Collective and Normative Features of Gang Violence

Gang members engage in a considerable amount of violence. Based on a three-year field study of active gang members in St. Louis, this paper exam- ines five activities in which gang members use violence. Retaliatory gang violence is highlighted for its role in generating additional violence and con- tributing to the growth of gangs. We pay particular attention to the norma- tive aspects of gang violence. In addition, gang violence is interpreted from the perspective of collective behavior.

In 1927 Frederic Thrasher observed tha t gangs shared many of the properties of mobs, crowds, and other collectives, and engaged in many forms of collective behavior. Despite the prominent role of his work in gang research, few attempts have been made to link the behavior of gangs to theories of collective behavior. This omission is noteworthy because, despite disagreements about most other crite- r i a - t u r f , symbols, organizational structure, permanence, criminal- i ty - -a l l gang researchers include "group" as a part of their definition of gangs. Gang members are individuals with diverse motives, behaviors, and socialization experiences. Their group membership, behavior, and values, however, make them interest- ing to criminologists who study gangs.

In this paper we explore the mechanisms and processes tha t result in the spread and escalation of gang violence. In particular, we focus on contagion as an aspect of collective behavior tha t pro- duces expressive gang violence. Collective behavior explanations provide insights into gang processes, particularly the escalation of violence, the spread of gangs from one community to another, and increases in gang membership in specific communities.

* The research on which this paper is based was supported by Grant 90CL/ 1076 from the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Chil- dren and Families. All opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the funding agency.

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GANG VIOLENCE

Violence is integral to life in the gang, as Klein and Maxson (1989) observed, and gang members engage in more violence than other youths. Thrasher (1927) noted that gangs developed through strife and flourish on conflict. According to Klein (1971:85), vio- lence is a "predominant 'myth system'" among gang members and is constantly present.

Our analysis of gang violence focuses on the role of threat, ac- tual or perceived, in explaining the functions and consequences of gang violence. We define threat as the potential for transgressions against or physical harm to the gang, represented by the acts or presence of a rival group. Threats of violence are important be- cause they have consequences for future violence. Threat plays a role in the origin and growth of gangs, their daily activities, and their belief systems. In a sense, it helps to define them to rival gangs, to the community, and to social institutions.

Katz (1988) argues that gangs are set apart from other groups by their ability to create "dread," a direct consequence of involve- ment in and willingness to use violence. Dread elevates these indi- viduals to street elites through community members' perceptions of gang members as violent. In many neighborhoods, groups form for protection against the threat of outside groups (Suttles 1972). Sometimes these groups are established along ethnic lines, though territorial concerns often guide their formation. Sanders (1993), in a 10-year study of gangs in San Diego, argued that the mix of con- ventional values with underclass values--spiced by the realities of street c u l t u r e l w a s a volatile combination. Hagedorn (1988) found that conflicts between the police and young men "hanging out" on the corner led to more formalized structures, and ultimately to gangs. Both Suttles (1972:98) and Sullivan (1989) underscored the natural progression from a neighborhood group to a gang, particu- larly in the face of"adversarial relations" with outside groups. The emergence of many splinter gangs can be traced to the escalation of violence within larger gangs, and to the corresponding threat that the larger gang comes to represent to certain territorial or age- graded subgroups. Sullivan (1989) documented the expressive character of most gang violence, and described the role of fighting in the evolution of cliques into street gangs. Because this occurs at a young age, the use of group violence attains a normative character.

Threat also may contribute to the growth of gangs. This mech- anism works in two ways: through building cohesiveness and through contagion. Threats of physical violence increase the soli- darity or cohesiveness of gangs within neighborhoods as well as across neighborhoods. Klein (1971) identified the source of cohesion

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in gangs as primarily external--the result of intergang conflict; Hagedorn (1988) also made this observation. According to Klein, cohesion within the gang grows in proportion to the perceived threat represented by rival gangs. Padilla (1992) reported a similar finding, noting that threat maintains gang boundaries by strength- ening the ties among gang members and increasing their commit- ment to each other, thus enabling them to overcome any initial reluctance about staying in the gang and ultimately engaging in violence. Thus the threat of a gang in a geographically proximate neighborhood increases the solidarity of the gang, motivates more young men to join their neighborhood gang (see Vigil 1988), and enables them to engage in acts of violence that they might not have committed otherwise.

The growth of gangs and gang violence contains elements of what Loftin (1984) calls "contagion." In this context, contagion re- fers to subsequent acts of violence caused by an initial act; such acts typically take the form of retaliation. Violence--or its threat-- is the mechanism that spreads gangs from one neighborhood to an- other, as well as contributing to their growth. From Loftin's per- spective, the concept of contagion can be used to explain the rapid growth, or the "spikes," that occur in violent crime. He argues that three conditions must be present if contagion is to occur: (1) a spa- tial concentration of assaultive violence, (2) a reciprocal nature to assaultive violence, and (3) escalations in assaultive violence. These conditions apply to our use of the concept of threat in ex- plaining gangs. Gangs have a strong spatial structure; they claim particular turf as their own and are committed to its "defense" against outsiders. The specter of a rival gang "invading" their turf and violating its sanctity is likely to evoke a violent response, lead- ing to the spatial clustering of violence.

