Gangs In Chicago Research Articles

Partying, Cruising, and Hanging in the Streets: Gangs, Routine Activities, and Delinquency and Violence in Chicago, 1959–1962

Objectives Examine relationships between routine activities, character contests in the form of “signifying,” and general delinquency and fighting in a street gang context.

GROUP COHESIVENESS, GANG MEMBER PRESTIGE, AND DELINQUENCY AND VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO, 1959–1962

Data from Short and Strodtbeck's () study of gangs in Chicago, 1959–1962, are used to examine the association between intragang friendship networks and violent and delinquent behaviors among 248 boys from 11 different gangs (9 Black and 2 White). Contrary to expectations of tightly connected gangs being the most dangerous, estimates from multilevel overdispersed Poisson regression models showed significantly increased mean levels of violence among gangs with relatively low group cohesion. No relationship was observed between delinquency and gang cohesiveness, regardless of the specific network measure employed. At the individual level, popular boys were at a significantly increased risk for both delinquency and violence, suggesting a link between prestigious positions within the structure of gang friendship networks and conformity with group processes. The implications of these findings for detached worker intervention are discussed.

Social work research—an urban desert?

A search of two major social work databases suggests that contemporary published social work research in the English language may have had very little to say about the engagement of social work and urban life. The focus of this paper is on the illumination that an early historical episode throws on the nature and implications of the affinity of social work research and urban life. Frederick Thrasher's iconic 1920s study of Chicago gangs enables us to illustrate three general claims. First, it paints a probably unwitting picture of a community of civic and scholarly enterprise marked by mutual reciprocity and a sense of shared endeavour even if not agreed standpoints. Second, The Gang affords a record of urban research practice. Finally Thrasher's work, along with other sociological research in Chicago during the 1920s, included a welfare and interventionist mission. I draw conclusions regarding social work theorizing of urban life, the relationship between social work and sociology, and the possible implications for professional training in social work.

“As Soon as I Get Out Ima Cop Dem Jordans”: The Afterlife of the Corporate Gang

Sudhir Venkatesh and Steven Levitt's influential 2000 article transformed the way social scientists study gangs by showing the context in which Chicago gang members built an organization modeled on a corporation. But if this research helped to demonstrate that the underground economy is a logical response to the inner city's isolation from the rest of the country, it also makes it difficult to see that the very same factors that have led to urban decay and “social isolation” (i.e., escalating unemployment, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the emergence of gangs to fill bureaucratic voids) serve to connect gangs to wider social worlds. This study expands upon recent gang research by detailing the improvisational economic and social practices, as well as the intricate narratives, and the social practices that allow Chicago gangs and their members to access a variety of people, institutions, and resources, while marking the diverse modes of historical consciousness that gang affiliates develop. A gang that I will here be calling the “Divine Aces” forms a powerful case in point.1

An analysis of police responses to gangs in Chicago

In response to Chicago’s well‐documented gang problem, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) established its first specialized gang unit in 1967. In the ensuing decades, the CPD reorganized its core gang unit several times and expanded its anti‐gang response through numerous supporting restructuring efforts. The Chicago experience indicates that reorganization can positively and negatively influence the relative effectiveness of the police response to gangs. As such, the lessons for police departments are twofold: be careful when restructuring, particularly when adapting for reasons not tied to the actual gang problem; but reorganize whenever necessary to address rising gang violence.

The Situation Complex: Revisiting Frederic Thrasher’s The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago

Originally published in 1927, Frederic Thrasher’s The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago is a panoramic, multilayered, richly detailed account of youth gangs—a milestone text of the Chicago School of Sociology. The most widely available version of The Gang is a highly edited edition published in 1963, which contained an extensive new introduction by noted sociologist James Short. I argue here for a return to the original text, as well as the work of Thrasher more broadly. Rereading this classic text in full, original form, I maintain, gives us fresh perspective on contemporary research and commentary on gang life. So commonly (now) the purview of the postpositivist and highly delimited field of criminology, The Gang returns us to questions of radical context, the multiple webs of influence and association that so marked studies of the period—a move long overdue.

The Same, but Different: why Scotland?

