The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. 

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: 

Document Title: Gang Structures, Crime Patterns, and Police 

Responses 

Author(s): Malcolm W. Klein ; Cheryl L. Maxson 

Document No.: 188511 

Date Received: 06/28/2001 

Award Number: 93-IJ-CX-0044 

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federallyfunded grant final report available electronically in addition to

traditional paper copies.

 

Opinions or points of view expressed are those 

of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect 

the official position or policies of the U.S. 

Department of Justice.
c 

,GANG STRUCTURES, CRIME PATTERNS, AND POLICE RESPONSES 

Malcolm W. Klein and Cheryl L. Maxson 

Social Science Research Institute 

University of Southern California 

PROPERTY OF 

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) 

60x 6000 

Rockviile, MD 20849-6000 A 

Final Report to the 

National Institute of Justice 

on Gmt # 93-U-CX-0044 

April 1996 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Introduction and Background' 

The end goal of this project was to provide useful data on how street gang crime 

patterns (by amount and type of offense) relate to common patterns of street gang 

structure, thus providing focused, data-based guidelines for gang intervention and control. 

The intermediate stages of the project, however, comprised other important goals. Using 

contacts from prior national surveys of gang-involved cities, we obtained data from police 

and community experts on gang structures currently in existence. We utilized these 

depictions to obtain estimates of the national prevalence of various types of gang 

structures, and of the perceived patterns of criminal activity associated with each. 

Finally, we attempted to collect crime data and construct crime profiles-both amount 

and pattern-for each of the most common gang structures. With many hundreds of 

e cities now experiencing gang problems, these first-time depictions of the ganglcnme 

nexus were expected to provide guidelines to help focus gang prevention and control 

efforts. 

There have been several scholars (e.g.,Short, 1990; Morash, 1983) who have 

preferred defining gangs without explicit reference to crime committed by these groups. 

Their reason has been to avoid a tautology of defining gangs by the criminal involvement 

and then studying them to predict their crime levels. Yet, members of almost all youth 

groups, as well as individual youths, engage in some level of crime as revealed 

I We are pleased to acknowledge the contributions of Heather Johnson, Caryn 

Schneck, and Kristi Woods to various segments of this research, The work could not 

have been carried out without the aid of literally hundreds of law enforcement and 

@ community respondents across the country. 

1 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
'. $ 

L 

consistently by self-report studies (see Elliott and Ageton, 1980; Farrington, 1973; 

Erickson and Jensen, 1977). The issue is not whether gangs engage in crime, but how 

0 

~ ~~ much, of what type, and under what e)mtmstmces. 

The project goals combine the goals of knowledge-building about street gangs in 

tht current era with the practical concerns of crime control. The basic message to any 

concerned jurisdiction undertaking street gang control is "Know your gangs." There are 

major differences in gang structures and crime patterns, and we believe these require 

differentiated responses. 

Gang Definitions: During an audio-taped training seminar for gang unit police 

officers in the East, a high-ranking gang expert from a gang-ridden Western jurisdiction 

can be heard poking fun at academic definitions of gangs (to the audible delight of his 

0 audience). He then concludes "I'lltell you what a gang is: a gang is a group of thugs. 

They're hoodlums, they're crooks and they're criminals." Hopefully, the field can 

progress beyond this simplistic, vague, and operationally useless approach, although 

consensus on street gang definitions has not yet been reached. We will describe here 

three of the most influential formulations, and then indicate our own approach which led 

to this project. Later in this report, several gang typologies will also be described, as 

they differ considerably from the results obtained in Phases I and I1 of the project. 

1. Walter Miller, drawing on his own experiences in Boston in the 1950s and his 

survey of a number of cities in the 1970s, attempted to distinguish gangs from a larger, 

generic population of "law-violating groups." He sought the common elements in the 

many gang definitions offered by his national respondents, much as one might seek the 

2 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
% 

L 

distillate from a chemistry laboratory's centrifuge. No assessment of the value of each 

element thrown into this definitional centrifuge was sought, so the process yielded an 

0 

odd form of consensus from unconsidered SOUTC~S, a convenient but totally atheoretid 

approach. Miller described 20 types and sub-types of "law-violating youth groups," 

including turf gangs, gain-oriented gangdextended networks; and fighting gangs, ending 

with this depiction: 

A youth gang is a self-formed association of peers, bound together by mutual 

interests, with identifiable leadership, well-developed lines of authority, and other 

organizational features, who act in concert to achieve a specific purpose or 

purposes which generally include the conduct of illegal activity and control over a 

particular temtory, facility, or type of enterprise (Miller, 1980). 

2. In a similar but more sophisticated survey of some 45 jurisdictions, Spergel, 

Curry, Ross, and Chance (1989) also settled for a distilled consensus, informed as well by 

0 Spergel's own 30 years of experience in Chicago. His work was focussed by a concern 

with law enforcement suppression programs, but he managed nonetheless to retain his 

own interest in gangs as the product of socially disorganized communities. Their 

description is as follows: 

... we define the criminal street gang as a group of young people, including 

a substantial number of active adult members ... who are perceived by the 

local community and recognize themselves as aggressive and/or protective 

of "turf,"engaged in various criminal acts, especially of a violent character. 

Its structure may or may not be complex or enduring (Spergel, 1980). 

3. In a radical departure in definitional approaches, a number of criminal justice 

agencies in California, stimulated by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, 

developed a definition for the STEP Act (Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention 

Act). This legislation emphasized factors useful in the prosecution of gang cases with 

3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
'. % 

L 

. sentence enhancements for gang members. The latest version is offered by the state's 

Office of Criminal Justice Planning, with verbatim extractions from the state penal code: 

0 

A criminal street gang is defirred as any ongoing -organization, assmiation 

or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, which often 

has a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, whose 

members individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern 

of criminal gang activity' [Reference Section 186.22(f) of the Ped Code]. 

This California definition is being copied in other enforcement jurisdictions as 

STEP-like legislation is adopted across the nation. It places extreme emphasis on the 

criminal component, as might be expected in a prosecutorial context (the "three or more 

persons" portion has absolutely no relationship to street realities, only to establishing the 

basis for conspiracy prosecution). The "identification criteria" listed by OCJP, not cited 

here, add so much ambiguity that much of the value of the penal code specificity is lost. 

. The fact is, however, that any attempt at gang definitions is to some extent 

arbitrary and subject to criticism in some form. Our approach cannot be immune 

a 

either-we are attempting to characterize a fluid phenomenon in a way that is both 

conceptually defensible and operationally useful. Modifying the widely used definition 

we provided two decades ago (Klein, 1971), we suggested the following for the purposes 

of this project. We used the term street gang, and excluded prison gangs, organized 

adult crime groups, motorcycle gangs, stoners and satanic cults, and terrorist groups. We 

also excluded many of the categories of delinquent groups or youthful law-violating 

groups described by Miller (1980), that have not achieved the characterization below. 

There are many youth groups, in school and out, that occasionally involve themselves 

The reader may note the circularity of the first and last phrases. 

4 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
.I 

c 

individually or collectively in delinquent or criminal activities. To speak of these 

commonly observable youth groups as street gangs is to lose the advantage of delimiting 

e 

that term. However, we expressly included lagger groups in this project m orderto 

investigate their reported evolution toward street gang structure and behavior. 

Street gangs as we used the term in our prior studies are characterized as having 

a territorial orientation (Asian gangs are often an exception to this; see Vigil and Yun, 

1990). They are principally but by no means exclusively male. They generally exhibit 

versatility in their criminal offenses ("cafeteria style" delinquency, Klein, 1984), although 

' 

specialty cliques (auto theft, burglary, drug sales) are not uncommon. They generally 

thrive on intergang rivalry; the one-gang city is me indeed. Temporary alliances or 

"supergang" confederacies generally do not eliminate the intra-gang identities and 

cohesiveness of the constituent groups. They remain "oppositional" groups (Moore and 

Vigil, 1987). 

e 

Taking exception to the stance of Short (1990) and Morash (1983), we see the 

special nature of street gangs-what makes them qualitatively different from other 

groups-as revolving around their delinquent or criminal orientation. Some street gangs 

are far less criminally active than others-the range is considerable-but we use the term 

to apply to those groups that are oriented to illegal values or behaviors. There is an illdefined "tipping point" when a delinquent group comes to view this orientation as 

intrinsic to its nature4 knows it is a criminally involved group-and when citizens and 

agencies in the community also see the group this way. The graffiti, the rumors, the "war 

stories," the shared group self-definition, the dress and behavioral signs of membership 

5 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
'I 

7 

.. 

. signify to potential recruits that this is a street gang; to join is a significant commitment. 

Further, because criminal involvement in the gang exceeds that of nongang groups 

e 

(Fagan, 1990; Tracy, 1979; Klein, 1971), and violence is in addition a disproportionate 

component of the criminal behavior (Thornbemy et al., 1992; Huizinga, 1990), it becomes 

clear that gang crime differs in both level and form from nongang crime (Mason, 

Gordoq and Klein, 1985). For our law enforcement respondents, in order to narrow the 

definitional field and yet avoid too much specificity, we provided the following: "For the 

purposes of this survey, we define gangs quite broadly-younger and older, male and 

female, small and large, and so on. However, we only wish to include as gangs those 

groups that do have considerable orientation to or involvement in delinquent or 

criminal behavior. Please do not include groups whose behavior is only marginally 

illegal." 

The Prior Studies: Our 1991 survey of 260 gang-involved cities3 provided the 

background and contextual data for designing the research reported here. Our recent 

NU-funded study of gang migration enabled us to identify about 800 U.S. cities with gang 

activity. Descriptions of these cities' population and crime characteristics, gang numbers, 

ethnicities, date of emergence and drug sales involvement were available for the 

proposed project. Both studies provided critically important contacts, experience and 

data useful for sampling, data collection, and analysis. 

The interviews with 260 police gang experts revealed that different structures may 

The analysis of these survey results, still ongoing, has been described in several 0 national conferences and has been reported in Klein, The American Street Gang, 1995. 

6 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
-I 

. L 

. very well imply different intervention strategies. For example, some police respondents 

reported success with nascent gangs--"copy cat" groups, school-based "wannabes," some 

e 

skinhead and other supremacist groups-by emphasizing suppression ntethds and 

school/police coordination. Others reported some success with crack distribution gangs 

by emphasizing drug control techniques rather than gang control techniques. Still others 

admitted continued failure of suppression tactics with well-established, traditional gang 

structures. Finally, in "emergent" gang cities with established gangs but no traditional 

age-graded subsets, some police were placing their hopes in coordinated community-wide 

gang intervention programs that approximate the recent federal "weed and seed" strategy. 

Our studies also made it clear, however, that there is great confusion among 

police agencies across the country over both the form of and terminology for street 

- Asked whether their gangs included single, independent groups or traditional 

age-graded groups or geographically based groups, most of those who could respond in 

these terms listed single, independent groups. These included a preponderance of 

smaller cities. But many respondents had trouble with structural depictions of this sort, 

adopting instead a terminology related to levels of member involvement. 

- These levels of member involvement revealed several different approaches to 

terminology. A small minority of the police experts emphasized the 1950/1960s 

terminology of core and fringe or peripheral membership. A larger number responded 

in terms of "actives"and "associates," with the former occasionally based on entries in a 

police gang roster--"confirmed, " "rostered," "certified" (Q ZQ STEP acts). Others suggested 

grouping patterns by reference to gang "nations" or alliances on the one hand, and on the 

7 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
'I 

other by reference to sets, subsets, cliques, subgroups, and chapters. a 

- Posses and crews were terms reported on occasion in the East; sets and nations 

were more common in the Mid-West, while core or hardcore, actives, and associateS 

seemed more common in the West and Southwe~t.~ Still another collection of terms 

was used variously to describe the incipient gang groups emerging in a wide variety of 

cities. These terms included wannabes, copycat gangs, neighborhood groups, "minor 

criminal groups," school groups, and a few nongang groups that have on occasion been 

transformed into street gangs-tagger groups and break-dancing groups. 

- When asked specifically about the level of structure in the gangs, the 

predominant view was of gangs as loosely structured and poorly organized, with shifting 

or weak leadership. Street gang cliques involved in drug distribution, or independent 

"drug gangs," were more commonly described as organized, tight-knit, and hierarchically 

structured in leadership and distribution roles. But the distinction between typical street 

e 

gangs and focussed drug gangs was often unclear, especially among gang experts in the 

narcotics or vice divisions. 

Prior Work on Gang Structures and Crime: All this structural and terminological 

ambiguity, of course, made our research task more difficult. It also made it very 

necessary. We needed to distinguish the more common structural patterns, even helping 

our city respondents to greater clarity in the process so that they could discern 

"Set"was sometimes used for separate gangs, sometimes for cliques within larger 

gangs, and sometimes for components of alliances. One gang expert estimated his sets as 

having from three to three thousand members. Another, in using the term, described 

sets as being "pretty wimpy." In California, the term set was used originally in the 1960s 

as synonymous with turf among black gangs (now 'hood) and analogous to barrio among 0 Hispanic gangs. 

8 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
'I 

\. 

alternative gang scenarios; then we could relate the types of structures to crime patterns. 

The gang structure clarity must be achieved first. We present below a brief summary of 

e 

what the criminological literature suggests about variations in street gang structures. 