The reciprocal nature of gang violence explains in part how gangs form initially, as well as how they increase in size and strength. Klein and Maxson (1989:223) demonstrated that fear of retaliation was three times more likely to characterize gang homi- cides than other homicides involving juveniles. The perceived need to engage in retaliatory violence also helps to explain the increasing sophistication of weapons used by gang members. As Horowitz (1983) observed, gang members arm themselves in the belief that their rivals have guns; they seek to increase the sophistication of their weaponry in the hope that they will not find themselves in a shootout with less firepower than their rival. This process was doc- umented by Block and Block (1993) in their explanation of the in- crease in street gang homicides in Chicago.

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The threat of attack by a group of organized youths from an= other neighborhood is part of the gang "myth" or belief system, and helps to create the need for protection as well as to generate unity in a previously unorganized group of neighborhood youths. The ori- gin and spread of such beliefs explain, among other things, the via- bility of the gang. Threat performs an additional function: it enhances the mythic nature of violence in the gang by increasing the talk about violence and preparedness for violent engagements.

The threat of violence also "enables" gang members to engage in violent acts (especially retaliatory violence) that they might not have chosen under other circumstances. The need to respond effec- tively to rival gang violence escalates weaponry and increases the "tension" that often precedes violent encounters between gangs. Many gang members reported to PadiUa (1992) that they joined their gang out of fear of violence at the hands of rival gangs. The concern that a rival gang is considering an attack often compels a peremptory strike (particularly drive-by shootings) from the gang that considers itself under threat.

Loftin's (1984) third element of contagion, rapid escalation of assaultive violence, explains the sudden peaks in gang violence. These peaks can be explained in part by the retaliatory nature of gang violence (Decker and Van Winkle 1996), a finding in the data from Chicago gangs (Block and Block 1993).

Threat has an additional function, however. As gangs and gang members engage in acts of violence and create "dread" (Katz 1988:135), they are viewed as threatening by other (gang and non- gang) groups and individuals. Also, over time, the threats that gang members face and pose isolate them from legitimate social in- stitutions such as schools, families, and the labor market. This iso- lation, in turn, prevents them from engaging in the very activities and relationships that might reintegrate them into legitimate roles and reduce their criminal involvement. It weakens their ties to the socialization power and the controlling norms of such mainstream institutions, and frees them to commit acts of violence.

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

Collective behavior and social organizations such as gangs share many common elements, including group behavior, collective processes, and group structure. Thus it is productive to view collec- tive behavior on a continuum with social organizations rather than regarding them as separate topics of study. Thrasher (1927) ob- served that collective behavior processes operated within the gang,

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and could be used to account for the emergence of collective vio- lence. Such processes included games, fights, meetings, and defin- ing common enemies. His theoretical formulation, and the supporting distinctions between gangs and other forms of social or- ganizations (e.g., groups, mobs, crowds, publics), 1 make clear the role tha t he perceived for collective behavior explanations of gang activity.

We adopt our definition of collective behavior from McPhail (1991), who identified three elements of collective behavior: (1) group, (2) behavior, and (3) common actions tha t vary on one or more dimensions such as purpose, organization, or duration. Mc- Phail observed tha t gang violence is a form of collective behavior because it emerges from a group process involving common actions tha t have a defined purpose. This view of collective behavior is ag- nostic with regard to motives; tha t is, such behavior may have ei ther well-defined ins t rumental goals or more expressive goals. Most research has characterized gang motives as expressive, but Sanchez-Jankowski (1991) argued for a more ins t rumental orienta- tion. On the basis of his 10-year observation of gangs in three cit- ies, he described gangs as "formal-rational" organizations; he contended tha t gangs have rules, roles, and goals, and function as highly differentiated and purposive social organizations. Sanchez- Jankowski 's research, especially with regard to gang violence, stands alone in its conclusions.

Ironically, the view of gangs as a form of collective behavior may be explicated most fully not in original research on gangs, but in Pfautz's (1961) reconceptualization of Yablonsky's (1959) re- search on violent gangs. Yablonsky described the gang as a near- group, and at tr ibuted much of its violent behavior to the leadership of members who were emotionally disturbed and lacked effective controls against participating in violence. Pfautz argued tha t i t is more productive to view gang violence as the outcome of collective behavior; he noted tha t some forms of collective behavior are more likely to emerge in the face of a weakened social structure. 2 In re- viewing the gang li terature, Pfautz observed tha t gangs lack struc- tture, goals, and techniques. Therefore they act on the basis of what he identified as "associational characteristics," the s t rength of membership ties or bonds. According to this view, violent behavior by gangs is an expressive response to objective social circumstances

1 The chart (Thrasher 1927:70) depicting these distinctions is a classic, and provides considerable insight into the level of organization in gangs today. This chart has received little attention from criminologists, however.

2 This argument is consistent with contemporary arguments that link the re- emergence of gangs in the 1980s to the growth of the urban underclass. In this con- text see Hagedorn (1988), Jackson (1992), Moore (1978), and Vigil (1988).