Forty years ago last autumn I became a sociologist. I went to Aberdeen in October 1965 to do English Lit, was persuaded into sociology 1 as an outside subject because history was 'full', and was immediately hooked* Though I didn't graduate for another 4 years, I saw the world through sociological eyes. I was lucky that sociology at Aberdeen was in its infancy; indeed, it was the 2 n d department in Scotland after Edinburgh which began undergraduate courses in 1964. Others came later. Sociology, however, was largely in Scotland but not of it. As an undergraduate, I learned a lot about families in Bethnal Green, and gangs in Chicago, but virtually nothing about my own country. This was of course the era of *us-too' sociology, in the sense that modernisation theory was supreme, asserting that social change was a linear process though which all 'industrial' societies travelled. (Later on, we had a phase of 'not-us' sociology which tried to convince that Scotland was some kind of colony of England, that it was systematically and deliberately 'under­ developed', in the language of the day, but that didn't wash either.) That left of course a myriad of cases that did not fit the general theory, and inordinate effort went into showing that they were 'backward', unwilling to follow future pathways, or simply charmingly deviant and exotic cases which proved the rule. Scotland was probably seen as a bit of both, insofar as it was seen at all.

Race Not Space: A Revisionist History of Gangs in Chicago

Previous articleNext article No AccessRace Not Space: A Revisionist History of Gangs in ChicagoJohn M. HagedornJohn M. Hagedorn Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 91, Number 2Spring 2006 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv91n2p194 Views: 544Total views on this site Copyright ASALHPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

DISPUTES INVOLVING YOUTH STREET GANG MEMBERS: MICRO‐SOCIAL CONTEXTS*

This paper examines microsocial contexts of violent and nonviolent dispute‐related incidents involving gang members. Data consist of reports of field observations of twelve black and eight white youth street gangs in Chicago between 1959 and 1962. Dispute‐related incidents (N = 2,637) were classified according to three primary pretexts: normative or order violations, identity attacks and retaliation. Findings show that disputes associated with each of these generally unfolded consistently with expectations based on the extent to which status concerns were likely to be outweighed by such situational constraints as a close relationship between disputants and audience intervention. We suggest that understanding violence in the gang context will be enhanced greatly by further consideration of the microsocial level of explanation and linkages to its macro‐ and individual‐level counterparts.

Pushing Forward: Disability, Basketball, and Me

Wheelchair basketball offers an ethnographic space through which this article connects a familial story of survival to the author’s evolving engagement with disability. The author has been looking for role models, for people who might offer guidance to help his family cope with his daughter’s disability. The story of Melvin Juette, a Chicago gang member turned world-class wheelchair athlete, was the inspiration for embarking on a research project about wheelchair sports. Melvin’s perseverance in the face of adversity illustrates the dynamic interface between agency and structure and suggests a way to move beyond the “supercrip” critique that is prevalent in the disability studies literature. Melvin’s story and others like his have emboldened the author and helped him to view social difference as enabling rather than as disabling.

Police-Black Community Relations in Postwar Philadelphia: Race and Criminalization in Urban Social Spaces, 1945-1960

Previous articleNext article No AccessPolice-Black Community Relations in Postwar Philadelphia: Race and Criminalization in Urban Social Spaces, 1945-1960Karl E. JohnsonKarl E. Johnson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 89, Number 2Spring 2004African Americans and the Urban Landscape A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/4134096 Views: 246Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Simon Balto “The Hired Enemies of This Population”: Black New York, the NYPD, and the Fundamental Anti-Blackness of American Criminal Punishment, The Journal of African American History 105, no.44 (Dec 2020): 694–700.https://doi.org/10.1086/710604 Simon Ezra Balto “OCCUPIED TERRITORY”: POLICE REPRESSION AND BLACK RESISTANCE IN POSTWAR MILWAUKEE, 1950–1968, The Journal of African American History 98, no.22 (Nov 2017): 229–252.https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.98.2.0229 John M. Hagedorn Race Not Space: A Revisionist History of Gangs in Chicago, The Journal of African American History 91, no.22 (Nov 2017): 194–208.https://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv91n2p194

Introducing single case study research design: an overview.