Old Structures vs. New: The only comprehensive, published statement about gang 

structures was produced two decades ago (Klein, 1971) based' on an extensive review of 

research undertaken to that date. Crime patterns were also described, but not in direct 

relationship to the different structures. Gang research had not yet concerned iiself with 

such relationships, except on a theoretical (and, it turned out) unsubstantiated level by 

Cloward and Ohlin in 1955 and in one study by a student of Ohlin's (Spergel, 1964). 

Depictions in that earlier review reflected the big-city locales of most gang 

research: New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in particular. 

Our "knowledge" of gang structures has remained constant for twenty years simply 

because no serious updating has been undertaken (occasional recent exceptions will be 

noted below). What that 1971 review suggested as the major gang forms is briefly 

outlined below. 

Spontaneous gangs: ten to thirty members with a restricted age range, lasting 

usually a year or less, occasionally specializing in certain criminal activities. Spontaneous 

gangs were probably the most common form, but because of their short duration they 

were seldom studied and we therefore know little about them. 

Specialty cliques: smaller groups of no more than a dozen or so members, 

sometimes part of a larger structure and sometimes independent, with a clear focus on 

specialized crime (e.g., drug sales, auto theft, home break-ins). 

a Violent gangs: an extremely rare group whose ruison d'erre revolves around 

9 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
serious involvement in gang fighting and/or stranger assaults. Leadership tends toward 

the pathological, and membership is quite unstable. Such gangs, when they appear, are 

of4ort Bwim d<hough -they may gmm-*tleh publicity and beeom mkfakwb - 

typical gangs. Most gangs engage in some violence; they should not be confused with the 

rare "violent gang" (Yablonsky, 1963). 

Horizontal alliances: temporary alliances across neighborhoods between 

otherwise independent gangs. The component groups may be spontaneous or traditional 

gangs (see below). The alliances seldom last long, although the famous gang "nations" of 

Chicago provide an exception (Blackstone Rangers, Disciples, Latin Kings, and their 

progeny 1 * 

Traditional or vertical gangs: These groups endure through generations of 

gang members (anywhere from ten to 50 years and more) and have thus been those most 

studied and described. Traditional gangs have provided a disproportionate share of our 

knowledge of gangs and gang crime, as well as response to intervention programs. They 

contain a broad age range, with age-graded subgroups. They provide clear 

differentiation between core and fringe membership, with associated leadership at each 

major age grouping. Their criminal involvement is versatile ("cafeteria-style, " Klein, 

1971), and they are usually of only low to medium cohesiveness overall. Traditional 

gangs have been the most difficult to alter or suppress; most interventions seem to have 

had the boomerang effect of increasing their cohesiveness. 

Our 1991 survey certainly suggested a need to update this picture to reflect the 

situation of the 1990s. The traditional, age-graded structure was reported in only 23 

0 percent of the gang cities (many of which have developed too recently to permit 

10 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
*I 

generational patterns, but might in time). Recent research by other scholars provides e 

some hints of what one might now find, beyond those emerging from the prior survey. 

Skolnick, Correl, Navarro, and Rabb (1990) have distinguished between "cufmral" 

gangs (turf-based, traditional) in Southern California and "entrepreneurial" gangs (crack 

diskbution) in Northern California. The description has found a receptive audience 

among enforcement officials, less so among academics. Curry, Fox, Ullom, and Ball 

(1992) report the differential prevalence of gangs, crews, posses, and other forms across 

77 cities (gangs 93 percent, posses 67 percent, CiCWS 28 percent, and others 26 percent) 

but they have not characterized these forms as yet. Indeed, they are not clear on 

whether these are different forms, or just different terms. Monti (1993) describes both 

commonalities and dissimilarities among gangs in St. Louis' more-and-less-settled 

communities. Variations in gang organization, activity and community relationships are 

associated with community reorganization, rather than disorganization. 

0 

In a particularly controversial description of gangs in New York, Boston, and Los 

Angeles, Sanchez-Jankowski (199 1) described his gangs as well-organized, rational, 

planful entrepreneurs, based on collectivities of individually defiant youth banded 

together for profit and community spirit. If he is correct, he has indeed found a 

dramatically new pattern. Taylor (1989) has also stirred some controversy with his 

depiction of Detroit gangs, heavily oriented toward drug sales, as evolving from 

"Scavengers" to "Territorial" to "Corporate" groups. This characterization, like that of 

Sanchez-Jankowski, has not been reported elsewhere. 

Other recent writers, by contrast, have found a continuation of the traditional 

11 

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gang pattern: Moore (1978) for LQS Angeles; Huff (1988) for Ohio cities; Hagedorn a 

(1988) for Milwaukee. Fagan (1989) has depicted gangs in three cities as manifesting 

four basic forms, in relation to drug involvement: 

Type 1 -- "social gangs" with low delinquent activity and drug involvement (28 

percent) 

,Type 2 -- *'party gangs" whose general delinquency involvement is low, drug 

use is high, and drug sales support drug use (7 percent) 

"serious delinquent gangs" whose versatile crime patterns include 

drug use and sales only as part of the overall pattern (37 percent) 

Type 3 -- 

Type 4 -- nascent gang "organizations" which are "highlycohesive and 

organized" and heavily invo!ved in drug use and sales in systemic 

relationship to other criminal acts (28 percent). 

As noted briefly in an earlier section, there also seem to be a number of group 

structures that, in some cases, become transformed into clear street gangs. These 

include some oppositional neighborhood, street, and housing project groups, breakdancing groups, and tagger groups. Finally, we should note the oft-reported existence in 

some cities of rather distinct drug gangs, usually crack distributors, as a prominent 

example of specialty gangs. These were most definitely included in our project census. 

Beyond the practical values of this project, we believe that describing the prevalence of 

gang structure types nationally, and specifying their relationship to criminal activity 

patterns, comprises a substantial contribution to criminological knowledge per se. It can 

also provide the basis for future work that aims to relate gangkrime types to their 

12 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
community contexts and control programs. e Methods 

The research design involved three phases. The first phase, which was 

developmental, utilized law enforcement and community gang experts as informants to 

identify and describe gang structures in their communities. The result of this phase was 

a set af scenarios, or gang structure profiles, used in the Phase I1 survey operation to 

estimate the prevalence of gang structures, nationally. Also in this phase, we sought 

information regarding capacities to provide us with crime data linked to different types 

of gangs. In the final phase, we gathered crime profiles associated with the most 

common gang structures. 

In prior sections, we have referred to data taken from a 1991 survey of police 

gang experts in 260 cities. In addition, our 1992 national assessment of gang migration 

patterns yielded descriptions of local street gangs in 792 cities.’ Our project design 

made maximum use of these survey data, and also took advantage of the relationships 

established in the previous projects. The 1991 interview survey encountered only one 

refusal, and that was based on legal restrictions. The return rate on the mailed 

questionnaire in the migration survey was an astonishing 92 percent, albeit with 

considerable prodding in the forms of repeat mailings and phone follow-up. 

The unit of analysis in the first two phases of this project was police jurisdictions 

with self-reported street gangs. Usually this meant a city with its own police department, 

- 

’ A complete description of the methods used to identify these cities can be found in 0 Maxson et al., 1996. 

13 

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but some of the jurisdictions were municipalities which contract with outside 

enforcement agencies for police services (typically, but not exclusively, with the county 

a 

sheriff). The city is the appropriate unit because it provides the institutionat context for 

gangs (e.g.,schools, social services, and police) and it is these institutions that generaliy 

dictate the nature of the formal response to gang problems. 

The 792 gang-involved cities providing our prior data base included all of the 

nation’s cities with populations of 100,000or more that reported a gang problem: a total 

of about 177 such cities. In addition, among over 900 cities under 100,000in population 

that were suggested as gang cities by a number of sources-other research, police 

informants, media reports, government reports, and so on-we confirmed 615 as gang 

cities. 

Clearly we did not capture all U.S. gang cities by this process (although we do 

have all those with populations over 100,OOO). Given the shockingly high number of 

gang cities we surveyed, we thought we had captured the bulk of the gang problem. In 

order to test our gang city census development procedures, we selected and surveyed a 

small random sample of all 2,250 cities with populations between 10,OOO and 100,OOO. 

Projections derived from the random sample suggested that we had identified only about 

65 percent of the smaller gang cities. We continue to note reports of new gang cities, 

but cannot claim a total enumeration of all gang cities. Nevertheless, the data set of 792 

gang cities provided a solid population from which to select cities to examine the 

crime/structure relationships of concern. 

14 

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Phase I: Gang Structiires Identified 

Law enforcement gang experts in a stratified random sample of sixty ganginvolved cities provided information about the structural dimensions of their local street 

gangs. Stratification by period of the onset of gang activity in the city (Le., 1970 and 

earlier, 1971-1984, and after 1984) was necessary to ensure adequate representation of 

older gang cities. These data were utilized to construct narrative descriptions, or 

scenarios, of the most common gang types. An oversimple of 18 cities with Asian gang 

predominance was included in the first phase, at the request of the NU reviewers, who 

felt the sample of 60 would not allow for representation of the rapidly expanding Asian 

gang problem. Responses from this oversimple, however, differed in no significant 

fashion from those from the 60, so further analysis of the oversimple is not reported 

here. e 

This design relies heavily on law enforcement sources and this is a clear 

limitation. We would feel much more comfortable if we could derive the depictions of 

gang structures from the careful observations of gang ethnographers or the street gang 

workers that populated gang cities in the sixties. ")is, however, would limit us to a 

handful of cities and not many more gangs. During Phase I, we attempted to identify 

and interview community informants in about half the 60 cities. Usually, the community 

respondent was familiar with only a small portion of the city'sgangs. They were drawn 

from nominations in our prior research in these cities, or from new nominations from 

our police respondents, school officials, mayors' offices, and community groups such as 

the United Way, but this did not overcome the problems inherent in limited exposure to 

15 

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author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
city-wide gang patterns. Even with their inherent limitations, police overviews of broad 

gang patterns are generally the only ones available. Indeed, community respondents are 

often dependent on locd enforcement officials €or their gang data, and thus are often 

not independent sources of information. 

e 

Our reliance on law enforcement reflects our desire to' reach for a national 

picture., These gang experts typically can report gang information for the entire city. We 

realized that their knowledge is heavily influenced by their occupational orientation-the 

gangs they know best are the most criminally involved. Their information is not 

gathered through systematic or unbiased methods. In addition, in Phase 111, we gathered 

official arrest records for offense profiles, when, clearly, self-reported delinquency 

measures would be a more valid approach to our ultimate research questions. 

Nevertheless, in an exploratory vein we feel this design produces the most useful data 

that will suggest clear directions for future research. 

a 

phase I Findings 

The goal of Phase I was to derive scenarios of gang structures and this was 

accomplished, albeit through a circuitous process. In the telephone interviews in the 

sample of 60 cities, we took two approaches to asking about the structural dimensions of 

gangs in each city. In the first section of the interview, we began with one of two 

branching mechanisms, based on 1) ethnicity or 2) whether or not the gangs subdivided ' 

into obvious cliques or seemed to hang together as one overall group. That is, in half 

the interviews we asked respondents to start with the dimension of ethnicity, while in the 

other half they started with the cliquing dimension. This procedure controlled for any 

16 

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Justice.
overall bias due to selection of the one or the other starting point. These two 

dimensions were chosen because they emerged as prominent dimensions in our prior 

research, and were more easily handled by our phone respondents. As we cwtdn't ask 

about each individual gang, this provided a systematic basis for grouping several gangs 

together for an aggregate description. For each combination, we asked a series of 

questions about size, age distribution, territorial identification, cohesiveness, and so on. 

We did not ask about crime patterns because wc wanted them to focus on structure 

rather than activity. Also, we decided to omit questions about leadership because we 

were skeptical about the validity of law enforcement responses to this issue. 

e 

The second section asked them to think about the gang they knew the best. The 

questions covered are the dimensions from Section 1 plus year of onset and crime 

specialization. (See the Appendix for the Phase I Interview.) This second section was 

included because we anticipated that many respondents would have difficulty responding 

about characteristics of a wide range of gangs in their jurisdictions, and that most 

familiar gangs would "color" the overall depiction. Thus the "best known" approach, 

while not necessarily most representative, might nonetheless prove most reliable for 

production of gang scenarios in Phase 11. 

a 

In the 60 cities, the data from Section I, where respondents aggregated the 

characteristics of all gangs falling within each ethnic/subgroup combination, covered over 

1800 gangs. The prevalence distribution is shown in Figure 1. 

The ethnic distribution is what one might expect from a national sample, 

particularly where older gang cities are over-represented. About equal numbers of cities 

17 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
report Black and Hispanic gangs, although more Hispanic gangs are included. A far 

lower but not inconsequential number of cities report Asian, white or mixed ethnic 

e 

gangs. The distribution of subgroup organization is surprising. These respondents 

reported much higher levels of "hang together" gangs than we expected-about three 

times as many as have clique structures. In particular, we no& the large differential 

among #Hispanic gangs which appear in the literature almost to epitomize the traditional, 

age-graded subgroup organizational structure. 