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(poverty, racism, and other pressures of the underclass) ra ther than a symbolic expression of "manhood," '~low self-esteem," or lack of group solidarity. Gang violence, however, is not a purposive at- tempt to alter social structure. It emerges as a collective response by members of the underclass to organize around neighborhood affiliations.

Short (1974) a t tempted to develop theoretical links between several aspects of gang behavior and collective behavior. By observ- ing that gangs emerge out of typical adolescent activit ies--activi- ties tha t lack organization, involve groups ripe for collective action, and entail only weakly held group goalsmhe argued that they origi- na te in collective behavior. Conflict between gangs is part icularly important to this process because such disputes help to establish boundaries between groups and reinforce the ties be tween mem- bers. Short agreed with Pfautz tha t most gang delinquency is ex- pressive, especially gang violence, which frequently reflects the gang~s a t tempt to enforce its part icular definition of a si tuation on another gang. The gang's collective liability for wrong done to rival members expands the pool of potential victims and increases the threats of retaliatory violence. These characteristics underscore the util i ty of collective behavior approaches in accounting for gang violence.

DATA AND METHODS

This paper is based on the results of a three-year s tudy of gangs conducted in St. Louis between 1990 and 1993. Our work is consistent with other research (Hagedorn, 1988, 1991; Moore 1978; Padilla 1992; Vigil 1988) tha t used field techniques to unders tand gang members ' perspective. We agree with Hagedorn (1991) that one can unders tand this perspective most fully by contacting gang members directly in their communities. We contacted gang mem- bers directly on the street and conducted interviews at a neutral site. a This procedure was consistent with our goal of learning about gang activities in the words and terms used by gang members to describe them. Our working definition of a gang includes age- graded peer groups that exhibit permanence, engage in criminal ac- tivity, and have symbolic representations of membership. Field

3 Each gang member was transported to and from the interview site, usually an office at the university, by the fieldworker. This trip offered the opportunity to speak informally about gang and nongang matters. It also provided the chance to discuss the nature of the interview, both before and after it was administered. The field ethnographer and the interviewer compared notes, particularly in cases where a subject displayed "excessive" bravado, to ensure that responses reflected the eth- nographer's knowledge of the subject, based on his own contacts and observations.

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contacts with active gang members were made by a street ethnogra- pher, an ex-offender himself, who had built a reputation as "solid" on the street through his work with the community and previous fieldwork. The street ethnographer had been shot several years earlier, and now used a wheelchair. The combination of his reputa- tion in the community and his experience in contacting and inter- viewing active offenders enhanced the validity of the responses. Using snowball sampling procedures (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981; Wright et al. 1992), the research team made initial field contacts with gang members, verified membership, and built the sample to include more subjects.

Our sampling strategy was designed to interview members from a variety of gangs and to gain a broader perspective into gang activity. Like most field studies, the pace of our study was often erratic; in some months we held several interviews, while in others we had none. Individuals who met our criteria, acknowledged gang membership, and agreed to an interview were included in our sam- ple. We verified membership through information from previous subjects, our own observations, or both. The field ethnographer played a key role in this process by comparing responses from the interview to street conversations. Our final sample of 99 active gang members was the outcome of more than 500 field contacts ini- tiated with gang members. Members of the final sample were se- lected on the basis of extensive involvement in the gang and their willingness to participate in the study.

A semistructured questionnaire, based on a number of unstruc- tured interviews conducted before the beginning of the study, was used to guide the interviews. We promised confidentiality to each subject, and did not record their real names. Interviews were con- ducted by six members of the research team; each was familiar with the gang literature, was knowledgeable about gangs in St. Louis, and had conducted several practice interviews. Each interview was tape-recorded and transcribed for analysis. Interviews generally lasted two hours; they asked for information about joining the gang, the nature of gang organization, illegal activities (especially vio- lence), legal activities, links to other gangs, and ties to traditional institutions. A specific set of questions addressed the ties between gang members and their families. We also observed a number of gang activities and individual gang members in the field. We spoke regularly with these individuals and recorded notes to supplement the interviews.

We interviewed individuals from several gangs. According to our interviews and observations, gangs in St. Louis appear to have strong ties to their neighborhood but also claim affiliation with a

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larger gang that extends well beyond neighborhood boundaries. The bond between gang members and their own subgroup within the gang, however, was usually stronger than the attachment to the larger gang. This finding is consistent with our observations that gangs in St. Louis were organized rather loosely. Few gangs whose members we interviewed had identifiable leaders, roles, or rules. 4 Most of our subjects identified themselves as "regular" members, though 10 individuals told us they were either leaders or "OGs" (original gangsters). We observed little variation between their re- sponses and those of regular members.

We interviewed 99 active gang members representing 29 differ- ent gangs. Sixteen of these gangs, accounting for 67 of our 99 sub- jects, were affiliated with the Crips. Gang members affiliated with the Bloods accounted for the remainder of our sample, and included 13 gangs and 32 members. Field techniques cannot provide a rep- resentative sample, but our subjects varied considerably in age, gang affiliation, and activities, thus assuring that we received infor- mation from a variety of gang members. As a result, it was unlikely that our respondents revealed information about only a narrow seg- ment of gang activity.

