Neighborhood Effects on Street Gang Behavior

Social disorganization theories and systemic reformulations provide some of the most compelling and enduring explanations for the development, persistence, and geographic distribution of gang behaviors. Since Thrasher’s (1927) seminal study, generations of researchers have conceived of gangs and gang behaviors as the product of social dislocations associated with urban life, including poverty, social immobility, ethnic conflict, and economic isolation. The systemic model of gang behavior offered by Bursik (2002; Bursik and Grasmick 1993) extends these theories by focusing on the regulatory capacities found in the social networks of neighborhood residents—that is, neighborhood social disorganization disrupts resident networks that would otherwise provide the capacity for the social control of street gang behaviors. Unfortunately, as applied to gangs, these theories remain to be empirically tested—less because of theoretical rigor than because of the lack of appropriate data. Despite of the strong theoretical tendency to attribute gang behaviors to neighborhood characteristics and processes, few studies have systematically measured or tested such claims. The present study seeks to rectify this shortcoming by combining neighborhood-level survey data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods with detailed homicide records to test some of the central hypotheses concerning the influence of neighborhood-level processes on gang behaviors, in this case homicide. By integrating theoretical advancements made in the neighborhood effects literature with research on street gang behavior, this study focuses on how neighborhood-level processes