PARENTHOOD AS A TURNING POINT IN THE LIFE COURSE FOR MALE AND FEMALE GANG MEMBERS: A STUDY OF WITHIN‐INDIVIDUAL CHANGES IN GANG MEMBERSHIP AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

• Author: DAVID C. PYROOZ,SCOTT H. DECKER,JEAN MARIE MCGLOIN
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12162

PARENTHOOD AS A TURNING POINT IN THE LIFE

COURSE FOR MALE AND FEMALE GANG MEMBERS:

A STUDY OF WITHIN-INDIVIDUAL CHANGES IN

GANG MEMBERSHIP AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR∗

DAVID C. PYROOZ,1JEAN MARIE MCGLOIN,2

and SCOTT H. DECKER3

1Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder

2Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of

Maryland—College Park

3School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

KEYWORDS: gang, parenthood, disengagement, desistance, National Longitudinal

Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)

The impact of parenthood on leaving a street gang is not well understood. This is

likely because researchers in prior studies have not accounted for multiple dimensions

of gang exit, possible gender differences, and potential selection bias. In this study, we

use a sample of 466 male and 163 female gang members from the National Longitudi-

nal Study of Youth 1997 to consider the within-individual relationship between changes

in parenthood and changes in claiming gang membership and offending. These data

offer the opportunity to consider gender differences and birth parity (i.e., first or sec-

ond child). The results from a series of fixed-effects models reveal that motherhood

is associated with enduring reductions in both the odds of claiming gang membership

and the rate of offending, whereas fatherhood has a temporary beneficial impact on

gang membership and offending only for those fathers who reside with their children.

In most cases, the beneficial effect of having a child rests in becoming a parent for the

first time. On the whole, our study findings demonstrate that parenthood serves as a

turning point for a particular group of noteworthy offenders—gang members.

In his American Society of Criminology Sutherland address, John Laub (2006) argued

that the life-course framework could serve as a valuable paradigm for criminology. The

dramatic expansion of knowledge regarding the patterns and processes of individual-level

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online

Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2017.55.issue-4/issuetoc.

This research was funded in part by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

(OJJDP) under an award in FY 2011 (Grant 2011-JV-FX-0004). The findings and conclusions of

this article are the sole responsibility of the authors and may not reflect the views of the OJJDP.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 72nd meeting of the American Society of

Criminology in New Orleans, LA. The authors would like to thank Stefanie Mollborn for her

comments on the article.

Direct correspondence to David C. Pyrooz, Department of Sociology and Institute of Behav-

ioral Science, UCB 483, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0483 (e-mail:

David.Pyrooz@colorado.edu).

C2017 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12162

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 55 Number 4 869–899 2017 869

870 PYROOZ, MCGLOIN, & DECKER

offending over the past few decades is evidence of the validity of this assertion (Gibson

and Krohn, 2013). The results of recent research demonstrate that adopting a life-course

approach provides added value even with regard to an already broad and deep research

literature. Indeed, the impact of gang membership has been studied for nearly a century

(e.g., Klein, 1995; Moore, 1991; Pyrooz et al., 2016; Short and Strodtbeck, 1965; Thrasher,

1927; Whyte, 1943), yet recent work by researchers adopting a life-course framework un-

doubtedly affords a unique and refined sense of how and why gang membership facili-

tates various detrimental outcomes. For example, Melde and Esbensen (2011) revisited

the oft-studied amplification effect of gang membership and demonstrated how joining a

gang prompts dramatic changes in emotional, cognitive, and social domains, which in turn

increases delinquency.

Use of the life-course framework has also pushed gang researchers to focus more atten-

tion on the process of and reasons for exiting gang life. This research is still in its nascent

stages, to be sure, but the past few years have witnessed a dramatic rise in empirical in-

quiries by researchers focused on the triggers and consequences of leaving street gangs

(for reviews, see Carson and Vecchio, 2015; Curry, Decker, and Pyrooz, 2014). Despite

these advances, however, broader questions remain about the impact of life events on

involvement in crime. When compared with the findings reported in the general crimi-

nal desistance literature, we lack an empirical base for understanding whether certain life

events prompt gang exit. This void in knowledge is important both for understanding gang

members specifically and for a broader understanding of the impact of life-course events

on processes beyond gang membership, such as delinquent involvement and transitions

to adulthood.

Parenthood has been identified repeatedly as a potentially salient “turning point”

for gang members, which is consistent with Sampson and Laub’s (2016: 327) concep-

tual standard, but thus far the outcomes of empirical work have not provided a uni-

form answer regarding whether changes in parental status promote gang exit (Fleisher

and Krienert, 2004; Flores, 2013; Hagedorn, 1994; Moloney et al., 2009, 2011; O’Neal

et al., 2014; Varriale, 2008). This lack of clarity likely results from several issues. First,

leaving the gang is not a simple, unidimensional concept; ideally, researchers should

account for dimensions of both identity and behavior to offer a more complete sense

of whether parenthood truly prompts meaningful changes in gang members’ lives (see

Pyrooz and Decker, 2011: 423). Second, most inquiries have yet to focus simultaneously

on the impact of parenthood for both male and female gang members (e.g., Varriale,

2008), even though the findings in the literature underscore gender differences in the

meaning of both parenthood and gang life (McGloin and DiPietro, 2013; W. H. Miller,

2011; O’Neal et al., 2014; Sanchez and Thomson, 1997). As a result, parenthood may have

notably different effects on identity and behavior depending on whether the gang mem-

ber is male or female. Third, the findings in the research on this topic suggest there is

wide variation in the extent to which male gang members embrace fatherhood as a social

change (Moloney et al., 2009; Roy, 2006). Accounting for such variation may be impor-

tant as there is reason to suspect that the effects of fatherhood will not be universal but

instead depend on the degree of involvement in the child’s life.

We address these gaps by using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

1997 (NLSY97). Within these data, 629 study participants self-identified as gang mem-

bers during at least one wave, and among these individuals, 287 reported having children.

By using the NLSY97, we have the opportunity to compare within-individual changes in