Although our data were collected over a three-year period, they are not longitudinal in the sense that they followed a single individ- ual or group of individuals over time. We were sensitive to the dy- namic nature of gangs in St. Louis during our study period, and incorporated those concerns into questions about how the gang had changed over time. In addition, we compared responses recorded early in the study with those of subjects interviewed in the later stages. Finally, near the end of our study, we recontacted several individuals whom we had interviewed in the early phases of the project. We noted any changes in gang violence that occurred dur- hag the course of the study.

We identified six different "constellations" of gangs in our sam- ple, four with the Crip designation and two groups of Bloods. We use the term constellation to refer to a larger gang that may be com- posed of many gang subgroups. For example, the Genevive Thrush Posse is affiliated with the Rolling Sixties, a larger gang of Crips. We found no important differences between these constellations on any of the dimensions of violence we examined. This finding adds credence to the claim that members of our sample knew about a wide range of activities within their gang.

4 In these respects, St. Louis gangs resemble those in Los Angeles (Klein 1971; Klein, Maxson, and Cunningham 1991; Vigil 1988), Milwaukee (Hagedorn 1988), Chicago (Block and Block 1993; Short and Strodtbeck 1974), and San Diego (Sanders 1993).

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Ages for members of our sample ranged from 13 to 29, with an average age of 17. The majority were black (96%) and male (93%). On average, the gang members we interviewed had been active members for three years. More than three-quarters of our subjects told us that their gang existed before they joined; the average age of gangs in our sample was six years. An average of 213 gang mem- bers were involved in the larger gang; subgroups ranged from six to ten members. Ninety percent of our sample reported that they had participated in violent crime; 70% reported that they had commit- ted a property crime. Thus it is not surprising that our subjects also had extensive experience with the criminal justice system: 80 percent reported an arrest, and the average number of arrests was eight.

COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE PROCESSES WITHIN TI-IE GANG

Gang violence includes a number of acts and is most likely to involve assaults and the use of weapons. Although the motives for these acts are diverse, much gang violence (as discussed above) is retaliatory. This quality is evident in the disproportionate number of assaults and shootings committed in response to the acts of other gangs. This finding is similar to those of other gang researchers including Hagedorn (1988), Klein and Maxson (1989), Maxson, Gordon, and Klein (1985), Moore (1978), Sanders (1993), and Vigil (1988). Initial interviews made clear that a number of violent acts were committed by gang members outside the gang. It would be inappropriate to classify these acts as gang-related, even though they were committed by gang members. Our classification of gang violence included only those acts committed by gang members which were organized by gang members and motivated by gang con- cerns, especially revenge, retaliation, reputation, and representa- tion of membership. This classification corresponds to the more restrictive of the two definitions applied by Maxson and Klein (1990).

The centrality of violence to gang life was illustrated by counts of the times a topic was mentioned during an interview. 5 Except for drugs (which were mentioned more than 2,000 times), our subjects mentioned violence more often than any other topic. They referred to violence 1,681 times, including hundreds of references to specific acts such as killing or murder (246), assault (148), and robbery (71). As further evidence of the importance of violence, nine of our 99

5 These counts were derived from GOFER, the qualitative soi~ware package used for organizing much of the analysis of the transcribed interviews.

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subjects have been killed since the s tudy began in 1990; several showed us bullet wounds during the interview. 6 As s tated earlier, this group had extensive arrest histories: 80 percent had been ar- rested at least once, the mean number of arrests per subject was eight, and one-third reported that their most recent arres t was for assaul t or weapons violations.

Other incidents also il lustrate the salience of violence in the lives of gang members. One day three gang members were sit t ing on their front porch, wait ing for the field ethnographer to pick up one of them for an interview. As he drove up their street, he heard shots and saw the three subjects being shot in a drive-by. Their wounds were superficial, but this incident underscored the daily po- tential for violence as well as our ability to observe it firsthand. During the course of our research, several gang members offered to demonstrate their ability to use violence, typically by inviting us to accompany them on a drive-by shooting or to drop them off in rival terr i tory and watch them shoot a rival gang member. We declined all such invitations, bu t they are not uncommon in field research (Wright and Decker 1994). On a few occasions during interviews, gang members displayed a firearm when asked whether they pos- sessed a gun. Most subjects reported beginning their life in the gang with a violent encounter; usual ly they were '%eaten in" by members of the gang they were joining. The process of leaving the gang was also described in violent terms: by being "beaten out," leaving through fear of violence, suffering serious injury, or death. 7

The research reported here a t tempts to provide a f ramework for unders tanding the peaks and valleys of gang violence. AS Short and Strodtbeck (1974) observed, efforts to unders tand gang violence must focus both on process variables (such as interactions) and on si tuational characteristics (such as neighborhood structure, age, race, and sex). For these reasons we concentrate on stages in the gang process tha t i l lustrate important aspects of gang violence, and we examine such violence in the context of five spheres of gang ac- tivity: (1) the role of violence in defining life in the gang, (2) the role of violence in the process of joining the gang, (3) the use of violence by the gang, (4) staging grounds for violence, and (5) gang members ' recommendations for ending their gang.

