Researchers organize the risk factors for serious and violent delinquency according to five developmental domains (sometimes called risk factor levels): individual, family, school, peer group, and community. This framework has its origins in developmental psychologist Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) conceptualization of the different spheres of influence that affect a child’s behavior, namely, relations in the family, the peer group, and schools. Subsequent research on risk factors for adolescent problem behaviors added two other important risk factor domains: individual characteristics and community conditions. Indeed, research shows that risk and protective factors in these five domains function as predictors of juvenile delinquency, violence, and gang membership at different stages in social development, as affected by the timing of the respective spheres of influence (Howell & Egley, 2005; Thornberry, 2005; Thornberry, Krohn et al., 2003).
Recent youth gang research has produced three seminal findings with respect to the impact of risk factors on the likelihood of gang membership. First, risk factors for gang membership span all five of the risk factor domains (family, peer group, school, individual characteristics, and community conditions) (Howell & Egley, 2005). Second, risk factors have a cumulative impact; that is, the greater the numbers of risk factors experienced by the youth, the greater the likelihood of gang involvement. For example, youth possessing seven or more risk factors were 13 times more likely to join a gang than children with none or only one risk factor indicator in Seattle (Hill et al., 1999). Third, the presence of risk factors in multiple developmental domains appears to further enhance the likelihood of gang membership. For youth in the Rochester study (Thornberry et al., 2003), a majority (61 percent) of the boys and 40 percent of the girls who exhibited elevated risk in all domains self-reported gang membership. In contrast, only one-third of the boys and one-fourth of the girls who experienced risk in a simple majority of the domains joined a gang. Thus, gang programs not only need to address multiple risk factors, they also need to address risk factors in multiple developmental domains.
Studies also show that antecedents of gang involvement begin to come into play long before youths reach a typical age for joining a gang. For the highest risk youth, a stepping-stone pattern appears to begin as early as ages 3-4 with the emergence of conduct problems, followed by elementary school failure at ages 6–12, delinquency onset by age 12, gang joining around ages 13–15, and serious, violent, and chronic delinquency onward from mid-adolescence (Howell & Egley, 2005). Hence, this National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) review encompasses risk factors for the onset of delinquency, and it drew heavily upon two comprehensive reviews of the literature on the development of serious and violent delinquency (Loeber & Farrington, 1998, 2001). This was deemed appropriate because of the link between gang membership and serious and violent delinquency (see Howell, 2003:83–84 and Thornberry, 1998, for reviews of the overlap between gang membership and serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offending). Other sources were also examined to complete the review. Most all of these sources rely on longitudinal studies of representative samples of children and adolescents for risk factors or predictors of serious and violent delinquency.
This review also includes “hindering risk factors.” These are risk factors that negatively predict desistance from moderate and serious offending, and thus prolong delinquent careers (this pioneering research is reported in Stouthamer-Loeber et al., 2008). Key hindering risk factors in the Pittsburgh Youth Study (measured in middle adolescence) are high alcohol use, high marijuana use, high drug dealing, gun carrying, and gang membership (p. 290). Substance use, drug dealing, gun carrying, and gang membership is a particularly potent combination of hindering risk factors for both serious violence and serious theft (White et al., 2008).
* Risk factors for gang membership
† Conduct disorder symptoms included bullying, fighting, lying, cruelty toward animals, attacking people, running away from home, fire setting, theft, truancy, and vandalism (Lahey et al., 1999).
‡ These consist of failing a course at school, being suspended or expelled from school, breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend, having a big fight or problem with a friend, or the death of someone close (Thornberry et al., 2003).
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