Figure 1: Prevalence of Ethnicity X Clique Combinations 

GANG " HANG-TOGETHER " 

ETHNICXTY # CITIES 

BLACK 33 

HISPANIC 35 

ASIAN 21 

WHITE 17 

MIXED 19 

# GANGS 

389 

649 

116 

116 

110 

SUBGROUPS 

# CITIES 

21 

18 

4 

5 

7 

# GANGS 

247 

171 

13 

38 

29 

Next, we reviewed the responses for each structure dimension within the 

ethnic/subgroup combinations. We developed simple coding categories for each 

dimension and judged an aspect of a dimension to be "predominant" if two-thirds or 

more, of the cities with that combination described those gangs accordingly. 

Unfortunately, we found these data to be of little utility for building scenarios of 

common gang types. The variation along each dimension was so wide that it masked any 

differences between the ethnic and subgroup categories. We were looking at unreliable 

18 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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data due presumably to respondents' understandable unfamiliarity with the many gangs 

within their purview. Most gang officers have too many gangs in their jurisdictions to 

permit genuine familiarity with the characteristics of each. 

Instead of tinkering further with the Section I data, for example, revising the 

coding categories or reconstructing the basic combinations, *e turned to the Section I1 

data, describing the single gang with which each of these officers was most familiar. 

Case numbers drop to 59 as one respondent did not have time to complete this section 

of the interview. 

Using the characteristics of ethnicity, subgroup organization, size, age range, date 

of gang emergence, territoriality, cohesiveness, and crime versatility versus specialization, 

six distinguishable types emerged, which we later reduced to five.6 No one ethnic 

category predominated in any type, so ethnicity was dropped as a dimension.' In 

addition, all types were reported to be characterized by tight cohesiveness, so this was 

a 

deleted. The characteristics of each of the types are displayed in Figure 2. 

Each of the 59 gangs could be placed in one of the five types-not all fit perfectly, 

but no gang varied by more than one characteristic. We have written narrative 

descriptions or "scenarios" that distinguish each type from the others and these are 

The Traditional type can be separated into two subtypes: gangs that subgroup by 6. 

area and those that have age-graded cliques. We also looked at other characteristics 

such as city size, region and number of gangs in the city, but none proved helpful in 

distinguishing types. 

A review of the characteristics of best known Asian gangs in the oversample I 

confirmed this is true of Asian gangs as well as other ethnicities. 

0 

19 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
displayed below. Note that characteristics are shared across more than one type; no type e is unique in each of its characteristics. 

Figure 2: Characteristics of Five Gang Types 

Type Subgroups Size Age Duration Territor id Crime 

Range Versatility 

Traditional Yes Large 

(n = 14)’ (> 100) 

Neotraditional Yes Medium 

(n = 13) -large 

(>50) 

Compressed No Small 

(n = 13) ( < 50) 

Collective No Medium 

(n = 9) 

Specialty No Small 

(n = 10) ( < 50) 

Wide 

(20-30 

Years) 

In0 

pattern] 

Narrow 

(< 10 

Years) 

Mediumwide 

(> 10 

years) 

Narrow 

(C 10 

years) 

Long YeS Yes 

(> 20 years) 

Shon Yes YeS 

( < 10 years) 

Short [no pattern] Yes 

(< 10 years) 

Medium [no pattern] Yes 

years) 

(10-15 

Short Yes No 

(< 10 years) 

n = number of cities 

GANG STRUCTURE SCENARIOS 

The Traditional gang: Traditional gangs have generally been in existence for twenty or 

more years - they keep regenerating themselves. They contain fairly clear subgroups, 

usually separated by age. 0.G.s or Veteranos, Seniors, Juniors, Midgets and various 

other names are applied to these different age-based cliques. Sometimes the cliques are 

separated by neighborhoods rather than age. More than other gangs, Traditional gangs 

tend to have a wide age range, sometimes as wide as from nine or ten years of age into 

the thirties. These are usually very large gangs, numbering one hundred or even several 

hundred members. Almost always, they are territorial in the sense that they identify 

strongly with their turf, ‘hood, or bamo, and claim it as theirs alone. 

In sum, this is a large, enduring, territorial gang with a wide range and several 

20 

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Justice.
internal cliques based on age or area. a The Neotmditionai gang: The Neotraditional gang resembles the Traditional form, but 

has not been in existence as long-probably no more than ten years, and often less. It 

may be medium size-say fifty to one hundred members-or also into the hundreds. It 

probably has developed subgroups or cliques based on age or area, but sometimes may 

not. The age range is usually smaller than in the classical Traditional gangs. The 

Neotraditional gang is also very territorial, claiming turf and defending it. 

' 

becoming Traditional in time. Thus at this point it is subgrouping, but may or may not 

have achieved the size and wide age range of the Traditional gang. The subgrouping, 

territoriality, and size suggests that it is evolving into the Traditional form. 

In sum, the Neotraditional gang is a newer territorial gang that looks on its way to 

The Compressed gang: The Compressed gang is small-usually in the size range of up to 

fifty members-and has not formed subgroups. The age range is probably narrow-ten 

or fewer years between the younger and older members. The small size, absence of 

subgroups, and narrow age range may reflect the newness of the group, in existence less 

than ten years and maybe for only a few years. Some of these Compressed gangs have 

become territorial, but many have not. 

size, duration, subgrouping and territoriality, it is unclear whether they will grow and 

solidify into the more traditional forms, or simply remain as less complex groups. 

The Collective gang: The Collective gang looks like the Compressed form, but bigger 

and with a wider age range-maybe ten or more years between younger and older 

members. Size can be under a hundred, but is probably larger. Surprisingly, given these 

numbers, it has not developed subgroups, and may or may not be a territorial gang. It 

probably has a ten to fifteen-year existence. 

young adult members that has not developed the distinguishing characteristics of other 

gangs. 

In sum, Compressed gangs have a relatively short history, short enough that by 

In sum, the Collective gang resembles a kind of shapeless mass of adolescent and 

The Specialty gang: Unlike these other gangs that engage in a wide variety of criminal 

offenses, crime in this type of group is narrowly focussed on a few offenses; the group 

comes to be characterized by the specialty. The Specialty gang tends to be 

small-usually fifty or fewer members-without any subgroups in most cases (there are 

exceptions). It probably has a history of less thm ten years, but has developed a welldefined territory. Its territory may be either residential or based on the opportunities for 

the particular form of crime in which it specializes. The age range of most Specialty 

gangs is narrow, but in others is broad. 

In sum, the Specialty gang is crime-focussed in a narrow way. Its principal 

purpose is more criminal than social, and its smaller size and form of territoriality may 

be a reflection of this focussed crime pattern. 

21 

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The two traditional types share subgroups and a strong territorial orientation. The e 

Compressed structure can be distinguished somewhat from the traditional types by 

sm&r size and, most particulariy, by more receilt onset. The Compressed, Collective 

and Specialty types have no subgroups and have briefer durations (except the Collective 

type). Temtonality is not a factor (except in the Specialty type). 

In writing the scenarios, we have explicitly avoided mentioning crime patterns 

except in the case of the Specialty type. In fact, crime specialization is what defines this 

type and it's important for our research concerns to be able to distinguish drug gangs, 

burglary rings and the like from other gang types. 

Summary of Phase I 

We have some concern about the foundation of these scenarios as they are built 

upon the "best-known" gangs. We can't expect that they are typical of the gangs in the 

country and yet the content of the scenarios seems to make sense and have face validity. 

One exception is the Collective type. Collective gangs are fairly large in size and age 

a 

range and have been around for ten to fifteen years, yet have no subgroup structure. 

This was a residual category and that may explain some of the ambiguity in the structural 

characteristics of this type. Should the Phase I1 data collection validate this as a 

meaningful gang type, it would certainly be interesting to know more about the 

organizational features that keep these gangs together. 

We can only speculate as to why the Section I approach to gathering data about 

structural dimensions was not more informative. Possibly, our choice of ethnicity and 

subgroup organization as branching mechanisms was at fault. It may be that by 

22 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
introducing the subgroup/hang-together distinction, we confused our respondents. It may 

be that they were not able to aggregate characteristics within these combinations, or any 

other that is beyond their normal, operational categorizations. On the other hand, we 

didn’t have the luxury of asking about each of the 1800 plus gangs individually. 

Another explanation-one which our experience favors-is that police officers, even 

those with the most gang expertise, do not attend sufficiently to dimensions of structure, 

or know their gangs well enough, to respond meaningfully to the type of questions we 

were asking. Police attend far more to gang crime than gang structure. Finally, there 

0 

may be so much variability in gang structure across different cities that few 

characteristics emerged as predominant within our specified combinations. 

It seems reasonable that departments would be better served if what they knew 

about gang structure would alert them to expectable crime patterns. Discovery of 

structure-typical crime patterns could suggest more useful approaches to gang control. 

Our understanding of the structure-crime nexus is now based on old research. We do 

not know, in the 199Os, if Traditional gangs are still very versatile in their crime 

0 

involvements, or whether they are still the most violent of the gang types. Similarly, we 

do not know if the structure associated with crack distribution gangs is unique, so that 

seeing the pattern of either structure or crime necessarily implies the other. It may well 

be that this structure only sometimes signifies serious drug problems and therefore 

requires more careful crime analysis before alerting the police narcotics division to a new 

target. Thus Phases I1 and I11 of this project take on added importance. 

23 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Phase II: The Prevalence of Five Gang Structures 

The five gang-structure scenarios that emerged from the Phase I analysis 

a 

positioned us to solicit data, from a larger representative sample of cities, on the actual 

prevalence of various gang structures throughout the nation. Such data have never 

before been sought. Further, these data would describe gangs in a way seldom 

attempted before-notably, in relation to their structural properties. We can fruitfully 

return now to the depiction of gang types mentioned earlier, in the Introduction to the 

report. It is more directly relevant now to recast earlier works into structural and 

behavioral patterns. 

From the 1930s through the 1960s, attempts to typologize gangs relied heavily 

upon their crime patterns, even though the first major attempt, by Frederic Thrasher, did 

not. Thrasher (1963) identified Chicago gangs in five categories: Diffuse, Solidified, 

Conventionalized, Criminal, and "Secret Society." The New York City Youth Board in 

the 1950s (1960) used an even more explicitly structural system: Vertical, Horizontal, 

Self-Contained, and Disintegrative. But after this, scholars moved to basically crimebased typologies. Cloward and Ohlin (1955) described Criminal, Conflict, and Retreatest 

gangs. Spergel's follow-up of that work (1964) identified Racket, Theft, Conflict, and 

Retreatest gangs. Cohen and Short (1958) spoke of Theft, Conflict, and Addict gangs, 

while Yablonsky referred to Social, Delinquent, and Violent gangs. In summarizing the 

structural qualities of the gangs described by these various writers, Klein's (1971) review 

yielded Spontaneous, Traditional, Horizontal, and Specialty gangs. 

No further structural depiction has emerged until now. However, descriptions by 

24 

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author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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new scholars in 

behavior. Thus 

the 1980s continued the practice of typologizing by reference to gang 

Taylor (1989), working in Detroit, posited Scavenger, Territorial, and 

Corporate gangs. Fagan (1989), summarizing data from three cities, located four -* 

which were rather hesitantly labeled Social, Party, Conflict, and Delinquent. Huff 

(1988), from data in Ohio cities, listed Hedonistic, Instrumental, and Predatory gangs. 

All three of these 1980’s typologies can be read as adding some motivational spirit to the 

behavioral depictions; that is, words like corporate, party, social, hedonistic, and 

instrumental imply purposes underlying the behaviors typifying the gang types. 

There is, of course, some overlap among these typologies. The methods by which 

they were derived, however, are seldom made explicit, and in many instances are far 

from formal or replicatable. 

as they emerged from rather than being imposed upon observations. Further, they 

emerged from patterns of dimensions clearly stated a priori-gang size, onset, age range, 

ethnicity, clique structure, territoriality, and criminal versatility (but not crime type). The 

data came independently from expert practitioners closest to the gang scene. Finally, 

they came not from one or two or three cities, but from a stratified random sample of 59 

cities representing the nation as a whole. 

Hopefully, the scenarios of Phase I avoid these problems, 

The critical methodological problem with the Phase I data was the need to fall 

back on our respondents’ knowledge of the single gang that each knew best. If the 

attempts to measure prevalence of the five structures nationally were to yield unreliable 

responses, we wouldn’t know whether to attribute this to structural variability or to biases 

inherent in our Phase I process. 

25 

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author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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However, if consistent handling of the scenarios did emerge in Phase 11, and if the 

five types did indeed encompass a good proportion of the gangs under the purview of 

wr respondents, then we could feel more secure about the validity of the structural 

depictions. The Phase I1 interviews (see Appendix 11) allowed for data to invalidate our 

0 

Phase I finding of only five major types, because they sought not only the prevalence of 

the fiye types, but explicitly sought the existence of alternative structures as well. 

We start our report of the Phase I1 data with two promising results. First, while 

our Phase 11 respondents did indeed offer descriptions of alternative structures, we found 

in coding these by the characteristics listed earlier in Figure 2 that the majority of the 

"alternative" structures were not alternatives at all; they fit neatly into the five structures. 

Return phone calls to the respondents revealed that these "alternative" listings were 

merely the result of some confusion about our instructions. @ 

The second result is that the remaining alternative structures comprised only five 

percent of the total numbers of gangs enumerated by our respondents. In other words, 

the five scenarios representing types of street gaqgs seemed to have captured the vast 

bulk of gangs across the nation. We are surprised by how well the typology worked; we 

are no longer concerned about its derivation from the initial 59 "best known" gangs. 