6 Since this manuscript was first submitted to JQ in November 1994, two more members of our sample have been killed, raising the total to 11.

7 Despite these claims, a sample of 24 ex-gang members gave little evidence that their exit from the gang was accompanied by violence. The claim that one can exit the gang only through violence may reflect the mythic character of violence iden- tified by Klein (1971). The threat of violence toward those interested in leaving the gang discourages such actions and reinforces the cohesion between members.

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The Role of Violence in Defining Life in the Gang

A fundamental way to demonstrate the centrali ty of violence to life in the gang is to examine how gang members defined a gang. Most answers to this question included some mention of violence. Our subjects were able to distinguish between violence within the gang and tha t which was unrelated to the g a n g s

INT: What is a gang to you? 007: A gang is, I don't know, jus t a gang where people hang

out together and get into fights. A lot of members of your group will help you fight.

INT: So if you jus t got into a fight with another girl be- cause you didn't like her?

007: Then it would be a one-on-one fight, bu t then like if somebody else jump in, then somebody would come from my side.

INT: Why do you call the group you belong to a gang? 047: Violence, I guess. There is more violence than a fam-

ily. With a gang it's like fighting all the time, killing, shooting.

INT: What kind of things do members of your organization do together?

085: We have drive-bys, shootings, go to parties, we even go to the mall. Most of the things we do together is dealing with fighting.

Most often the violence was protective, reflecting the belief tha t be- longing to a gang at least would reduce the chance of being attacked.

INT: Are you claiming a gang now? 046: I 'm cool with a gang, real cool. INT: What does tha t mean to be cool? 046: You don't got to worry about nobody jumping you.

You don't got to worry about gett ing beat up.

Other subjects found the violence in their gang an attractive fea- ture of membership. These individuals were at t racted not so much by protection as by the opportunity to engage in violence.

INT: Why did you start to call tha t group a gang? 009: It's good to be in a gang cause there's a lot of violence

and stuff.

INT: So the reason you call it a gang is basically why? 101: Because I beat up on folks and shoot them. The last

person I shot I was in jail for five years. INT: What 's good about being in a gang? 101: You can get to fight whoever you want and shoot who-

ever you want. To me, it's kind of fun. Then again, it's

S Quotes are used to illustrate major substantive categories of the collective and normative features of gang behavior. INT denotes the interviewer; the number (e.g., 007) is the subject's identification number.

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n o t . . , because you have to go to jail for that shit. But other than that, being down for who you want to be with, it's kind of fun.

INT: What's the most important reason to be in the gang? 057: Beating Crabs. 9 If it wasn't for beating Crabs, I don't

think I would be in a gang right now.

Whether for protection or for the opportunity to engage in vio- lence, the members of our sample attached considerable importance to the role of violence in their definition of a gang. Many of the comments evoke what Klein (1971) termed "mythic violence"--dis- cussions of violent activities between gangs that reinforce the ties of membership and maintain boundaries between neighborhood gangs and those in "rival" neighborhoods. In this sense, violence is a cen- tral feature of the normative system of the gang; it is the defining feature and the central value of gang life.

Violence in Joining the Gang

Most gangs require an initiation process that includes partici- pation in violent activities. This ritual fulfills a number of impor- tant functions. First, it determines whether a prospective member is tough enough to endure the level of violence he or she will face as a gang member. Equally important, the gang must learn how tough a potential member is because they may have to count on this individual for support in fights or shootings. The initiation serves other purposes as well. Most important, it increases solidarity among gang members by engaging them in a collective ritual. The initiation reminds active members of their earlier status, and gives the new member something in common with other gang members. In addition, a violent initiation provides a rehearsal for a prospec- tive member for life in the gang. In short, it demonstrates the cen- trality of violence to gang life.

Three-quarters of our subjects were initiated into their gangs through the process known as "beating in." This ritual took many forms; in its most common version a prospective gang member walked between lines of gang members or stood inside a circle of gang members who beat the initiate with their fists.

020: I had to stand in a circle and there was about ten of them. Out of these ten there was just me standing in the circle. I had to take six to the chest by all ten of them. Or I can try to go to the weakest one and get out. If you don't get out, they are going to keep beat- ing you. I said "I will take the circle."

9 This is a derogatory term used by Blood gang members to refer to Crips.

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One leader, who reported that he had been in charge of several initiations, described the typical form:

001: They had to get jumped on. INT: How many guys jump on em? 001: Ten. INT: And then how long do they go? 001: Until I tell em to stop. INT: When do you tell em to stop? 001: I jus t let em bea t em for bout two or three minutes to

see if they can take a punishment.

The initiation also communicates information about the gang and its activities.

