Hispanic and Anglo gang membership in two southwestern cities

Abstract

Delinquent gangs have attracted the attention of social scientists for most of the twentieth century. The current study presents a systematic comparison of the gang-related attitudes and behavior of youths living in cities of dramatically differing size but subjected to similar cultural forces. Specifically, we explored the attitudes and orientations of gang and nongang eighth grade students living in two southwestern cities with large pluralities of Mexican Americans: Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. While statistical comparisons supported the position that the Phoenix children expressed higher levels of pro-gang attitudes, there did not appear to be significant differences in self-reported gang membership. Hispanic youths in both cities were not only more pro-gang in their attitudes and orientations, but they reported higher levels of gang membership. However, multivariate analyses reveal that a far more complex set of forces is at work.