Young Women’s Involvement in Gangs in the United States: An Overview

Abstract

In the United States, the 1980s and 1990s have witnessed monumental national growth both in gangs and in the renewed academic study of gangs. Female gang involvement, which until recently was typically either stereotyped or ignored, has also garnered new interest among researchers, thanks in part to the work of feminist scholars, who have struggled to bring the study of women’s lives more fully into the field of criminology.1 One consequence of this renewed interest in gangs, and girls’2 gang involvement in particular, has been much improved information about the topic, including a number of important questions: (1) how widespread is young women’s gang involvement? (2) why do they join gangs? (3) what is the nature of their gang involvement? and finally, (4) what are the consequences of girls’ participation in gangs? Here I will address each of these issues by reviewing recent research on young women’s gang involvement in the United States.