The “gang” myth

 

About 30 years ago psychiatrist Thomas Szasz shocked the medical establishment with his now classic book called The Myth of Mental Illness.  In this book he argued that mental illness is a Amyth@ in that the concept itself was being used so loosely and without much scientific merit that just about any sort of Astrange@ behavior was labeled as evidence of Amental illness.@  He was not denying that there were no such specific illnesses like depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, neurosis, etc., but rather that the term Amental illness@ was used to describe events that were not otherwise easily explained, as in the headline AMurderer was mentally ill@ or Amentally ill patient escapes.@  In other words, Szasz argued that there was really no such thing as Amental illness@ because it was so vaguely defined and used inappropriately.  I would like to argue that in a similar way there is no such thing as a Agang@ - although there are many different kinds of groups that could be more specifically defined and discussed than such a value-loaded term as Agangs.@ (Today you won=t find the words Amental illness@ in the latest edition of the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] and you won=t find Agang@ in there either.)

 

So what is a Agang@?

 

We must initially consider the problem of defining what exactly constitutes a gang and a gang member. If four youths are standing on a street corner or are simply walking down the street, is this a gang? (Young people are far more likely to be so labeled, since adults are doing the labeling.)  If this same group of youths hang out together frequently and occasionally engage in some form of deviant activity, does this mean they are a gang? Suppose this same group invents a name for itself and even purchases special shirts or jackets and invents slogans or hand‑signsCdoes this mean it is a gang? Or, if a youth lives in a neighborhood inhabited by a gang (but no one in the gang considers him a member), and just happens to be passing the time on a street corner with a gang member he has known for several years, and is coincidentally questioned by a police officer, who subsequently fills out a field investigation card on him, is he therefore to be counted as a gang member? And how does race enter into the picture in the definition of gangs? If three or four white youths spend a considerable amount of time together, occasionally commit crimes together, and are often seen wearing the kinds of clothes typical of adolescents in general and some gangs in particular, are they considered a gang? I suspect that the average white citizen (and many police officers) would respond to this group differently than if they saw a group of three or four African‑American or Latino teenagers hanging out together (for example, at a shopping mall). Perhaps this is one reason why most official estimates of gangs and gang members tell us that less than 10 percent are white and the majority is African‑American or some other minority group (usually Latino). In other words, could it not be argued that the very definition of gang is racially biased?

The term gang can have many different definitions. It is not always defined in a negative light.  The etymology of the term can be traced to the early English usage of gang that was described as “a going, a walking, or a journey."  The definition given by the Random House College Dictionary provides similar meanings of a positive or neutral nature, such as "a group or band," "a group of persons who gather together for social reasons," "a group of persons working together; squad; shift; a gang of laborers," along with the more negative meanings.  The thesaurus of the word perfect program used to type these words gives such synonyms as "pack," "group," "company," "team," etc.  Then there is the old saying Athat old gang of mine,@ referring to some nostalgic view of the old neighborhood.  Also, a popular CNN program is called ACapital Hill Gang.@ 

I constantly ask students in one of my classes to define a gang and a variety of definitions come forth.  This summer I asked students to name the biggest gang in the country.  I received a multitude of answers, including, interestingly enough, things like Athe government,@ Athe police,@ the Amilitary,@ and even Athe church.@  I told them that my answer was the AFortune 500.@  The point is not that there is any one Aright@ definition, but that there are many different definitions. (By the way, most Fortune 500 corporations would easily qualify as Agangs@ according to prevailing law enforcement definitions.)

One would think that at least law enforcement agencies and researchers would agree on the definition of this term.  Not so, for there is little consensus among social scientists and law‑enforcement personnel as to what these terms mean. One writer defined gangs as Agroups whose members meet together with some regularity, over time, on the basis of group‑defined criteria of membership and group‑defined organization.@ In many studies researchers have often used whatever definition was used by the police. Many researchers have apparently confused the term group with the term gang and have proceeded to expand the definition in such a way as to include every group of youths who commit offenses together.