099: I fought about four people at one time. INT: Fought who? 099: I fought some old Gs. INT: How long did you have to fight them? 099: It seemed like forever. INT: So they beat you down or you beat them down? 099: It went both ways because I knocked that one

motherfucker out. INT: So that was your initiation? 099: Yeah. And then they sat down and blessed me and

told me the sixteen laws and all that. But now in the new process there is a seventeenth and eighteenth law.

Other gang members reported that they had the choice of ei ther being beaten in or "going on a mission." On a mission, a pro- spective member had to engage in an act of violence, usual ly against a rival gang member on rival turf. Init iates often were re- quired to confront a rival gang member face-to-face.

041: You have to fly your colors through enemy territory. Some step to you; you have to take care of them by yourself; you don't get no help.

084: To be a Crip, you have to put your blue rag on your head and wear all blue and go in a Blood neighbor- hood- - tha t is the hardest of all of t h e m - - a n d walk through the Blood neighborhood and fight Bloods. If you come out without getting killed, that 's the way you get initiated.

Every gang member we interviewed reported tha t his or her initiation involved participating in some form of violence. This vio- lence was rarely directed against members of other gangs; most often it took place within the gang. Then, in each successive initia- tion, recently initiated members participated in '~beating in" new members. Such violence always has a group context and a norma- tive purpose: to reinforce the ties between members while re- minding them tha t violence lies at the core of life in the gang.

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The Use of Gang Violence

To understand gang violence more clearly, it is critical to know when such violence is used. In the four following situations, gang members did not regard themselves as initiating violence; rather, because its purpose was to respond to the violent activities of a rival gang. Retaliatory violence corresponds to the concept of contagion (Loftin 1984) as well as to the principle of crime as social control (Black 1983). According to this view, gang violence is an attempt to enact private justice for wrongs committed against the gang, one of its members, or a symbol of the gang. These wrongs may be actual or perceived; often the perceived threat of impending violence is as powerful a motivator as violence itself.

This view of gang violence helps to explain the rapid escalation of intergang hostilities that lead to assaults, drive-by shootings, or murders between gangs. Such actions reflect the collective behav- ior processes at work, in which acts of violence against the gang serve as the catalyst that brings together subgroups within the gang and unites them against a common enemy. Such violent events are rare, but are important in gang culture. Collective vio- lence is one of the few activities involving the majority of gang members, including fringe members. The precipitation of such ac- tivities pulls fringe members into the gang and increases cohesion.

When violence comes to the gang. We asked gang members when they used violence. Typically they claimed that violence was sel- dom initiated by the gang itself, but was a response to "trouble" that was "brought" to them. In these instances, the object of vio- lence was loosely defined and was rarely identified; it represented a symbolic enemy against whom violence would be used. These state- ments, however, indicate an attempt to provide justifications for gang violence.

INT: How often do gang members use violence? 005: When trouble comes to them.

INT: When do you guys use violence? 018: When people start bringing violence to us. They bring

it to us and set it up. We take it from there.

INT: When do members of the gang use violence? 037: When somebody approaches us. We don't go out look-

ing for trouble. We let trouble come to us.

INT: When do you guys use violence? 042: Only when it's called for. We don't start trouble.

That's the secret of our success.

The view of gang members passively sitting back and waiting for violence to come to them is inconsistent with much of what we know about gang life. After all, many gang members reported that

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they joined the gang expressly for the opportunity to engage in vio- lence; many lived in neighborhoods where acts of violence occurred several t imes each day; and most had engaged in violence before joining the gang. Even so, unprovoked violence against another gang is difficult to justify; retaliatory actions against part ies tha t wronged them can be justified more easily. Also, such actions are consistent with the view of the gang as a legitimate social organiza- tion serving the legitimate purpose of protecting its m e m b e r s - - a central value in the gang's normative structure.

Retaliation. A number of gang members told us tha t they used vi- olence to even the score with a specific group or individual. Unlike the subjects above, who reported generalized responses, these indi- viduals identified a specific target for their violence: someone who had committed a violent act against them or their gang in the past.

002: I had on a blue rag and he say what 's up cuz, what 's up blood, and I say uh, what 's up cuz, j u s t like that , and then me and him got to arguin' and everything, and teachers would stop it, and then me and him met up one day when nobody was round. We got to fightin. Naw, cause I told Ron, my cousin, my cousin and em came up to the school and bea t em up. And the next day when he seen me, he gonna ask me where my cousin and em at. I say I don't need my cousin and em for you. They jus t came up there cause they heard you was a Blood. And they whooped era. Then me and him had a fight the next day, yeah. And then I had to fight some other dudes tha t was his friends and I bea t em up. Then he brought some boys up to the school and they, uh, pulled out a gun on me and I ran up in the school. And then I brought my boys up the next day and we beat on em.

INT: What happened yesterday? 039: This dude had beat up one of our friends. He was cool

with one of my friends bu t he had beat up another one of my friends before. They came back and busted one of my friends' head. We was going to get him.

Specific examples of retaliation against rival gangs were men- t ioned less frequently than was general gang violence. This point underscores the important symbolic function of gang violence, a value tha t members must be ready to support. The idea tha t rival gangs will '%ring violence" to the gang is an important par t of the gang belief system; it is pivotal in increasing cohesion among mem- bers of otherwise loosely confederated organizations.