The data on gang structure prevalence are taken from the 201 returns from a 

random sample of 250 cities out of the almost 800 identified in our earlier research. 

This return rate of 80 percent, though below the 90 to 95 percent return rate we have 

had in our prior law enforcement research, is nonetheless very substantial and not a 

source of concern. 

26 

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e 

Traditional 

75 

e 

NeO- Compressed Collective 

Traditional 

100 149 40 

,' .- 

1,111 (39%) 

292 (26%) 

340 (31 %) 

152 

156 

171 

Figure 3: Gang Structures in 201 Cities 

264 (9%) 

62 (23%) 

125 (47%) 

10 

49 

18 

# Cities with: 

483 (17%) 

155 (32%) 

49 

85 

99 

95 (20%) 

.. # cities with 

predominance: 

2860 

857 

874 

283 

378 

468 

~~ 

# of gangs across cities: 

Hispanic 

Black 

White 

Asian 

Mixed & other 

I 24 I 86 

15 

316 (11%) 

179 (57%) 

63 (20%) 

38 

15 

21 

686 (24%) 

229 (33%) 

191 (28%) 

34 

73 

159 

Specialty I c 

76' I 

I - 

I 14 

* Specialty focus: Drugs (24), Graffiti (20), Assault (17). Others included Burglary, Auto, Theft, 

Robbery. 

Fifty-six cities showed no predominance of one gang structure, defined as a type appearing twice as 

often as any other. 

** 

27 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Figure 3 provides a summary of gang structures prevalence data. We call 

attention to the following: 

* -In TOW I, cities containing Compressed gangs are the most common, and those 

with Collective structures the least. Since most of the classic gang literature of the 

1950sand 1960s was based principally on Traditional, not Compressed structures, it is 

immediately clear that a reconsideration of gang "knowledge" is called for. I 

In row 2, cities that are predominantly of one type of gang reveal an even 

stronger pattern of Compressed gang prevalence. Both rows 1 and 2 reveal that most 

cities will typically be more familiar with non-subgrouped gangs. 

In row 3 (reading the percentages horizontally), we see that this general pattern 

also applies to the number of gangs. Gangs with age-graded or geographically-based 

subgroups are less common than the three more homogeneous structural forms, 

e particularly the Compressed type. 

In the five sub-rows on ethnicity (now reading the percentages vertically), we 

see that, in line with most scholarly reports, the vast majority of gangs are composed of 

minority groups, principally and equally Hispanic and black. The marginal percentages 

are 30 percent Hispanic, 31 percent black, 10 percent white, 13 percent Asian, and 16 

percent mixed. 

In the first table note (*), we list for cities with Specialty gangs what their 

preduminant crime type was (asked only with respect to Specialty structures). Drug 

gangs, while a bit more prominent than other Specialty types, certainly do not dominate 

the picture to the extent that enforcement and media reports would suggest. 

Respondents in the 24 cities with drug gangs were asked how many such gangs there 

28 

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‘I 

were; the result is an estimated maximum of 244 gangs with a drug focus, or about 8.5 

percent of the 2.860gangs reported in total. These data are at considerable variance 

with widely circulated reports in the media, and many public statements made by 

prominent law enforcement officials and legislative members, state and federal, to the 

effect that street gangs have taken over much of the drug trade. They are in line, 

however, with other data produced by our earlier national surveys. 

a 

Not shown in Figure 3 but of some interest is the relative ”purity”of cities with 

respect to the five types of gang structure. Only one city reported having none of the 

five structures @ut having an alternative structure). Fully a third of all cities reported 

having only one gang form, and another third reported two of the forms. Thus twothirds of all 201 cities were relatively homogeneous with respect to the structural types. 

An additional one-in-six reported three types, and the rest reported four or all five types. 

A search for common pairings or groupings of structural types was not revealing, i.e.,no 

pattern of combinations occurred that would not be predictable from their overall totals. 

The five scenarios presented to our respondents, which encapsulate defining 

characteristics of the five gang structures, do not include leadership patterns because we 

had little confidence in police views of gang leadership. They do not include the 

important dimensions of group cohesiveness, because responses on this dimension proved 

nondiscriminating. Yet other data were gathered that give us confidence that the five 

types are different in meaningful, indeed in validating, ways. 

The ethnic differences, as suggested in Figure 3, are in some cases very 

substantial, as illustrated in Figure 4A-E. For example, Traditional gangs are more likely 

29 

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e 

Figure 4.A Tr ad i t ional 

I. 0. 

Number of gangs = 316 

Number of cities = 75 

H i span ic 

I 

White 

12% 

01 her 

1% 

M i xed 

6% 

siuri 

5% 

w 

0 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Figure 4.9 

Black 

28% 

W 

Neotradi tional .- 

I 

Number of gangs = 686 

Number of cities = 100 

Asian 

10% 

w 

c. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Figure 4.C Compressed 

Blac 

31 

Number of gangs = 1111 

Number of cities = 149 

Other 

Asian 

13% 

w 

h) 

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not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
e 

Figure 4.D 

a 0 I’ *- 

.. 

Number of gangs = 264 

Number of cities = 40 

Col lec t ive 

Black 

45% 

White 

Mi xed 

7% 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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Figure 4.E .- Specialty Number of gangs = 483 

Number of cities = 76 

ic 

Asian 

18% 

w 

P 

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author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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Figure 5: Selected Structural Dimensions 

Year of onset' 

Through 1970 

197 1-1984 ~ 

1985 & bevond 

City Size 

> 1oo.OOo 

Average Monthly 

Amsts 

Average Monthly Per 

Member Arrests 

- Year ot onset 

Traditional 

182 

24 % 

28 96 

49 96 

35 96 

10.9 

.16 

refers to the yea I1 rany gangs irst appea 

to be Hispanic while the Collective and Specialty gangs are more commonly composed of 

black members. Note, however, that the two most common types-Neotraditional and 

Compressed-show far less ethnic or racial predominance. Average gang size is another 

differentiating variable, as seen in Figure 5. We note in particular the predicted large 

size of Traditional gangs and small size of Specialty gangs. Year of gang emergence in 

the city is somewhat differentiating (Traditional gangs tend to be located in early onset 

cities), although not fully at the level we expected. The explosion in gang onsets in the 

1980s probably puts limits on these differences. Size of the city shows some differences, 

but the common existence of two or more structures in the same city sets limits for these 

differences. The ambiguous Collective gang is significantly a product of the largest cities. 

Volume of crime attributed to the structures is also important, with the 

Traditional and Neotraditional gangs contributing the most, and Specialty gangs 

0 

35 

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contributing the least. Of course, this is a function of average gang size. If we control 

for size as in the last row of Figure 5, we see a considerable reversal; the average 

a 

Traditional gang member contributes the lowest reported arrests, and the SpeciaIty gang 

member the highest. Specialty gangs, it should be remembered, are very much organized 

around their preferred crime type, be it drug sales, burglary, or some other, and are 

subjected to specialized law enforcement surveillance and pursuit. By contrast, the more 

crime-versatile Traditional gang members engage in many activities which are of 

relatively little concern to the police. Thus the reversal patterns of gang volume and 

per-member arrest rates are quite understandable, and help to validate the nature of 

these gang structures. 

We should also report that several variables do not reveal differences in our data. 

Most important, perhaps, is that our respondents did not report much of a difference in 

average arrests for Part I or for serious crimes. We omit the data because, as we will 

see in the Phase I11 data, their reports are necessarily based on inadequate data. Region 

of the country did not differ; more gangs are to be found in the west and fewest in the 

northeast, but this is true of all five gang types. 

Finally, we must recognize that with many of the variables noted above, including 

those we list as differentiating between the five types, statistical significance is not 

achieved. We report the larger differences because this is an exploratory study overall 

which clearly calls for cross-validation of its findings. Equally important, many of the 

data are taken from police expert reports-these are perceptions of gang size, ethnicity, 

crime patterns and so on. An officer reporting five, fifty, or five-hundred gangs in his 

36 

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jurisdiction cannot be close to a lot of the raw data at the street level. Differences that 

emerge do so over a miasma of informational noise and uncertainty. Those that emerge 

0 

seem to "make sense;" they have construct validity, but they call for validation with other 

forms of data-gang by gang by gang. Such validation will prove very expensive. 

To say this does not mitigate the distinction between the five gang structures. 

Rather,, it calls attention to the need to assess what variables reliably characterize those 

structures. It also calls for considerable thought about the policy implications that derive 

from the very fact that there is a variety of structures. To label a group a street gang 

does little to advance understanding of its nature or its impact in the community. 

Variety, not homogeneity, is the hallmark of the modem American gang. 

Phase IIX: Structures and Crime Patterns 

In retrospect, the gang structures and crime proposal submitted to NU 

represented a short series of gambles. Aware that police do not generally conceive of 

gangs in structural terms, and are often only dimly aware of some of the gang dimensions 

commonly discussed in academic circles, we nonetheless gambled that we could 

inductively solicit from police experts the requirements of Phase I. That is, we could use 

police responses to descriptive dimensions such as gang size, clique structures, age 

patterns and so on to develop realistic scenarios of contrasting street gang structures. 

While our police respondents could not do this for the broad range of gangs in 

their purview, we found that they could do it for the gangs best known to them. The 

first gamble thus paid off with the development of five different gang structures. 

A second gamble was that the descriptions of the Phase 1 structures could be 

37 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
provided to a broad and diverse sample of police experts to establish the national 

prevalence of the newly derived structures and that those might account for a substantial 

portion of all gangs. This gamble, too, paid off-even more handsomely than we had 

e 

expected. For the first time, we have an empirically derived typology of street gang 

structures, running the gamut from the historically well-docontented Traditional gang to 

the small Specialty structure, with estimates of their prevalence and some empirical 

correlates. Clearly there is a need for empirical cross-validation of these structural and 

prevalence patterns, but their construct validity is encouraging. 

Finally, we gambled that if reasonably distinct structures could be developed and 

if their prevalence could be established, then recorded crime data on gangs and gang 

members could be used to determine if different gang structures were associated with 

different crime patterns. With the exception of a more focussed crime pattern 

anticipated for Specialty gangs, it was not clear !hat other structures would necessarily 

yield distinguishing patterns-established crime versatility patterns argue against this 

(Klein, 1984)--but this was after all a reasonable empirical question. 

0 

This last gamble, given a successful road to Phase 111, rested on the capacities of 

police crime recording practices with respect to gang members. From past exposure to 

these practices, we knew from the outset that many departments could not meet our 

needs. Nonetheless, in preparing the research proposal to NU, we suggested that 

perhaps 25 or so departments might be able to provide the needed data. As described 

below, our estimate was very much in error and our third gamble did not pay off. A 

different approach will be needed to relate gang structures to crime patterns. 

0 

38 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
It is not that police crime data fail to yield structure-relevant differences; we 

couldn't get to that point in our analysis. Rather, police crime data generally are not 

collected in a way that allows such differences to emerge. To understand mis requires a 

e 

clear statement of what we determined was needed. Several rather severe restrictions 

were imposed-severe because we wanted reliable and valid depictions of gang crime 

patterns. 

1. We required the recording of gang member crimes across a wide range of 

possible offenses. Reference to the list of 18 offense categories of the Phase I11 Survey 

in the appendix will suggest our interest. We knew that this broad range is possible in 

all departments, but also that police perspectives on gang crime and legislative and 

prosecutorid emphases would lead to an overemphasis on the most serious offenses to 

the detriment (and often exclusion) of moderate and low serious offenses. Police more 

commonly record offenses they see as typical of gangs-assaults, drive-by shootings, 

robbery, graffiti vandalism, drug sales, for example-and less commonly record various 

forms of theft and other property offenses, status offenses, drug use, and so on, despite 

0 

the fact that these latter are far more common. We decided early that departments 

exhibiting a major imbalance of offense recording could not yield a valid picture of interstructural differences. 

2. We also required that a participating department keep records on a substantial 

proportion of the members of any gang included in Phase I11 data collection. The 

tendency, of course, is for offenses to be recorded primarily for those considered "core" 

gang members, that relatively small number of gang members who contribute a 

39 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
disproportionately high number of arrests, probably disproportionately of higher 

seriousness as well. To describe inter-structure differences based too heavily on the core 

or most criminally active gang members would seriously impair the validity o€ our 

findings. 

' Further, with respect both to the range of offenses and the category of offenders, 

an imbalance toward more serious offenses and more serious offenders, it was felt, would 

dampen any inter-structure differences that exist; it's hard to find differences when 

categories of analysis are limited. 

3. Because many gangs contain both juvenile and adult members, we sought 

reporting departments that did not limit their crime reports to either juveniles or adults. 

For instance, if gang offending was recorded only within the juvenile division of a police 

department, that department would not be included in the Phase I11 analysis. 0 

Beyond these three restrictions, there is the obvious limitation that we could only 

deal with departments that did maintain gang records-both rosters of gang members 

and offenses committed by them, recorded individual by individual. Many jurisdictions 

with gang problems have not as yet developed either paper or computerized gang offense 

recording systems that would permit compilation of the sort of data we needed. As part 

of Phase 11, all 200 respondents were asked, "Does your department have the capability 

of producing the arrest history of all or most of !he members of at least one gang?" 