An overview of case study research The use of case study design in research has a long and distinguished history in many disciplines ( 1 ). It is used in law, education, history, medicine, psychology and business ( 2 ). Yin ( 3 ) stated that case studies are essential for social science and that they are used extensively in practice-oriented professions. Examples of studies include those of Freud, from which he derived his theories of personality ( 4 ), and Whyte's study of neighbourhood gangs in Chicago ( 5 ), which was found by other researchers ( 6 ) to be a typical case and again, as in the example of Freud, led to the development of theory. The term 'case study' refers to both a process of inquiry - that is, studying a case or designing and executing a case study - and its end product, the case study or 'case report' ( 7 ).

Asian Gangs and Asian Organized Crime In Chicago

The primary purpose of this paper has been to conduct a preliminary examination into the existence of, and the extent of activity of Asian street gangs and Asian organized Crime in the city of Chicago. Information was acquired through field study, personal interviews, direct observation, official reports, and government documents. The author has defined and distinguished between criminal gangs and organized crime groups. Links between Asian street gangs and Asian organized criminal groups in Chicago have been examined. In addition, relationships between Asian criminal groups in Chicago, other U.S. cities, and international crime groups have been highlighted. Suggestions directed toward more effective investigation procedures and policy decisions have been recommended.

Violent Gangs in Chicago: In Search of Social Policy

A model of the development of two types of violent gangs is presented. Data on the scope and seriousness of the gang problem in Chicago, community characteristics associated with the issue, and the integrative and segmentive nature of violent gangs are provided. A community intervention model within a larger social policy or social development framework is also elaborated.

Multivariate Analysis Of Gang Delinquency: I. Ecologic Influences.

In continuity with delinquency area research, the study examined the neighborhood characteristics of 16 delinquent gangs in Chicago, 1960. Compared with city norms, gang neighborhoods were lower on Borgatta-Hadden census tract factors of Sodo-Economic Status and Stable Family; higher on Disorganization-deprivation; not different on the Suburb factor. Measures of gang behavior were taken from the Short-Tennyson-Howard rated behavior factors: Conflict, Stable Corner-Boy, Mature Sex, Retreatist, and Authority Protest. Significant positive correlations were found between the Suburb and the Stable Corner-Boy factors; and between the Socio-Economic Status and Authority Protest factors. These results seem to support two major parts of A. Cohen's theory of delinquent boys.

Perceived Opportunities, Gang Membership, and Delinquency

Certain aspects of the opportunity structure paradigm were operationalized in a study of delinquent gangs in Chicago. Negro and white lower-class gang boys were compared with lower-class nongang boys from the same neighborhoods, and with middle-class boys, of the same race. The ranking of the six race-by-class-by-gang-status groups on official delinquency rates corresponded more closely to ranking on perceptions of legitimate opportunities than to ranking on perceptions of illegitimate opportunities, which is consistent with the assumption that illegitimate opportunities intervene after legitimate opportunities have been appraised and found wanting. Gang members perceived legitimate opportunities as available less often than nongang boys, lower-class boys, less often than middle-class, and Negro boys, less often than white. Differences in perceptions of illegitimate opportunities were in the reverse direction, as expected. Language: en

The Response of Gang Leaders to Status Threats: An Observation on Group Process and Delinquent Behavior

For the explanation of aggressive episodes, group process is seen as an important adjunct both to subcultural and individualistic theories of gang delinquency. Gang leaders are observed to precipitate acts of aggression that are directed outside their group when their status is threatened. This is believed to arise because the leaders' control of internal resources is limited. It also requires the support of aggressive norms within the group for such behavior is not appropriate in a group with "retreatist" norms. The interpretation is based upon instances drawn from observations of a dozen Chicago gangs over a three-year period.

The Gang. A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago

While gangs and gang culture have been around for countless centuries, The Gang is one of the first academic studies of the phenomenon. Originally published in 1927, Frederic Milton Thrasher's magnum opus offers a profound and careful analysis of hundreds of gangs in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. With rich prose and an eye for detail, Thrasher looked specifically at the way in which urban geography shaped gangs, and posited the thesis that neighborhoods in flux were more likely to produce gangs. Moreover, he traced gang culture back to feudal and medieval power systems and linked tribal ethos in other societies to codes of honor and glory found in American gangs. Thrasher approaches his subject with empathy and insightfulness, and creates a multifaceted and textured portrait that still has much to offer to readers today. With handsome images that evoke the era, this unabridged edition of The Gang not only explores an important moment in the history of Chicago, but also is itself a landmark in the history of sociology and subcultural theory.