process (Brunson and Miller Citation2009; Pyrooz, Decker, and Webb Citation2014; Pyrooz, Fox, and Decker Citation2010). However, because our quantitative sample does not include youth who dropped out of school, we cannot empirically examine this effect.
2. Joining a gang for protection frequently leads to the opposite effect, as gang youth are more likely to be victimized than nongang youth (Melde, Taylor, and Esbensen Citation2009; Taylor et al. Citation2008, 2007).
3. Due to an under-representation of African American youth in Chicago schools obtained in a 2006 sampling effort, two additional schools were included in the evaluation, beginning during the 2007–2008 school year (Esbensen et al. Citation2013).
4. The Eurogang Program of Research defines a street gang as ‘any durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity.’ For more information on the Eurogang and this definition please see Maxson and Esbensen (2016).
5. It is important to note that the sampling strategy of the original study design stipulated that youth were not included in the pool of Eurogang youth if they self-nominated as a gang member at any wave of the G.R.E.A.T. evaluation.
6. While reasons for reinterpretation vary, statistical analysis reveals no differences across youth who retrospectively reported gang membership and those who did not on a variety of variables ranging from demographics to attitudes and behaviors.
7. Three to four project members read the interview transcripts and formed consensus opinions on the gang status of each youth.
8. All alpha scores are calculated at wave 1.
9. There was non-significant variation at level 3 (i.e., the school level) in three level HLM models when the outcome was restricted to those experiencing some variation in gang status.
10. Analyses were conducted in HLM 7.0. Missing data were handled through listwise deletion. The final sample size for all models was 3233 respondents.
11. It is important to note that everyone in our sample experienced the normal transition to high school. The 25.7% of youth who did not transition in our sample simply did not transition during the times for which we have survey data for them.
12. We did not have valid transition data from one respondent for which we observed gang desistance.
13. With the exception of the post-test, which was conducted in the spring of the initial school year of data collection, survey data were collected in the fall of each school year.
14. Calculation of the effect of time in a new school is equal to the sum of the effect of time and time in new school.
15. Given the relatively small number of non-normative school transitions, and the fact that the effect was in the same direction as normal school transitions in the fixed effects models, we use the overall school transition variable in all models in Table .