If the answer to this question was in the positive, respondents were asked to 

indicate for how many gangs of each structural type such arrest histories or crime 

profiles could be produced. A surprising 110 departments responded that they could 

40 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
provide gang arrest profiles of this sort. This was the last encouraging data we were to 

receive. 

e 

A procedure was established to help the 110 respondents provide the requested 

arrest profiles. A form was developed on which, gang by gang, they could fill in the 

offense data for the previous year. If they had a ready-made 'reporting system of a 

reasonably similar sort, they were welcomed to submit that to us. Finally, if the paper 

work involved was too extensive to be undertaken, they could report the data to us in a 

structured telephone interview. 

Phase I11 contacts were originally made with 42 of the 110 respondents, 31 from 

cities with multiple gang structures and 11 from cities reporting only one structural typ, 

both sets carefully selected to provide a wide assortment of gang arrest profiles. 

However, it soon became apparent from the response of these 42 that the full 

complement of 110 respondents would have to be approached. Over time, despite a 

great deal of effort and many, many attempts to elicit cooperation-which, it will be 

recalled, was overwhelmingly positive in Phase I and Phase I1 in addition to prior 

projects-only 16 departments responded with one or more gang arrest profiles that met 

the research requirements. 

0 

Of the remainder: 

Fifteen overtly refused to participate, primarily because the task was too 

demanding. Their data systems were not sufficient to provide gang arrest profiles. 

Twenty-four simply failed to respond, usually ignoring phone and fax messages 

from the same personnel that had successfully engaged them before. We take these to 

0 be refusals as well, albeit of a passive nature. 

41 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Twenty-eight agreed to respond to faxed data recording sheets, but failed to e 

return them. Again repeated requests proved fruitless, and a third form of refusal was 

the result. 

One of the respondents reported that the gang problem had dissipated. 

3 Twenty-six returned data forms that failed to meet the research requirements. 

Of these, 21 admitted that their gang rosters didn’t exist, or did not include the majority 

of gang members or were otherwise inadequate. Four reported legal 

restrictions-confidentiality or protected juvenile records. One reported its single gang 

was no longer active. 

Thus, at the end of data collection for phase 111, we had obtained only 16 

responses that merited further analysis. Of these, one came from a large urban center 

and all others from suburban or small city jurisdictions. The 16 cities profiled a total of 

0 51 gangs-17 Traditional, 12 Neotraditional, 18 Compressed, 2 Collective, and 2 

Specialty. The first three numbers, at least, are sufficient to provided some stability of 

relationship between structural type and arrest profile, but further review raised 

insurmountable problems. 

Only nine of the gang descriptions showed a close relationship between reported 

gang size, roster size, and number of members profiled. An additional eleven gangs 

showed a substantial (50 percent or better) equality between reported size, roster size, 

and numbers profiled. Only these 20 gangs, by even a relaxed criterion, could meet the 

requirements of valid gang crime patterns. 

Finally, a review of these 20 remaining gang arrest profiles revealed that only five 

@ 

of the arrest profiles suggested any sort of comprehensive arrest recording practice. We 

42 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
know from much prior research, gang and nongang alike, that arrest patterns are 

versatile; gang members commit a wide variety of offenses, and this variety is manifested 

in both self-report and official records. Most common are various forms of theft, status 

offenses, drug use and other mostly non-violent crimes. Yet the arrest profiles we 

rdived on reasonably complete gang rosters were not of this sort, raising serious 

questions, as we suggested earlier, about the selectivity in common gang offense 

a 

recording practices. 

To illustrate the two recording deficits described here-inadequate rostenng and 

limited offense recording-we report below several examples of each. 

Figure 6: Illustrations of Number Disparities 

City ID Structure Estimated 

SiZe 

21 1 I Traditional 1100-200 

749 Traditional 

240 Neotradi tional 

749 Neotraditional 

62 1 Compressed 

Compressed 

Collective 

Specialty 

3 15 

100 

170 

100 

25-50 

135 

40 

Roster Size Profile I Number 

27 27 

156 105 

60 30 

76 52 

135 22 

17 I 17 

Figure 6 presents examples of would-be gang profiles that would be very suspect if 

they were to be reported, as they could refer to a very substantial minority of the 

43 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
members from each gang. One could reasonably assume that the profiles would 

disproportionately reflect the detected criminal activity of the chronic offenders or core 

e 

members of their gangs, thus yielding a distorted picture of gang crime patterns. 

Figure 7 reports the arrest profiles for two of the five gangs that illustrate the 

expected versatility pattern, and three of the gangs for which'important gaps are evident. 

Figure 7: Illustrative Gang Arrest Profiles 

City ID: 418 62 1 

Gang Type: Traditional Compressed 

Profile Number: 339 20 

Homicide 

hpe 

Robbery 

Larceoyflleft 

Motor Vehicle Theft 

Arson 

Graffiti 

Dag Sales 

Use and Possession 

Public Disorder 

Weepons 

Petty Theft 

Forgery, Counterfeit, etc. 

Hate Crimes 

Status Offenses 

Other 

Total: 

2 0 

1 0 

10 6 

79 9 

31 10 

9 7 

5 2 

1 0 

43 2 

1 2 

33 7 

79 4 

24 3 

38 13 

42 0 

0 0 

217 9 

407 0 

1022 74 

436 480 26 1 

Traditional Traditional Compressed 

709 462 24 

0 

0 

12 

30 

4 

0 

2 

0 

3 

1 

22 

0 

12 

0 

0 

0 

0 

23 

0 

0 

1 

10 

0 

0 

0 

0 

5 

0 

1 

0 

7 

0 

0 

0 

0 

8 

0 

0 

8 

8 

0 

2 

6 

0 

0 

9 

18 

24 

6 

2 

0 

0 

0 

0 

111 32 84 

44 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
The first two gangs evidence pretty much the full panoply of offenses, although e 

the patterns differ substantially. The balance of violent to non-violent offenses seems 

reasonable, and there is no obvious selectivity for stereotypically "gang-fike*-o€Eense%. 

The other three profiles quite obviously fall short of expectations. Petty thefts, status 

offenses, burglary, and larceny are all but non-existent; imagine gangs whose members 

engage in none of these activities! By contrast, violence and drug offenses predominate; 

the stereotype is reflected in recording practices. 

Note further the numbers of offenses in relation to the numbers of members 

profiled. In the first two gangs, between three and four offenses on average are 

recorded per member. In two of the three other gangs, per-member rates work out to 

.16 and .07 offenses. The difference seems way out of proportion to likely gang member 

activity, providing illustrations of grossly incomplete recording in addition to pattern 

distortion. 

What are we left with, then? Our respondents provided crime data on 51 gangs, 

or less than 2 percent of the 2,860reported in Phase 11. Of these, only 20 had even 

mildly acceptable proportions of profiles out of total members, or 0.7percent of the 

total, of which only five, or 0.2 percent were judged to have yielded reasonably 

undistorted crime profiles. Far too many cities have yielded far too few gangs, and these 

portray grossly under-reported and distorted crime pictures. It is not possible, with these 

data, to assess crime pattern differences between different gang structure types. 

Implications 

Several implications are obvious from the above conclusions. First, if this nation 

45 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
is to base gang control policies on police-recorded gang data, then a major effort will be e 

needed to assist law enforcement in accurately reflecting the nature of gang arrests. 

Second, the poiicies now in place, both localiy and nationally, to the extent diat 

they are based on officially reported gang crime patterns, are based on inadequately 

collected and reported information. This includes greatly under-reported levels of gang 

crime, and largely distorted emphases on the proportions of gang-stereotypical 

crime-violence, drug offenses, and the like.’ Such arrest-based policies thus are likely 

to be ill founded and inefficient at best. 

Finally, for gang scholars, it appears that accurate gang crime depictions will in 

most cities have to start with ethnographic procedures. Reasonably full rosters of gang 

memberships must come from field studies, and then these rosters can be used to 

approach the issue of crime patterns (observed, self-reported, and official). In most 

jurisdictions, reliance on data from police gang units will not at this point be sufficient. 

Four very recent studies illustrate the use of alternatives in the absence of acceptable 

police arrest data. Knox (1993) relied on police chiefs’ reports of gang crime seventy 

(number of crime types reported) in a sample of 248 cities. Quinn et al. (1994) relied on 

gang unit officers’ perceptions of gang problem severity (a global, unoperationalized 

measure) in a set of 79 cities in the south central states. LeBlanc (1994) employed selfreport measures of delinquency to study relationships between (a) more and less 

organized gangs, b) retreatist, criminal, and violent gangs, and c) French Canadian and 

’ One example is the widely reported finding by Curry et al. (1994:l) that 

”...homicidesand other violent crimes account for about half of all recorded gang-related 

crime incidents.” 

46 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

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Haitian immigrant gangs, all in Montreal. Sheley et al. (1995) interviewed incarcerated 

gang members regarding the level of gang organization and both gang and individual 

invdvement in five types of crime. The approach of the last two studies, self-report 

measures, is perfectly acceptable, even preferable to police records, but not feasible for 

multi-jurisdictional studies or prevalence estimates. The first two-chiefs’ and officers’ 

impressions-raise serious questions of validity and reliability about police reports of 

gang crime. 

We make this last comment with reservations, however. There are some 

jurisdictions from which reasonably valid and reliable gang crime data are available. The 

authors have had the fortune to work with such jurisdictions. Appropriate data can be 

collected, albeit at considerable expense in funds, time, and frustration, and such data 

cat) be enormously effective in-advancing our knowledge of gang crime and gang control 

possibilities. These instances are unusual, however, and stand as proof of the value of 

expanding their numbers. 

e- - 

Conclusions 

It is relevant to refer back to some of our prior gang studies. The vast majority of 

our earlier respondents were comfortable with our survey’s gang terminology. When 

appropriate, we entered into conversations based upon our definitional approach that led 

to mutual agreements as to whether a city should or should not be considered ganginvolved. Our 1991 survey of nominated gang cities thus yielded 260 gang and over 50 

nongang cities. Our 1992 migration study incorporated more sources for gang city 

candidates and yielded almost 800 gang (and about 300 nongang) cities. 

47 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
The allocation of police resources to gang problems was revealed in the 1991 

survey to be not as driven by crime analysis as one might hope, and not consistently 

determined by differentiation between gang types. In 83 percent of the depattmeiits, the 

e 

most common resource allocation was to intelligence functions. Only 26 percent of the 

depmments had specific gang investigation officers, while 33 percent reported engaging 

in gang suppression activities. Deliberate gang preventiodcommunity relations 

functions were reported by less than 10 percent of the respondents, and participation in 

community or interagency task forces was mentioned by seven percent. The latter 

figures seem to reflect the relatively recent emergence of gangs in a large number of 

cities (over 50 percent of them having gang onset only since 1985). Many jurisdictions 

(over 40 percent by their own admission) first went through a denial phase; only 37 

percent of the respondents could name a non-enforcement person in their communities 

who was knowledgeable about gangs. Most often this was a school official, commonly 

school security. 

0 

Clearly, the allocation of police resources to intelligence, investigation, 

suppression, prevention, and community involvement functions should depend in part 

both on the structural form of existing gangs, and on their patterns of criminal 

involvement. Intelligence, perhaps with a preventive accompaniment, may suffice for 

cities facing minor gang problems. Over 60 percent of our 615 smaller (i.e.,populations 

under 100,000) gang cities reported five or fewer active gangs, and few of these were 

drug gangs requiring intensive anti-narcotics operations. There was also a suggestion in 

some of our respondents’ comments that early suppression procedures can effectively 

48 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
discourage "copycat" and "wannabe" groups experimenting with gang life but not yet e 

seriously involved in violent episodes. 

Gangs with extensive drug sales activities might elicit a potential atternathe fur 

police approaches, namely the employment of crackdown operations under the control of 

the narcotics or vice divisions, rather than gang units. We have noted elsewhere 

(Maxson and Klein, 1986) the limited liaison that tends to be maintained between police 

gang and narcotics units, and our belief that the utility of such liaisons can easily be 

overstated and overplayed. 

Yet other research undertaken by the authors (Klein, Gordon, and Maxson, 1986) 

has revealed that the involvement of gang units in the investigative process does yield 

increased effectiveness, although the structural form and organizational placement of 

the unit seems not to make a difference (Klein, Maxson, and Gordon, 1987). This makes 

sense when there is an established, experienced unit and when the gang situation is 

e 

sufficiently stable, as with Traditional gangs, to yield reliable intelligence. In the absence 

of such gang stability-as in newly emergent gang cities or cities with heavy involvement 

in drug distribution to the relative exclusion of other crime patterns-investigative 

functions may better be retained in the investigative (and/or narcotics) divisions, with 

gang officers being called on only to assist with background information, gang 

informants, gang member identification, and the like. 

Perhaps most critical to today's discussions nationwide is the issue of special gang 

suppression programs. These include legislation such as STEP, RICO, and civil 

abatement statutes; vertical prosecution ("Hardcore") or SHODI-type programs; intensive 

49 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
gang caseload programs in probation and parole departments; and a series of special 

police actions that go beyond the usual crime control procedures. The question here is 

whether these suppression activities are in fact suppressing gang memberstrip and crime 

(there are no data on this), or whether they are inadvertently repeating the effects of 

eatlier gang interventions, Le., increasing gang identity, status and cohesiveness, and thus 

gang crime (Klein and Mason, 1989). 