Graffiti. A third type of gang violence occurred in response to defacing gang graffiti. Organizational symbols are important to all

258 GANG VIOLENCE

groups, and perhaps more so to those whose members are adoles- cents. The significance of graffiti to gangs has been documented by a number of observers in a variety of circumstances (Block and Block 1993; Hagedorn 1988; Moore 1978; Vigil 1988). In particular, graffiti identify gang territory, and maintaining territory is an im- portant feature of gang activity in St. Louis and other cities. As Block and Block observed in Chicago, battles over turf often originated in attempts by rival gangs to "strike out" graffiti. Sev- eral gang members told us that attempts to paint over their graffiti by rival gangs were met with a violent response, but no gang mem- bers could recall a specific instance. Claiming to use violence in re- sponse to such insults again reflects the mythic character of gang violence; it emphasizes the symbolic importance of violence for group processes such as cohesion, boundary maintenance, and iden- tity. Further, such responses underscore the threat represented by rivals who would encroach on gang territory to strike out gang graffiti.

INT: What does the removal of graffiti mean? 043: That's a person that we have to go kill. We put our

enemies up on the wall. If there is a certain person, we ~X" that out and know who to kill.

INT: What if somebody comes and paints a pitchfork or paints over your graffiti? What does that mean to your gang?

046: First time we just paint it back up there, no sweat. Next time they come do it, we go find out who did it and go paint over theirs. If they come back a third time, it's like three times you out. Obviously that means something if they keep painting over us. They telling us they ready to fight.

Territory. Most gang members continued to live in the neighbor- hood where their gang started. Even for those who had moved away, it retained a symbolic value. Protecting gang turf is viewed as an important responsibility, which extends well beyond its sym- bolic importance as the site where the gang began. Our subjects' allegiance to the neighborhood was deeply embedded in the history of neighborhood friendship groups that evolved into gangs. Thus, turf protection was an important value.

When we asked gang members about defending their turf, we received some generalized responses about their willingness to use violence to do so.

INT: If someone from another gang comes to your turf, what does your gang do?

019: First try to tell him to leave. INT: If he don't leave?

DECKER 259

019: He'll leave one way or the o ther - -ca r ry him out in a Hefty bag.

INT: What was your interest in it (the gang)? 036: We s tar ted out, we didn't want nobody coming out and

telling us, walking through our neighborhood cause we grew up in this hood and we was going to protect it even if it did mean us fighting every day, which we done. We fought every day. If you walked through the neighborhood and we didn't know you or you didn't know where you was going in the neighborhood, we would rush you.

In other instances, however, the responses identified an individual or an incident in which the gang used violence to protect its turf.

INT: What kind of things does the gang have to do to de- fend its turf?.

013: Kill. That's all it is, kill. INT: Tell me about your most recent tu r f defense, w h a t

happened, a guy came in? 013: A guy came in, he had the wrong colors on, he got to

move out. He got his head split open with a sledge- hammer, he got two ribs broken, he got his face torn up.

INT: Did he die from that? 013: I don't know. We dropped him off on the other side of

town. If he did die, it was on the other side of town.

INT: If someone from another gang came to you-all turf, what happens? What do your gang do?

068: We shoot. If it's a lot, we gonna get organized and we shoot.

Staging Grounds for Violence

Gang members expect tha t when they go to certain locations they will be the targets of violence from other gangs or will be ex- pected by members of their own gang to engage in violence. In some cases, large-scale violence will occur. Other encounters result only in "face-offs." These encounters highlight the role of situa- tional characteristics in gang violence. Most often the staging grounds are public places such as a restaurant .

INT: Do they ever bring weapons to school? 011: No, cause we really don't have no trouble. We mainly

fight up at the White Castle. That's where our trouble starts, at the White Castle.

In other instances, the encounters may take place at the skating rink.

INT: w h a t kind of fights have you guys had lately? 057: Yeah, last Saturday at Skate King. INT: Do you go there to skate or were you jus t hanging? 057: We used to skate a long time ago, but we jus t all the

sudden went [crazy]. Crabs s tar ted hanging out there.

260 GANG VIOLENCE

Usually all Bloods up there but the Crabs started hanging out there so we had to get rid of them.

Dances are not new locations for youthful violence. Members of our sample identified them as locations that produced violent en- counters between rival gangs.

INT: Do you go to dances? 017: Yeah. That's when we mostly get into the gang fights.

Yeah, we go to dances.

INT: What about the last fight? What was that about? 031: That was at a dance. It was some Slobs l° there. They

was wanting to show they colors and just didn't know who they was around. They weren't really paying attention.

INT: How often do you guys use violence? 033: Only if we go out to a dance or something.

The expectation of violence at certain locations was so strong that some members avoided going to those places.

INT: Do you go to dances or parties? 047: I don't. I stay away from house parties. Too many

fights come out of there.

According to another gang member, violence at house parties had reached such a level that many hosts searched their guests for weapons.

074: Sometimes people wait until they get out of the party and start shooting. Now at these parties they have people at the door searching people, even at house parties.

