Gun ownership and gang membership.

• Author: Bjerregaard, Beth
• Position: Guns and Violence Symposium

1. INTRODUCTION

   The problem of gang-related violence is not a new phenomenon, yet public concern over the rising violence perpetrated by juveniles has led to a renewed interest in the study of juvenile gangs. Whereas gangs used to be predominantly confined to large urban centers such as Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York City, today's gangs appear to be increasingly present in medium and small-sized cities previously believed to be immune to gang activity.(1) The increased visibility of gangs, coupled with the growing fear of juvenile crime, has led researchers and others to conclude that there is an association between gangs and crime. While researchers have been studying gangs since the turn of the century, criminologists are once again placing a greater emphasis on understanding the prevalence and dynamics of gang-related crime. This recent research overwhelmingly concludes that gang members tend to be more violent than those who are not gang members.

   Recently, researchers discovered some alarming trends in the gangs they have studied: the gangs of today appear to be more violent in nature than the gangs of the first half of the century.(2) The activities that gangs participate in appear to be changing; gang members now engage more frequently in serious crimes, drug-related behavior, and firearms use.(3) While all these changes are of great concern to policymakers and criminal justice professionals, it is the latter of these changes, the increased use of firearms by gang members, that creates perhaps the most disturbing scenario. Cities across the United States have noticed an alarming trend in gang use of firearms and there is some evidence that gang-related homicides have increased over the decades.(4) Likewise, conflicts between gangs and gang members are becoming increasingly more deadly due to the use of firearms.(5)

   Several researchers attribute the increasingly violent nature of gangs to the increased availability of firearms.(6) Gang members today have access to an extremely sophisticated arsenal of weaponry. However, it is unclear whether the observed increase in the violent activities of juveniles and the apparent increase in gang activity is related to the observed increase in the availability and sophistication of firearms in the juvenile population.

   The purpose of this Article is to examine the relationship between gun ownership, gun use, and gang membership. In particular, this research is concerned with the causal order of the relationship between illegal gun ownership and gang membership. If gang membership is related to the ownership of firearms and the causal order between the two can be discerned, criminal justice policymakers across the country will be presented with a unique opportunity for change. The research could help determine whether gangs foster gun activity or whether gun possession leads to gang membership. If the result is that gangs do in fact foster gun activity, such information will be particularly useful in that it will allow us to improve our strategies to reduce the violent and delinquent activities of gangs. Therefore, gang membership and gun ownership also need to be examined in the context of their contributions to violent and serious crime. Understanding the role of firearms in gangs will enhance our understanding of gang behavior, which may in turn be useful in combating violent criminal activity by gangs.

2. GANGS AND DELJNOUENT BEHAVIOR

   Scholars have placed considerable attention on examining the extent to which gang members engage in delinquent behavior. As early as 1927, Thrasher, in his observational study of 1,313 gangs in Chicago, concluded that gang members were more involved in delinquency than youths who were not involved in gangs.(7) Subsequent research has confirmed these findings. There has been a high degree of consensus among researchers examining this relationship. Utilizing an array of methodological techniques, researchers have almost unanimously concluded that gang members are far more likely to be delinquent than their non-gang counterparts. This relationship has been confirmed by both observational and self-report studies(8) and by those examining official data.(9)

   While these researcher-s all agree that gang members are more delinquent than non-gang members, there is some controversy as to the nature of delinquent behavior by gang members. Many of the early studies on gang behavior concluded that gang members were frequently involved in minor forms of delinquency or, as Klein stated, a "garden variety" of delinquent acdvities.(10) However, this picture of ganglrelated delinquency appears to be changing. More recently, scholars agree that gang violence is becoming both more frequent and more deadly.(11) Specifically, research indicates that gang members are involved in the most serious and violent types of offenses.(12) Given this recent shift in gang behavior, it becomes increasingly important to discover the factors that might be contributing to this shift in delinquency patterns among gang members.