Our survey respondents described these suppression variations to us in a wide 

variety of terms, but they seem categorizable as follows: 

- Most common were heightened forms of surveillance, variously described as heavy 

surveillance, directed patrol, selective enforcement, harassment, patrol caravans, 

and zero tolerance. 

- Next were specific, multi-officer street sweeps targeted at gang members. Some were e modelled after Operation Hammer (L.A.P.D.),others were multi-agency 

coordinated efforts, and still others involved intra-department tactical units and 

task forces. 

- Third in number were variations on "hot spot" targeting, aimed either at known gang 

member gathering spots or at intelligence- and patrol-defined drug market 

centers. Included here were occasional "CUI de sac" barrier installations to 

discourage gang entry into specific block locations. 

Each of these categories of activity, and a smattering of others, were based on a 

general deterrence notion. They assume that deterrence by police suppression is both an 

50 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
appropriate and effective way of dealing with established gang structures.' Data 

available elsewhere (Klein and Maxson, 1991; Spergel and Chance, 1991) suggest this 

may not be the case, but the issue inherent here-how to increase or decrease gang 

cohesiveness-is likely a function of gang structure first, and crime patterns second. 

Many poiice departments engaged in suppression programs Have become discouraged 

about ,their efforts, and are speaking more consistently about community-based 

approaches. Perhaps they have been applying the suppression brush too broadly, not 

sufficiently appreciating its appropriateness to some types of gangs but not to others. 

Summary 

In this research, we have developed a structural gang typology which has proven 

applicable in the vast majority of a random sample of cities with reported gang problems. 

- We have learned: - __ .... .~ . __ 

that Traditional gangs, those most subject to prior gang research, are not the 

most common or typical gang form; 

that some of the ethnic differences described in the literature do not hold up 

In these pages, we cannot go into a detailed description of deterrence theory and 

its relationship to suppression programs. This is available elsewhere (Klein and Maxson, 

1991; Klein, 1995). But the reader can get some flavor of the philosophy expressed by 

our police respondents in these quotes: 

"We violated the hell out of their rights -- and they left." 

"We knocked the shit out of them." 

"Intensified patrol, including bad busts, but it passes the message." 

"Excruciating pressure. I' 

, "Suppression? We used anything and everything." 

Perhaps the most innovative program was the one in which intensive street sweeps were 

followed by the rental or purchase of a house in the swept community. An officer 

moved into each house as a resident. The community became his beat, by foot and 

bicycle. 0 

51 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
well for gangs in the 1990s; e 

that drug gangs, so much the subject of public pronouncements and some 

criminological research, comprise a relatively small proportion of street gmgs; 

that differences between gang types do not readily correspond to characteristics 

of,their cities or regions in the country; 

that presumed and reported relationships between gangs and crime patterns, as 

reflected in official arrests, are probably unfounded-police gang arrest data are not 

generally up to the task of validly representing patterns of gang crime. 

We caution the reader, also, that the gang typology which emerged form our data 

is time-limited. The data collection period of the early 1990s follows by relatively few 

years the major proliferation across the nation that took place in the 1980s. We may 

have captured a brief movement in a period of major gang evolutionary change. We 

e know, for instance, that drug gangs have gained their prominence only during the last ten 

years. 

It is reasonable to suggest that the Collective gang, having such an amorphous 

form, may be a product of this evolutionary phase and will soon becomes even less 

common that it is now. It is also reasonable to suggest that Compressed gangs, now so 

common but with a relatively short history, will evolve over time into Neotraditional and 

Traditional forms if they continue to exist. This is logical, since current members will 

grow older and the gangs can only regenerate themselves via recruitment of new, 

presumably younger replacements. This could well result in the age-related cliques that 

typify the Traditional gang. 

Revisiting this issue in five to ten years, using the same research methods, would e 

52 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
seem very much in order to solidify our underskiding of gang structure. Perhaps by that 

time a sufficient number of police departments will have developed gang rosters and 

0 

crime statistics appropriate to establishing valid relationships between gang structures 

and gang crime patterns. 

53 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
References a 

Cloward, R. A., and Ohlin. L.E. (1955) Delinquency and Opponuniry: A Theory of 

Ddirquent Gangs. New York The Free Press. - 

Cohen, A. K., and Short. J. P. (1958) "Research in delinquent subcultures." Journal of 

Social Issues, 14~20-37. 

+ 

Curry, G. D., Ball, R. A., and Fox, R. J. (1994) Gang crime and law enforcement 

secordkeeping." Nan'onal Institute of Justice Research in Brie5 Washingotn, DC: 

Nu. 

Curry, G. D., Fox, R. J., Ullom, M. J., and Ball, R. A. (1992) Narional Assessment 

Survey of Ami-Gang Law Enforcement Infomarion Resources: Repon #I. 

Morganmwn, WV: West Virginia University. 

Elliott, D. S.,and Ageton, S. S. (1980) "Reconciling race and class differences in selfreported and official estimates of delinquency. '' American Sociological Review 

45:95-110. 

Erickson, M. L.,and Jensen, G. F. (1977) "Delinquency is still group behavior!: 

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Fagan, J. (1989) "The social organization of drug use and drug dealing among urban 

gangs: Criminology 27:633-69. 

Farrington, D. P. (1973) "Self-reports of deviant behavior: Predictive and stable?" 

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Hagedom, J. (1988) People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rusfbelr 

City. Chicago: Lakeview Press. 

Huff, C. R. (1988) "Youth gangs and public policy." Crime and Delinquency 35524-37. 

Huizinga, D. (1990) Gang Involvement in High Risk Areas: A Research Brief. 

Boulder: Denver Youth Survey, University of Colorado. 

Klein, M. W. (1971) Sfreef Gangs and Sfreef Workers. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 

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a 

Klein, M. W. (1995) The Amencan Sfreet Gang. New York: Oxford University Press. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Klein, M. W.. and Maxson, C. L. (1989) "Street gang violence," in Weiner, N. and 

Wolfgang, M. E. (eds.), Violent Crimes, Violeru Criminois. Newbury Park. CA: e 

Sage Publications. 

Klein. M. W.. and Maxson, C. L. (1991) Gang Controi by Law Enforcement: bpsal 

for a National Assessment. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Social 

Science Research Institute. 

Klein, M.W., Mason, C. L., and Gordon, M.A. (1987) Gangs in smaller cities. Paper 

presented at annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology. 

Knox, G.W. (1993) "Gang crime: A threat analysis." Paper presented at the annual 

meeting of the American Society of Criminology. 

LeBlanc, M., and Lanctot. N. (1994) "Adolescent gang members' social and 

psychological characteristics: 

process?' Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of 

Criminology. 

Gang participation, a selection or an activation 

Maxson, C. L., Gordon, M. A., and Klein, M. W. (1985) "Differences between gang and 

nongang homicides. *' Criminology 23:209-22. 

Maxson, C. L., Woods, K. J., and Klein, M. W. (1996) "Street Gang Migration in the 

United States." hs Angeles: University of Southern California, Social Science 

Research Institute. 

Maxson, C. L.,and Klein, M. W. (1986) "Street gangs selling cocaine rock: The 

mnfluence of two "social problems." Paper presented at the annual meeting of 

the Society for the Study of Social Problems. 

Miller, W. B. (1980) "Gangs, groups, and serious youth crime," in D. Shichor and D. 

Kdy (eds.), Critical Issues in Juvenile Delinquency. Lexington: Lexington Books. 

Monti, D.J. (1993) "Gangs in more-and-less-settled communities," in S. Cummings and 

D.J. Monti (eds.), The Origins and Impact of Coruemporary Yowh Gangs in the 

Unired Stufa. Albany: State University of New York Press. 

Moore, J. W. (1978) Homeboys. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Moore, J. W.,and Vigil, R. D. (1987) "Chicano gangs: Group norms and individual 

factors related to adult criminality." &fan 18:27-44. 

Morash, M. (1983) "Gangs, groups, and delinquency." British Journal of Criminology a 23:309-31. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
New York City Youth Board (1960) Reaching the Fighting Gang. New York: New York e City Youth ma. 

Quinn. J. F., Tobolowsky, P. M.. and Downs, W. T. (1994) "The gang problem in large 

and small cities." The Gang Journal 22. 

Sanchez-Jankowski, M. (1991) Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Sociery. 

Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Sheley, J. F., Zhang, J., Brody, C. J., and Wright, J. D. (1995) "Gang organization, gang 

# 

,criminal activity, and individual gang members' criminal activity." Social Science 

QuanerQ 7653-68. 

Short, J. F. (1990) "Gangs, neighborhoods, and youth crime." Criminal Justice Research 

Bullerin, V, #4. Huntsville, TX: Sam Houston State University. 

Skolnick, 1. H., Correl, T., Navmo, T.. and Rabb, R. (1990) "The social structure of 

street drug dealing. 'I American Journal of Police 9: 1-4 1. 

Spergel, I. A. (1964) Rackidle, Slwnrown, Haulburg: An fiplororory Study of 

DeiiqueN ~ubcdfures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

0 Spergel, 1. A. (1980) Community Disorganization and the Street Gang Problem. 

Chicago: University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. 

Spergel, 1. A.,and Chance, R. L. (1991) National Youth Gang Suppression and 

Intervention Program. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of Justice. 

Spergel, 1. A., Curry, G., Ross, R., and Chance, R. (1989) Survey: National Youth 

Gang Suppression and Intervention Project. Chicago: University of Chicago, 

School of Social Service Administration. 

Taylor, C. S. (1989) Dangerous Society. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. 

Thornberry, T. P., Ktohn, M. D., Lizotte, A. J., and Chard-Wierschem, D. (1992) The I Role of Juvenile Gangs in Facilitating Delinquent Behavior. Albany, NY: State 

University of New York, Criminal Justice Research Center. 

Thrasher, F. (1963) 77~ Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: University 

of Chicago Press. 

Tracy, P. E. (1979) Subcultural Delinquency: A Comparison of the Incidence and 

Seriousness of Gang and Nongang Offensivity. Philadelphia: University of a Pennsylvania, Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Vigil, R. D.. and Yun, S. C. (1990) "Vietnamese youth gangs in Southern California." in e Huff. C. R. (ed.), Gangs in America. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. 

Yablonsky, L. (1963) The Violent Gang. New York: MacMillan. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Appendix I: Phase I Instrument 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
ID1 

GANG STRUCTURES 

INTRODUCTION. For the purposes 

INTERVIEW - ?WE I 

of this research, we want to 

define ganus quite broadly--younger and older, male or female, 

small and large, and so on. 

gangs those groups that do have considerable orientation to Or 

However, we only wish to include as 

involvement in delinquent or criminal behavior. 

include groups whose behavior is only marginally illegal. 

Please do not 

section I. 

to identify the different types of gangs that you are familiar: 

with in your jurisdiction. 

deparment completed for us in 

[CITY NAME1 has approximately 

Based cn the previous definition, is this number of ganos 

accurate? 

Please keep these various gangs in mind as I ask you questions 

abour: certain characteristics of your gangs. 

In this first set of questions I will be asking YOU 

From a survey you/someOne in Your 

, we learned that 

street ganqsIf no, adjusted number is: 

The characteristics of qang 

you tzday are cohesrveness, 

c Lerr:t~r:al identification, 

xembersnip and size. 

e 

t;pes that I will be discussing with 

ethnicity, age distribution, 

subgroups or cliques, female 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
. 

If asked 2nd, TYPE: ID# 

HUlG TOGETHE8/8UBGROUPB 

S) Of the 

how many do the members all hang pretty much together as one 

overall group and in how many do members tepd to separate out 

into obvious sub-groups or cliques? [RECORD NUXBERS FOR EACB 

ganqs that we’re talking about, in 

CATEGORY hang together (go to next page) 

sub-qroups/cliques 

S1) Of these gangs that have subgroups/cliques, 

in how many are the subgroups related to age only, to area, 

to things they do, or to some other characteristic? 

age to things they do 

area to some other characteristic 

combination, specify: 

[FOR EACH TYPE MLIYTXOrJED IPS 81, ASIC 82 AM) RECORD IPS A KA”EB 

T835T CWPIES RESPONSE TO EA-.) 

s2) What is the nature of the relationship of these 

subgroups to other subgroups of the gang, and to the gang 

itself? [PROBE FOR NATURE OF RELATION8EIP OF SUBGROUPS TO 

WANG ITSELF”, i.e., level of contact, overall leadership, 

independence vs. autonomy] 

(BRANCE OFF WITH SEPARATE QUESTION SEQUENCE FOR EACH OF TEE 

SUBGROUP TYPES GIVEN AND THEIR MR3BER -- P088IBLE FOUR OPTIONav 

OR MORE, IF COMBINATION) 

2 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
If asked 2nd, TYPE: ID# 

ETEXICITP 

E) Of the 

consist mostly of just one ethnic group? (none, go to E2). 

ganas tkat we're talking about, hew 

El) Of the gangs that have primarily one ethnic group, how 

many gangs are: 

Black Hispanic 

Asian White 

[PROBE FOR NATIONALITY OF HISPANIC, BhACX OR ASIIUI] : 

E2) Of the gangs that are not mostly composed of 

one single ethnic group, how would you characterize the 

ethnic mix of these ganqs? 

Mixed: 

(PROBE FOR TEE DIPPERE2lT ETHMC COMB1:NATIONB AND RATIO8 OF 

THESE MIXED GROUPS.] 