The dominant law‑enforcement perspective is that gangs are essentially criminal conspiracies with a few hard‑core members (often described as sociopaths) and believe that arrest and imprisonment of these individuals are required as a viable social policy. An example is provided by the California Penal Code (Section 186.22), which gives a definition of a Acriminal street gang@ as Aany organization, association, or group of three or more persons whether formal or informalYwhich has a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, where members individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal activity@ (Fortune 500 corporations?)

Adding to the ambiguity of the term "gang" is the most recent "National Youth Gang Survey" sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  In this survey of about 5,000 agencies, a "youth gang" was defined as follows:  "a group of youths or young adults in your jurisdiction that you or other responsible persons in your agency or community are willing to identify or classify as a 'gang'."  Omitted from this definition were such groups as motorcycle gangs, hate or ideology groups, prison gangs or "other exclusively adult gangs."  In other words, a "gang" is whatever an agency says it is!

A new category was included in this survey, which reinforces my contention that the Agang@ is a myth.  Survey respondents were asked to identify how many Atroublesome youth groups@ they had in their jurisdiction.  The report defines these groups as typically having three or four members and who are not well organized and rather transitory (what adolescent groups is not?).  Also, they occasionally get involved in delinquent activities (again, what adolescent group does not?) but are not committed to a life of crime (once again, what adolescent groups is any different?).  Despite any connection to full-fledged youth Agangs,@ survey respondents were asked to estimate the number of these kinds of adolescent groups (how they were to identify them and what criteria were to be used is not spelled out in this report).  Not surprisingly (given that those doing the data collection were all adults), the vast majority of jurisdictions reported the existence of such groups!

I believe there is a very specific reason why these definitions are so vague: it enables the state to more easily control a certain population that is in any way perceived as threatening.  I will have more to say about this shortly, but suffice it to say at this time that it is rather curious that most of the standard definitions of Agangs@ tend to include (at least in a subtle way) groups that come from the most marginalized sectors of the population and who are mostly racial minorities.  In fact, virtually every estimate of the number of gangs in an area notes that around 90% are racial minorities!

 

It must be Agang-related@

 

Many times we may read in the newspapers or see on the nightly news a crime, the motive of which is not immediately known.  Quite often law enforcement officials and even the media will claim that Ait appears to be gang-related.@  Quite often this turns out to be wrong.  In fact, this is often an easy answer, one that fits into a convenient Asound bite@ for the 11 o=clock news.  So what is a Agang-related crime@?  This is not an easy question to answer.

If a gang member kills another gang member in retaliation for the killing of a fellow gang member, you may not get much argument over whether this would be gang‑related (even this is not so cut-and-dried, however). However, what if a gang member is killed as a result of some sort of love triangle, or if a gang member is killed by someone not in a gang, or if a gang member kills someone while committing a robbery on his own? Decisions about these kinds of incidents must be made, and police officials have procedures for such reporting. As two noted gang researchers (Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxson, from the University of Southern California) argue, such procedures are conducted Anot always according to reliable criteria, not always with adequate information regarding the motive or circumstances of the crime, not always with extensive gang‑membership information on file, andCmost clearlyCnot by the same criteria from city to city.@

            Klein and Maxson reviewed this process in five cities around the country and found that each city had somewhat different methods for defining gang‑related incidents; for example, in two cities, only violent incidents were counted. In one city the policy was to include only gang‑on‑gang crimes, but the authors found that robberies where the offenders (but not the victims) were gang members constituted gang‑related crimes. In another city any offense committed by a gang member was counted as gang related. In short, there appears to be little consensus on what a gang‑related crime is.

AI know a gang member when I see one@

Given the wide publicity over the subject of gangs during the past 20 years, it should come as no surprise to find numerous stereotypes about gang members.  Images of baggy pants, red or blue bandanas, ear rings, tattoos, Raiders jackets (or some other sports team), Pentleton shirts (buttoned at the top), among others, are numerous and part of American culture.  The fact of the matter is that you can=t tell a gang member from a non-gang member. I have many people who would fit the vague descriptions of Agang members@ in my UNLV classes every semester.  Many of these students (almost always African-American or Latino) report numerous incidents in their lives where they have been stopped and questioned by the police, often being suspected gang members. Thus, gang membership is tinged with racial overtones.

