Violent Crimes in City Gangs

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9758960
AutoresWalter B Miller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Harvard University Joint Center for Urban Studies, autor de correspondencia)
Año1966
Volumen364
Número1
Páginas96-112
Fecha de publicación1966-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000271626636400110
OpenAlexW2112468536
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18

The urban street gang plays a central role in the imagery of violence currently being disseminated by the mass media. Testing the reality of this image requires careful empirical studies of actual gangs. A study involving 150 gangs in "Midcity," a slum district of an eastern metropolis, and focusing on seven gangs subject to intensive field observation, reveals marked differences between the public imagery and research-derived findings. While members of slum street gangs engaged in violent crime to a greater degree than middle- class adolescents, violence was not a central preoccupation of the gangs, and most "violent" crimes were of the less serious variety. Cruel or sadistic violence was rare; violence was seldom "senseless" or irrational. Property damage was rela tively uncommon. Participation in violent crimes had little to do with race, but was directly related to sex, age, and social status; most active were males of lower social status during late adolescence. The control of gang violence is seen to in volve techniques for altering motivations similar to those which undergird national wars

Criminology · Middle class · Political science · Population · Slum · Sociology · Violent crime · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Demography · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Psychology