BRANCH OFF AM) PROCEED WITH SEQUENCE OF QUESTION8 FOR EACH EmC 

GROUP, 

GROUP8 REPRESENTED HERE. 

POSSIBLY INCLUDING ANY COMBINATIONS OF MIXED ETHNIC 

3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
#/Type: ID$ 

Section I. 

1) Would you describe the memars within each of these fRE3t&*AC% 

# OF GANG8 AND ETgMCITY AMI 6WGRDUP DZMENSIOHS] as tightly 

connected or loosely connected to each other? 

how cohesive do gangs like this seem? 

In other words, 

2) Do the members of this t'Jpe of gang identify pretty sKrongly 

with any particular area or territory? 

- Yes No 

2a) How are areas/territories defined? i.e. do they identify 

their territory by neighborhood, school, housing project, or 

other types of physical boundaries? 

3) Are all of the qanqs of this type about the same size? 

Yes ; what's the tmical size? 

:IO ; What is 

What is 

the 

t!ie 

saallest? 

largest? 

4 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
.' 

3a) can you break that down in your own terms by how many 

gang nembers are more involved ana how many are not so 

involved? [PROBE BY ASKING FOR PRBPORTZOIIIS IF G%mIEG NO 

SPECIFIC NUHEEM] 

If typical: 

(> invoivea term/number) (< involvea termit) 

,Or, smallest: 

(> involved term/#) (< involved term!#) 

Largest: 

(> invoivea term/#) (< involvea term/#) 

4) Are these (REPEAT 1, ETBMCITY, SWGROUP TYFE) about the same 

in their age ranges or are they different in ranges? 

Same range: 

Different ranges: 

4a) Can you estimate which age is most common for this type 

of gang? 

5) HOW many gangs of this type have female members? 

sa) What is the level of female involvement? In how many 

gangs are the females: 

a sub-group or clique of the male gang 

an autonomous, female gang 

inteqrated fully into the male group 

5b) What is the typical proportion of females in qanas of 

this type? [PROBE FOR A FRACTION OR A PERCENTAGE, DO NOT 

ACCEPT "A LOT" "A FEWr ETC. ] 

5 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
6) Would you consider these [AGAIN, REPEAT PRIMARY DIXEHSIOBS-4, 

EmCI:TY, SWGROm, ETCl aanqs ta have long standing traditions 

and/or characteristics, or, eo they represent a newer typeor 

gang whose habits, readily identifiable characteristics and 

traditions are still emerging? 

SUMMARIZE TPPE: Now, let me confim what I have so far: there are 

gangs in (CITY NAME] that are of a type characterized 

by [#, ethnfcitp, subgroupingj. For the remaining 

gangs in your city I am going to ask the previous set of 

questions again, until we have covered all the different TYPES of 

gangs represented in [CITY NAME]. Let's continue with the [NXXT 

SUBGROUP OR ETIIMCITY DIMEHSION] gangs you mentioned earlier. 

6 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
ID# 

TRANSITXOM TO SBCTXON 2 

[SUMXARIZE Tgg TYPE8 T3XT REIPOWDEXT HAS DEBCIUBED 

In this interview, ;le have categorized gang types with the two 

leading traits of 1) ethnicity, and 2) whether or not they hang 

together or break into subgroups, e.g. "Black, agegraded 

subgroups" and White, hang together, cohesives. In what ways do 

AsIcfl 

you characterize aifferent kinds of gangs, or do you have any 

labels or terms for particular types of gangs? 

Is there anything else you would like to add about any of the 

different type of gangs in your city before we move on to the 

next set of questions? 

7 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
G) 

different types of gangs that are operating throughout the 

nation. 

would you consider any of tke followlng groups to be gangs? 

We are conaucting these intenflews to qet a picture of the 

In your opinion, given our broad definition of gangs, 

or N]: prison groups 

skinheads or other supremacist groups 

motorcycle groups 

- 

- 

- stoners 

- satanic groups 

- terrorist groups 

- organized adult crime groups 

- drug distribution groups 

- tagger crews 

- specialty groups (auto theft, burglary rings, 

etc.) [GET NUHBER ADID TYPE] 

- "confederations/nationsl@ (Chicago style) 

- organized Asian groups r , I 4 

which, if any, of these groups do you have in [CITY NAME]? 

[CIRCLE AND RECORD HOW KRNY] 

Did you include them in any of the types you described 

earlier? - Yes No 

If no, why not? 

8 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
SECTION 11. ID # 

Elow I'd like you to answer several questions about one Darticufpy 

aanq in your city, in fact, the one gang you know thn b_est,#eep 

that gang in mind and tell De what is their name? 

1) How many members does this one particular gang have? 

la) How many are core members? 

lb) How many are fringe members? 

[UBE THESE TERM OR TERM PROVIDED BY RESPONDELJT IN Q3A) 

2) What is the aue range in this gang? 

2a) What is the most common age? 

3) Do the members of this particular gang identify with any 

particular area or territory? - Yes - No 

3a) If yes, how is the area or boundary defined? 

3b) If no, what other dimensions identify them as a gang? 

4) Are there any special signs or symbols that characterize the 

gaaq? 

5) What ethnic cateuories are represented in this gang? How many 

are: Black 

Asian 

American Indian - 

Hispanic 

White 

:Get: nationality breakdowns if applicable.) 

9 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
6) Does this qanq have separate subqroups or cliques or do the 

nembers all hang out touether as one qroup? 

6a) If separare subgrcups or cliques, are these 9- 

related to age, area, the things they do, or some other 

dimension? 

7) Are the members tightly connected or loosely connected to each 

other? 

8) Hov loyal are gang members to one another? 

9) Are there identifiable leaders in the gang? 

io) Bov iqortant are rivalries or competition with other gMQ8 

on the gang mmmbers' group idantfty or status? 

11) Are there any female members in this gang? 

Yes - No 

lla) If yes, do they have a separate subgroup or do they 

seem pretty well inteurated with the 

males? 

12) when did this gang first get started? 

10 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
13) Has anything about the qang changed much over the yeaxsp ia 

any of the qualities we've just been talking about? 

-- 

14) bver tha paat year, what is tho worst crbe you cap recall 

that involve8 the members of this gang? 

is) DO you think of them doing mostly just one or two types of 

crime, or are they involved in many different criminal 

activitiea? 

- ona or two types of crfmet 

(specialty/ies) 

- may different types of crfmet 

(typical crimes) 

~ 

'Cror a 

16) Hov many gangs in [CITY NAWE] could you have responded for 

with this particular set of questions? 

[IN OTHER UORDS, COULD THEY ANBW'ER SUCH QUESTIONS ABOUT ALL 

GANGS IN TBE CITY, HALF, A €'Ell, ONE?] 

17) Can you think of anyone in the community that it may be 

helpful to talk to about gangs in [CITY NAME]? [GET NAME, 'e, I I. 

APFILIBTION AND PRONE NUMBER IF POSSIBLE] 

Thanks, etc. You might be getting a brief questionnaire from US 

in the next few months. We'll send you a report of our findings 

once the project is completed. 

11 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
AppendixII: Base II Instrument 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Date 

Addressee. etc. 

A few years ago, you provided us with some valuable information about your city's 

gang situation and received a summary report of the findings on gang migration across 

the nation. We are conducting an additional study, also sponsored by the National 

Institute of Justice. The purpose of this current project is to learn more about the 

varieties of gang types, nationally, and how these may relate to different forms of crime. 

We expect the findings will generate guidelines for more effective responses to gangs in 

many cities. 

The enclosed survey should take only a few minutes to complete. The first two 

pages describe five types of gangs, based upon information we have received from law 

enforcement gang experts throughout the country. Please read alJ five descriptions first; 

then consider which type or types generally describe the gang forms in your city. The fit 

need not be perfect, but should be substantially correct. Then,answer the questions on 

page three. If some gangs do not fit any of the five descriptions, the questions on page 

four request information about these alternative gang forms. We'd like you to focus on 

the form or structure of your city's gangs- first, without regard to crime. After you have 

completed page four, please turn the page and respond to the questions about crime on 

page five and about your records (page 6). Then, return the survey to us in the enclosed 

envelope. 

e 

For the purposes of this survey, we define gangs quite broadly-younger and 

older, male and female, small and large, and so on. However, we only wish to include as 

gangs those groups that do have considerable orientation to or involvement in delinquent 

or criminal behavior. Please do not include groups whose behavior is only marginally 

illegal. 

Thank you for your participation. Please call us if you have questions. Be sure to 

mark Q ? "yes"if you'd like to receive a summary of the study findings. 

Sincerely, 

Cheryl L. Maxson 

Co-Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator 

P.S. If the person to whom this letter is directed is no longer with the department, 

please pass it on to the officer who is most familiar with gangs in your city. 

Malcolm W. Klein 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
USC Gang Structures Study 

FIVE GANG TYPES 

%e Chronic Traditional gang: Chronic Traditional gangs have generally been in existence for twenty 

~ separated by age. 0.G.s or Veteranos, Seniors, Juniors, Midgets and various other names are apPiied 

or more years -- they keep regenerating themseives. They contain fairly clear subgroups, usually 

to these different age-based cliques. Sometimes the cliques are separated by neighborhoods rather 

than age. More than other gangs Chronic Traditional gangs tend to have a wide age range, sometimes 

as wide as from nine or ten years of age into the thirties. These are usually very large gangs, 

numbering one hundred or even several hundred members. Almost, always, they are temtorial in the 

sense that they identify strongly with their turf, 'hood, or barrio, and claim it as theirs alone. 

In sum', this is a large, enduring, temtorial gang with a wide age range and several internal 

cliques based on age or area. 

Chronic Traditiond 

long-lasting 

larse 

distinct subgroups 

wide age range 

strongly territorial 

usually: 

The Emergent Traditional gang: The Emergent Traditionai gang resembles the Chronic Traditional 

form, but has not been in existence as long -- probably no more than ten years, and often less. It may 

be medium size -- say fifty to one hundred members -- or also into the hundreds. It probably has 

developed subgroups or cliques based on age or area, but sometimes may not. The age range is 

usuailv smaller than in Chronic gangs. The Emergent Traditional gang is also very temtorial, chiming 

turf ad defending it like the Chronic gang. 

In sum, the Emergent Traditional gang is a newer territorial gang that looks on its way to 

becoming Chronic Traditional in time. Thus at this point it is subgrouping, but may or may not have 

achieved the size and wide age range of the Chronic gang. The subgrouping, territoriality, and size 

suggest that it is evolving into the traditional form. 

Emergent Traditional 

usually: 

duration of ten years or less 

medium to large in size 

distinct subgroups 

strongly territorial 

1 OWR-> 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
ne,Emergent Integrated gang: The Emergent Integrated gang is small-usually in the size range of 

up to fifty members-and has not formed suogroups. The age range is probably narrow-ten or fewer 

years be&een the younger and older members. The small size. absence of subgroups, and narrow age 

- knee may reflect the newness of the group, in existence less than ten years and mavbe for only a few 

duration. subgrouping and terntonality, it is unciear whether they will grow and solidify into the more 

traditional forms. or simply remain as less complex groups. 

Emergent Inteem 

' 

* 

@ ears. Some of these Emergent Integrated gangs have become territorial, but man; have not. 

In sum, Emergent Integrated gangs have a relatively short history, short enough that by size, 

short history 

no subgroups 

narrow age range 

usually: 

"he Expanded Integrated gang: The Expanded Integrated gang looks like the Emergent Integrated 

form, but bigger and with a wider age range-maybe ten or more years between younger and older 

members. Size can be under a hundred. but is probably larger. Surprisingly, given these numbers, it 

has not developed subgroups, and may or may not be a territorial gang. It probably has a ten to 

fifteen year existence. 

young adult members that has not developed the distinguishing characteristics of other gangs. 

In sum, the Expanded Integrated gang resembles a kind of shapeless mass of adolescent and 

w 

duration ten to fifteen years 

medium to large in size 

medium to wide age range 

usually: no subgroups 

The Specialty Integrated gang: Unlike these other gangs that engage in a wide variety of criminal 

offenses, crime in this type of group is narrowly focussed on a few offenses; the group coma to be 

characterized by the specialty. The specialty gang tends to be small-usually fifty or fewer memberswithout any subgroups in most cases (there are exceptions). It probably has a history of less than ten 

years, but has developed a welldefmed territory. Its territory may be either residential or based on 

the opportunities for the particular form of crime in which it specializes. The age range of most 

Specialty Integrated gangs is narrow, but in others is broad. 

In sum, the Specialty Integrated gang is crime-focussed in a narrow way. Its principal purpose 

is more criminal than social, and its smailer sk and form of territoriality may be a reflection of this 

focussed crime pattern. 

%ally: 

duration under ten years 

small 

no subgroups 

usually narrow age range 

narrow criminal focus 

. territorial 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
PLEASE RElQRN JESTTHESE STAPLED PAGES TO: 

Cheryi L. Maxson 

sociai scitncc Rscarcil Institute 

Universry oiSouth~rn California 

Los Angeics. California 90089-1111 

Expanded 

Integrated 

chronic 

TO TALI^^^^. 