The current scandal involving the Los Angeles Police Department is relevant here as it includes a group of officers affiliated with an anti-gang unit known as Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH), who have been accused of making false arrests, extorting money from drug dealers, unjustified shootings and, most importantly for the subject at hand, falsely accusing many individuals of being Agang members.@  One report noted that these accusations (corroborated by several police officers) cast doubt about the authenticity of the estimated number of gangs and gang members in Los Angeles, which claims there are now 112,000 gang members in Los Angeles County; 62,000 had been identified by the CRASH unit.  Police officials and police gang “experts” claim that the data are accurate, but one must wonder.  So far, at least 100 convictions of Agang@ members have been overturned and 20 officers have been fired or quit.

In other words, it is rather easy to be labeled as a Agang member@ if you are a member of a racial minority.  This was never more evident than when I was involved in a research project a few years ago here in Las Vegas where I was comparing the arrest records of gang members and a control group of non-gang members.  One of my students, a member of the police department, was involved in part of the data collection that looked at arrest records.  He called me one night and said that he was having a hard time locating any black males between 18 and 25 who had been arrested, but who had not been identified as a Agang member.@ In other words, if you were black and were arrested you were, almost without exception, a Agang member.@  It made it difficult to obtain a reliable control group of people not in gangs.

Part of the problem stems from the often vague criteria used to identify membership in a Agang.@ Part of this, of course, is because of the vagueness of the definition of Agang.@  It goes without saying that if the criteria used to define a Agang@ are problematic, then it logically follows that it will be equally problematic determining who is a Amember@ of this group.  Space does not permit a complete review of this process, so I’ll merely give one example, which comes from a recent list of Agangs@ in Las Vegas, provided by the local gang unit of the police department.  While looking at this list, I noticed a gang called the Ashitheads.@  When I asked a police official to explain this, he related that the group of youths who constituted this Agang@ got their name in the following manner: one day the father of one of the Agang@ members got mad when several members were visiting his home and told his son something like AYou and your shithead friends get the hell out of here.@  Henceforth this group of youths called themselves the Ashitheads@ (they previously had no name) and thus made a name for themselves in the local history of Las Vegas Agangs@!  (I ask the reader to think back to your youth and see if you belonged some group that occasionally committed some crime, however minor.  Were you a Agang@?)

This leads to one more major problem, namely, estimating how many Agangs@ and how many Agang members@ there are?  A rather curious set of circumstances surround the process of obtaining these estimates.  As a clue, we need to adhere to the age-old advice: Afollow the money.@

 

The numbers game: more gangs = more money

The fact that those providing most of the estimates about the number of gangs and gang members are law enforcement bureaucracies should cause suspicion.  More suspicion should be aroused when we realize that the amount of federal dollars flowing into these bureaucracies tends to increase every year.  And naturally so, given the vested interest in producing high numbers.  It is also curious that every year a national survey is done, there seem to be more gangs and more gang members identified.  Moreover, it is certainly no surprise to find Agangs@ and Agang members@ in just about every suburb and rural hamlet in every part of the country, since federal dollars will certainly flow to these small departments (according to the National Youth Gang Survey, 25% of all rural counties and 57% of all suburban counties reported having gangs). 

As noted earlier, a new category was invented for this most recent survey, called Atroublesome youth groups.@  Almost three fourths of large cities reported having these groups, while just over half of all rural counties have them.  Given the vagueness of the definition of Atroublesome youth groups@ is this not surprising?  Should we not be very skeptical of the above numbers?  What really bothers me is the existence of this new category of Atroublesome youth groups.@  Why?  Simply because almost any youth (especially a minority youth) can be identified as belonging to such a group! Once so identified, it may be easy to eventually classify them as a Agang@ and thus more easily controlled.   What is also equally interesting is the following fact: while in recent years the official rate of crime has been falling (leaving aside the accuracy of these figures), the number of Agangs@ and Agang members@ has increased each and every year.  Also, the amount of Agangsta rap@ and other Arap@ music has increased, along with a decrease in gang-related homicides.  Can we not argue, based upon these facts, that there is an inverse correlation between the number of Agangs,@ Agang members@ and the amount of Arap@ music?  Can joining a Agang@ and listening to Arap@ music cause one to be less involved in serious crime?  It seems so.

 

Controlling the Asurplus population@