   1. GANGS AND WEAPONS

      Several researchers have attributed these observed increases in both the frequency and seriousness of gang-related crime to the increased availability of weapons among the juvenile population.(13) For example, in 1975 Miller found that in a typical gang about half of the members are likely to own a gun.(14) In fact, some of the gang members we interviewed made statements such as "everybody's got them; they have them either on their persons or in their homes" and 'in this city (L.A.) a gang is judged by the number and quality of weapons they have; the most heavily armed gang is the most feared; for our gangs, firepower is the name of the game." While it is likely that these statements are somewhat exaggerated, there is little question that most gang members today either own a gun or have access to a large number of weapons. More recently, Hagedorn also discovered that nearly 50% of the gang members interviewed said they possessed more than one firearm and a large majority claimed to have at least one handgun.(15) Similarly, Lizotte, Tesoriero, Thornberry and Krohn found that over half of the juveniles who reported being in a gang also reported owning guns for "protection."(16) Taylor found that 70% of the gang members interviewed reported having a gun in their home, thereby having access to a firearm.(17)

      While these statistics are extremely troublesome, the picture becomes even more alarming when one considers the weapons themselves. Not only have researchers revealed an increase in the availability of firearms in gangs, but they also point out that weapons today are far more sophisticated and lethal than the weapons of the past. Whereas weapons like brass knuckles and homemade zip guns dominated gangs in the 1930s through the 1950s, today gangs possess a far more deadly variety of weaponry, including sawed-off or unadulterated rifles and shotguns, along with handguns of all sizes and types (e.g., 22 cal., 38 cal., .357, 45 cal., and 9 mm. among others) and semiautomatic weapons (e.g., AK-47, Uzi, MAC-10, MAC-11).(18) For example, Andrew Hague of the Dade County Attorney's Office states that "Dade County gangs are very heavily armed," adding that it is "not uncommon for police to retrieve very sophisticated weapons, including Ak-47's, MAC-10's, derringers, and 9mm.'s."(19)

      This changing nature of weaponry has influenced the very nature of gang behavior, particularly in terms of gang conflicts. In 1975, Miller stated that "probably the single most significant development affecting gang-member violence during the present period is the extraordinary increase in the availability and use of firearms to effect violent crimes. This development is in all likelihood the major reason behind the increasingly lethal nature of gang violence."(20)

      Researchers have found that gang members are being arrested in increasingly large numbers for violent offenses such as assault with a deadly weapon, shooting incidences, batteries, and homicides.(21) Los Angeles police and sheriff's data indicate that guns were present in 80 to 82% of all gang-related homicides, which is about 15 to 20% higher than homicides committed by individuals who are not associated with a gang.(22) Block and Block found that a gun was the lethal weapon in 94 to 96% of all street gang-motivated homicides in Chicago.(23) These changes in gun ownership arnong gang members not only result in an increase in gang violence, but also help spread violence to nearby communities. Further, today gang shootings tend to be unplanned and spontaneous events.(24) The rumbles of yesteryear have been replaced by activities such as drive-by shootings. Thus, it appears that gang-related violence is taking on a new quality and becoming increasingly lethal in nature. This change appears to be directly attributable to the role of firearms in a gang.

   2. GUN OWNERSHIP AND GANG MEMBERSHIP

      Prior research has postulated a relationship between gun ownership and gang membership, but the causal order of this relationship is unclear. While it appears that there is certainly an association between gang membership, gun ownership, and delinquent behavior, researchers at this point have little empirical knowledge of the dynamics of this relationship. For example, it is entirely possible that gangs perform a self-selection process by recruiting their members from juvenile populations where firearms are readily available and perhaps utilized prior to gang membership. However, it is equally plausible that juveniles are socialized into the gun culture by virtue of their gang membership and activity. In other words, the nature or the organization of a gang may facilitate the gun ownership of its members. Finally, it is feasible that both of these factors operate simultaneously to enhance the gun ownership of gang members.

      The purpose of this Article is to explore the nature of the temporal relationship...