U.S.C.GANG STRUCTURES SURVEY 

Specialty 

Integmted 

Please record your answers to the following questions in the table beiow: 

Hispanic 

Black 

White 

Asian 

- > In the row marked total. benmth each type, record the number of your city's gangs 

that substanttally fit the desuipnon of that type. 

I 

I J 

I 

-> In the row marked Hispanic. record the number of gangs of each type whose 

rnembershxp is primaniy of Hispanic ethnic origin. 

-> In the row marked black. record the number of gangs of each type whose 

mcmbershp is primariiy of black ethruc origm. 

-> In the row marked white.record the number of gangs of each type whose 

membership is primarily of white ethnic origin. 

Omembership is primaiiy of Asian ethnic origin. 

-> In the row markti Asian, record the number of gangs of each typc whose 

-> In the row marked mixed. record the number of gangs of each type whose 

membership is pnmady of mkd ethnic ongins. 

Mixed 1 I I 1 I 

Note: The gangs reponed in the five ethnic categories wih any panicular type should add 

p to the total recorded for that type. I OVER-> 

3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
’ -HOW many gangs in your ary do not fit any or the five gang types? 

If there are any, please describe them. ung me same ckacrencs that are covcrcd in the five 

dkscnpdonr provided on pages 1-2. For exampie. how long nave the gangs that fall into these 

alternanve types been in eximce? In gena. what IS the sue of their membership? What is their 

age range, iYom the youngest member to the. oldest? What is their ehic composrtim? .e hy 

temtonai? Do they break out into subpups by age, area, or some other kature? 

Alternative Type 1 (please provide the average for gangs of this type): 

Length of existence 

Number of members 

Age range 

Ethnic composition 

Territorial orientation? No YS 

Subgroup composition? Agegraded subgroups Area-based subgroups 

No subgroup StNcture: 

- 

Other subgroup structure 

Do you have a term or phrase you use to mferto these groups? 

Number gangs in Alternative I’ype 1 

0 No Yes: 

(tcnn) 

Alternative Type 2 (please provide the average for gangs of this type): 

Length of existence 

Number of members 

range 

Ethnic composition 

Territorial orientation? No Yes 

Subgroup composition? Agegraded subgroups Area-based subgroups 

Other subgroup structure No subgroup Structure 

0 Do you have a term or phrase you use to refer to these groups? 

Number gangs in Alternative Type 2 

No Yes: 

(teITDJ 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
hr ne following questions. 

6 m vow city. Pleasc glvc us your best csnmatc. 

think about the memen of a gang that IS typicai of each of the types that 

tecdm your answers m the table below. If mrds arc not avaiiabk, 

-> In the row marired size. rara the number of memDers that tlspicaily beiong to the gangs 

a-eaul tyBe in ywrcity. 

-> In the row markd totai monthly arrests, write the number oi arresfs for the typical gang 

within each type, in the average month. '1 

-> In the row marked spreadkoncenuated, indicate whether the anens gendy arc sprcad 

fairiy evenly thmughout the membdup (write "spread"), or whether the arrtsts tend to be 

concentrated among just a few members (write "concenuatcd"). 

-> In the mw marked volume. indicate whether the gangs of this type commit a si* 

voiume of &me (Write "simhr"),or whether the voiume of crime vanes alot from one gang to the 

next. within this type (WIite "VaIia"). 

-> In the row marktd saious, record the number of the monthly arrtsts that are for part I 

cnmcs fi.e., murderhon-negligent manslaughter. forcipie rape, robbq, aggravated assault, burgiary, 

larceny-theft, motor vchick theft and arson). Again, this refers to the number of times that all 

members of the typical gang within each type arc arrested for serious cximcs. 

fmu on just one or two typcs of &me (write 'Spcaalizcd"), or whettw they an involved in many 

different criminal activities (write "versuik"). Ifcrime ttnds to be SPC~K~, picast rccord tk 

typrcai crime(s) in the next row marked crime type. 

-> In the row markd SpeciatiLed/vefiatile, indicate whether the gangs of this type prxmaniy 

Spread 

concentrated 

Volume I I 

Senous ! I I I 

I 1 I 1 1 

OVER-> 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
 we wouid like to know rnm amut the armt mm svstem mammeri by your department. If a 

aaanment has a hidv cornpiere list of gang memOers and a comprenenslve amst history system. then 

&My useful ciiic prorile for a gang could be prociuced. Does vow depanment have the capability 

to prwuce the amst proiile oi or most oi the members oi at l&t one gang? 

NO YeS 

If yes, please nmni how many gangs within each type couid be profiled in your deparrmcnc 

Emergent Traditional gangs: ,t 

Emergent integrated gangs: 

Expanded Integrated gangs: 

Specialty Integrated gangs: 

Is the amSt history domation automated? No YCS - 

anything dsc you think we should know about the structure of gangs in your city and about 

pattuns of crime associated with than? 

Would you like to receive a summary of the frndings of this study? No Yts 

Pltase provide the following information in casc we need to clarify some of your responses: 

Your name Depanment Address 

Title 

qPne number 

Agencyicity 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
C. 

, 

\ 

Appendix III: Phase III Instrument 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
.I Structures Phase 3 Survey 

From: cay^ Scheck. Research Assistant ;lt the Universitv of Southern California 

Phone Number: ( 2 13 740-3253 

Fax Number: ( 2 13) 710-8077 

.As we discussed on the phone we are looking to collect the arrest history of gang members tiom 

the gangs in your civ for the past vex. The "year-' can refer to 1994 or a year from today). 

Enciosed is a sheet that will help you recora ths information. We would also Ike to know the 

size. structure type. and ethnicity of the gangs that you are able to profile. Please remember that 

we are only interested in the gangs in your city. not gangs from'neighbonng cities. 

Total Size: ieiers to the total number of members that vou know of for each gang. They do not 

riecessaniv have to be listed gang members. as lone c as you know that they are members it's good 

enough for us. 

List size: refers to those members that are on the membership list or roster that you have. 

Protile size: refers to the number of members vou are able to profile the arrest information on 

tioin each gang. 

Ethnicitv: refers to the majority (7504 or better) of the total number of members. not just those on 

Black. Hispanic. White, Asian. Mixed or Other. If Other is recorded please specify the ethnicity. 

.the list or those that you can profile but all of the members that you know of. Please write in 

Stnicnire: refers to the following definitions: 

The Chronic Traditional gang: Chronic Traditional gangs have generally been in existence for 

twentv or more years -- they keep regeneratine c themselves. They contain fairly clear subgroups. 

t1sualiy separated by age. Old Heads or O.G.s, Seniors. Shows, Juniors, Midgets and various 

other names are applied to these different age-based cliques. Sometimes the cliques are 

separated by neighborhoods rather than age. More than other gangs Chronic Traditional gangs 

tend to have a wide age range. sometimes as wide as from nine or ten years of age into the 

thirties. Tliese are usually very large gangs. numbering one hundred or even several hundred 

members. Almost always, they are terntonal in the sense that they identify strongly with their 

turf'. 'hood. or barrio. and claim it as theirs alone. 

cliques based on age or area. 

In sum. this is a large. endurins, terntonal CL eanc with a wide 3~e c range and several internal 

whronic Traditional 

us ua 1 I y : long- I as t i ng 

large 

distinct subgroups 

wide age range 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
I The Emergent Traditional gang: The Energent Traditional gang resembles the Clzromc 

Triairionai form. but has not been in esisrcnce 3s long -- probabiy no more than ten years. and 

,lnen iess. It may be medium size -- say fifty to one hunared members -- dr also into the 

iiuncireds. It probablv has developed subgroups or cliques based on age or area. but sometimes 0 inav not. The age range IS usuallv smaller than in Clzronic cc gangs. The Emergent Tradtional _pang 

I j also veri terntonal. claiming turt'and defending c it like the Chronic gang. 

In sum. the Emergent Traditional gang is a newer terntonal gang that looks on its way to 

becoming Chronic Traditional in time. Thus at this point it IS subgrouping. but may or may not 

have achieved the size and wide age range ofthe Clzronic gang. The subgrouping, territoriality, 

and size suggest that it is evolving into the traditional form. 

* 

Emerrrent Traditional 

usually: duration of ten years or less 

medium to large in size 

distinct subgroups 

strongly territorial 

The Emergent Integrated gang: The Emergent Integrated gang is small -- usuallv in the size 

range of up to fifty members -- and has not formed subgroups. The age range is probably narrow 

-- ten or fewer years between the younger and older members. The small size, absence of 

subgroups, and narrow age range may reflect the newness of the group, in existence less than ten 

vears and mavbe for only a few years. Some of these Emergent Intemted w gangs have become 

In sum. Emergent Integrated gangs have a relatively shon history, short enough that it is 

0 ;emtonal. but many have not. 

unclear whether they will grow and solidifv into the more traditional forms. or simply remain as 

less complex groups. 

Emer pen t Intemated 

usuallv: short history 

small 

no subgroups 

narrow age range 

The Expanded Integrated gang: The Expanded Intemated c GC can^ looks like the Emergent 

Integrated form. but bigger and with a wider age range -- maybe ten or more years between 

!.ounger and older members. Size can be under a hundred. but IS probablv larger. Surprisingly, 

L Iri\*en rliese numbers. it has not developed submoups. c and lnav or mav llot be a temtonal gang. It 

probablv has a ten to tifieen year existence. 

and !.oung adult members that has not developed the distinrruishinrr c c cilaracteristics of other gangs. 

Expanded I nt eimted 

usually: 

. 

In sum. the Expanded Integrated gang resembles a kind of shapeless mass of adolescent 

a 

duration ten to fifteen years 

medium to large in size 

no subgroups 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
1 .* 

The Speciaity Integrated gang: Lhlike tnese other gangs tnat engage 111 a wide vanety of 

cnminal offenses. cnme in ths type of group is narrowlv focused on a few offenses: the group 

comes to be cnaracrenzed by the specialty. The speclaity gang tends to be small -- iisuallv fifty 

.or fewer members -- without anv subgroups in most cases (there are exceptrons~. It probablv has 

a history of less than ten years. but has developed a well-defined ternton. Its temtory may be 

either residential or based on the oppomities for the particular form of cnme in whch it 

specializes. The age range of most Specialty Integrated gangs is narrow. but In others is broad. 

In sum. the Specialty Integrated gang is cnme-focused in a narrow way. Its principal 

purpose, is more crimmal than social. and its smaller size and form of terntonality may be a 

reflection of this focused cnme pattern. 

Specialtv lntemated 

usually: duration under ten years 

small 

no subgroups 

usually narrow age range 

narrow criminal focus 

territorial 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
' !<Gle 1nanv of the offenses are self expianatory. I have enclosed a list of what IS included in each 

Remember we are interested m the offenses of each member ofthe gang. not the offenses that are 

dff'enses. not just gang motivated offenses. 

cfthe categones. Please use this as a reference when recording the miormation. 

 solely for the benefit of the entire gang. In other words we are interested in the gang member's 

Pan f: 

1. Homicide: murder. non negligent homicide and manslaughter 

2. Forcible rape: includes attempted rape 

3. Robbery \ 

-1. Assault: dnveby, shooting, aggravated assault. battev, fighting 

5. Bureim: -- includes attempted burglarv 

6. Larceny-thefi 

7 Motor vehicle theti: burgialy tiom car. vehicle crime 

8. Arson 

Part 11: 

9. Graffiti: tagpng, vandalism. ininor property damage 

IO. Drugs: narcotics & drugs 

a: sales 

b: use/possessions 

vagrancy, public drunkenness. DWI, gambling, sex crimes. prostitution 

1 I. Public Disorder: Disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct. loud & rowdy, loitering, 

12. Weapons violations 

13. Petty theWshoplifiing 

14. Forgery, counterfeiting, embezzlement. and fraud 

15. Hate crimes 

16. Status ofienses: runaway wider age drinking, under me c dricins, curf'ew. truancy, 

17. All not included above 

a 

incorrigible behavior 

If you are unable to provide the information for any particular offense please write down the 

reason why. 

If anv of the categories are combined please wtite down which ones are c Lqouped together and 

whv. 

.At the bottom ofthe page please put your name and phone number. 

If vou have any questions at all please feel free to contact me at (2 13) 730-4253 

a- Thanks for all your help PROPERTY OF 

National Crimina! Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) 

c --;,*> :rj i$" 3(-lfg?"Qf)O 

Cqm Schneck Bo>: 6OCO 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.
Gang hame: 

@Total Size: 

Gang Structures Phase 3 Survey 

Ethnicin,: 

List Size : 

Structure T!Te: 

Protile Size: 

Please nnte in the number of' times that the members of this P~E have been arrested for each of the 

offenses in the past !.ear. (The "year" can refer to 1994 or a vear from today). For exwJie if 5 of the 

members accounted for IO assauh arrests altogether in the past vear. then put the number 10 next to 

assault offenses. 

cc 

Please specify if anv of these offenses are not included in the profile or if they are grouped together 

with other offenses. 

Homicide 

Rape 

Robben 

Burglary 

L arcenv- t heft 

Motor Vehicle Theti 

Arson 

Graffiti 

Drug Sales 

Drug use and possession 

Public disorder 

Weapons 

Petty theft 

Forgev. counterfeiting. fraud. embezzlement 

Hate crimes 

Status offenses 

.Other 

Please put your name here. 

Completed by: Phone Number: 

Call me if you have any questions (2 13) 740-4253 

- -. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has

not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.