Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Risk Factors of Gang Membership: A Study of Community, School, Family, Peer and Individual Level Predictors Among Three South Florida Counties Karla Johanna Dhungana Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE RISK FACTORS OF GANG MEMBERSHIP: A STUDY OF COMMUNITY, SCHOOL, FAMILY, PEER AND INDIVIDUAL LEVEL PREDICTORS AMONG THREE SOUTH FLORIDA COUNTIES By KARLA JOHANNA DHUNGANA A Thesis submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2009 The members of the committee approve the thesis of Karla Johanna Dhungana defended on April 24, 2009. __________________________________ Sarah Bacon Professor Directing Thesis __________________________________ William Bales Committee Member __________________________________ Brian Stults Committee Member Approved: _____________________________________ Sarah Bacon, Thesis Committee Chair, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice ______________________________________ Thomas Blomberg, Dean, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii I dedicate this to my twin brother and other half, Jeffrey Carlo Dhungana; after spending 22 years together two roads diverged. While his journey took him on adventures across the Americas, I found myself in Graduate School. Both eager to become Agents of Change, in following our separate paths we came to discover and realize within ourselves a similar tenacity, courage and perseverance. For the inspiration, love and support since day one and for remaining my hero, despite our physical distance, this one is for you brother! iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincerest gratitude is due to my major professor and committee chair, Dr. Sarah Bacon for her commitment to the project from its conception and her un- wavering faith and support throughout. My appreciation also goes out to my thesis committee members, Dr. William Bales and Dr. Brian Stults for believing in the project and especially for sharing their statistical expertise; without which my analyses would not have been scrutinized and reach the accuracy and caliber that it did. Special thanks to Mr. Hal Johnson from the Florida Department of Children and Families for providing the dataset utilized for the study. My appreciation and immeasurable debt is also owed to my family, especially my parents, Dr. Shambhu and Josefina Dhungana, for believing in me enough to allow me to follow my dreams and venture on my own, my twin brother Jeff for his constant words of support despite our physical distance and my older brother Rajan for always believing in his baby sister. Lastly, thanks and appreciation a thousand times over is due to my circle of friends in Tallahassee as well as my best friend Anjali Lohani in Boston, for celebrating every small success and seeing me through every little obstacle along the way; without them to commiserate with I would not have survived this process. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ................................................................................. vi Abstract .................................................................................... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 2. HISTORY OF GANGS AND EMPIRICAL BACKGROUND ........ 4 2.1 What is a Gang? ................................................................ 4 2.2 Prevalence and Development of Gangs in America ........... 5 2.3 Gangs in Florida ................................................................. 7 2.4 Risk Factors of Gang Involvement ..................................... 10 3. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS……………………………. 16 3.1 Life Course Perspective .................................................... 16 3.2 Gangs and the Life Course Perspective ……………… ...... 16 4. METHODS ................................................................................ 19 4.1 Data .................................................................................... 19 4.2 Measures .......................................................................... 20 5. RESULTS .................................................................................. 24 5.1 Gang Prevalence ............................................................... 24 5.2 Gang Membership Predictors by Risk Domain .................. 25 6. CONCLUSIONS 6.1 Discussion ......................................................................... 34 6.2 Policy Implications ............................................................. 38 6.3 Limitations .......................................................................... 41 6.4 Directions for Future Research .......................................... 41 APPENDICES ................................................................................ 44 A. FLORIDA STATUTE 874.03: CRIMINAL GANG DEFINITION 44 B. FLORIDA GANGS ............................................................ 47 C. MEASURES/SCALE OF RISK FACTORS BY DOMAIN... 55 D. FSU HUMAN SUBJECT COMMITTEE APPROVAL ....... 60 REFERENCES .............................................................................. 60 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH............................................................. 70 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Windows of Opportunity for Gang Prevention and Intervention 12 Table 2: Demographic Characteristics ................................................... 20 Table 3: Descriptives of Measure.................. .......................................... 22-23 Table 4: Gang Involvement by Gender ……………………………………. 24 Table 5: Gang Involvement by Race...……………………………………… 24 Table 6: Gang Involvement by Grade ……………………………………… 25 Table 7: Logistic Regression of Gang Membership Predictors, All Counties……………………………………………………….......... 30 Table 8: Logistic Regression of Gang Membership Predictors, Broward County …………………………………………………………........ 31 Table 9: Logistic Regression of Gang Membership Predictors, Miami-Dade County………………………………………............. 32 Table 10: Logistic Regression of Gang Membership Predictors, Palm Beach County ……………………………………………….......... 33 vi ABSTRACT Recent studies have shown that the influence of gang membership is a more detrimental predictor of delinquency than the association with delinquent peers alone. A recent survey reported the existence of at least 1,500 gangs and over 65,000 gang members in Florida (FDLE, 2007). Furthermore, statistics also reveal that Florida currently has the most rapidly growing gang population in comparison to all other states. This study examines and compares the predictors of gang membership in three South Florida counties with the highest gang membership rates, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, by evaluating risk factors at the community, family, school, peer and individual level. Using the Florida Substance Abuse Survey Data, the study seeks to examine the risk factors predictive of gang memberships that are present in the three counties, how the exposures to multiple risk factors increase the odds of gang memberships and how they compare in exposure to risk factors. Logistic regressions are employed to identify significant predictors of gang membership net of the effects of race and gender. Implications for policy and gang intervention programs are discussed. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Research has found that other than one’s own prior delinquency, one of the most robust predictors of the onset, continuance or desistance of delinquency is the association with delinquent peers (Akers et al., 1979; Elliot et al., 1985; Matsueda & Heimer, 1987; Thornberry & Krohn, 1997; Warr & Stafford, 1991;). However, studies have recently begun to show the influence of gang membership on delinquency to be more detrimental (Battin et al., 1998; Thornberry, 1998). Gang membership has been found to be a strong predictor of individual violence in adolescence (Hawkins et al., 1998; Battin et al., 1998; Thornberry, 1998), of drug use and drug trafficking even after leaving a gang (Hill et al., 1995; Thornberry et al., 2003) and predict higher rates of delinquency among its members as compared to non-gang members (Hagedorn, 1998; Maxon & Klein, 1990; Taylor, 1990; Thornberry et al., 2003). Gangs are prevalent in all 50 states and as of September 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported the existence of approximately 20,000 gangs with around one million members in the United States, with close to 80 percent of the crime in many communities attributed to criminal gangs (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). Common gang related crimes include alien smuggling, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, home invasions, identity theft, murder, and weapons trafficking (FBI, 2009), making the gang problem an urgent issue to consider. Understanding the developmental process of gang membership could have important policy implications for gang and gang violence prevention, intervention and suppression and concurrently for community safety, crime and violence reduction. Predictors of gang membership have been identified at the individual (Bjerregaard & Smith, 1993; Curry & Spergel, 1992; Esbensen & Huizinga, 1993; Hill et al., 1999; Kosterman et al., 1996; Thornberry et al., 1993), peer