In general, gang members reported that they '~hung out" in small cliques or subgroups and that it was rare for the entire gang to be together. This reflects the general character of social organi- zation in the gangs we studied. An external threat--usual ly from another gang--was needed to strengthen cohesion among gang members and to bring the larger gang together. Many members of our sample reported that they did not go skating, to the mall, or to dances alone or in small groups because they knew that gang vio- lence was likely to erupt at such locations. Thus the gang went en masse to these locations, prepared to start or respond to violence. These expectations contributed to the eventual use of violence. In this way, the gang's belief system contributed to the likelihood of violent encounters.

Ending Gangs

When we asked for gang members' perspectives on the best way to end gangs, we expected to find a variety of recommendations

lo This is a derogatory term used by Crip gang members to refer to Bloods.

DECKER 261

targeted at fundamental causes (racism, unemployment, education) as well as more proximate solutions (detached workers, recreation centers, job training). Instead the modal response reflected the cen- trality of violence in the gang. Twenty-five of our 99 subjects told us that the only way to get rid of their gang would be to use violence to get rid of the members. This response was confirmed by gang members in their conversations with the field ethnographer. For many gang members, life in the gang had become synonymous with violence; for one respondent, even job offers were not sufficient to end the gang.

INT: What would be the best way to get rid of your gang, the Rolling Sixties?

033: Smoke us all. INT: Kill you all? 033: Yeah. INT: We couldn't give you guys jobs? 033: No, just smoke us.

Others recommended using extreme violence to get rid of their gang.

INT: What would it take to get rid of your gang? 035: Whole lot of machine guns. Kill us all. We just going

to multiply anyway cause the Pee Wees gonna take over.

INT: What would be the best way to get rid of the Sixties? 042: Kill us all at once. Put them in one place and blow

them up.

Violence is so central a part of gang culture that even the members' recommendations about ending gangs include elements of violence.

The Process of Gang Violence

The analysis above suggests a model that accounts for the esca- lation of gang violence and is consistent with the nature of gang process and normative structure: it reflects the lack of strong lead- ership, structure, and group goals. The key element is the collec- tive identification of threat, a process that unites the gang and overcomes the general lack of unity by increasing cohesion. This occurred in response to threats against the gang, either real or per- ceived, by rival gangs. The role of mythic violence is particularly important in this context; it is the agent through which talk about violence most frequently unites gang members.

We suggest that a seven-step process accounts for the peaks and valleys of gang violence. The key to understanding violence is the nature of organization within gangs. Most gangs originate as neighborhood groups and are characterized by loose ties between their members and the larger gang. These groups generally lack

262 GANG VIOLENCE

effective leadership; cohesion in small cliques is stronger than the ties to the larger gang. Against this backdrop, symbolic enemies are identified when subgroups interact with other gangs near them. Threats from those groups--whether real or perceived--expand the number of participants, and may increase cohesion among members and heighten their willingness to use violence. Violence between gangs is most often the result of a mobilizing event that pushes a ready and willing group beyond the constraints against violence. such events may include the deployment of gang members to pro- tect or attack certain locations, to engage in actions in cars, or sim- ply to act "loce." Violent encounters typically are short-lived and de-escalate rapidly. This de-escalation, however, may be only a res- pite before the next retaliation. The process moves through the fol- lowing seven steps:

1. Loose bonds to the gang; 2. Collective identification of threat from a rival gang

(through rumors, symbolic shows of force, cruising, and mythic violence), reinforcing the centrality of violence that expands the number of participants and increases cohesion;

3. A mobilizing event possibly, but not necessarily, violence;

4. Escalation of activity; 5. Violent event; 6. Rapid de-escalation; 7. Retaliation.

This model is generally consistent with McPhail's (1993) de- scription of individual and collective violence. His explanation dis- t ingnishes between outcome violence and intended violence. The former is characterized by at tempts to manage what McPhail calls "disturbances to self-perception." Examples would include chal- lenges to status that are repelled with actions which do not origi- nate with a violent intent, but result in a violence (Athens 1992; Luckenbill and Doyle 1989). Participants in intended violence, on the other hand, enter a setting or interaction with a predisposition toward violence. In its collective form, this type of violence gener- ally involves two opposing groups, many of whose members play interchangeable roles of victim, perpetrator, and witness of vio- lence. The collective violence of gangs described in our research fits McPhail's conceptual scheme: "Not only do purposive actors act alone to match their perceptions to their reference signals for vio- lent individual goals, they occasionally act together with other members of their groups to achieve violent collective goals" (1993:17). McPhail points to the need to analyze the "planning preparations, rehearsal and implementation of collective violence" (1993:17). We believe that the current analysis and model of the

collective behavior model.

DECKER 263

process of gang violence supports McPhail's

CONCLUSION

Gang violence, like other gang activities, reflects the gang~s or- ganizational and normative structure. Such violence, especially re- taliatory violence, is an outgrowth of a collective process that reflects the loose organizational structure of gangs with diffuse goals, little allegiance among members, and few leaders.

If gangs are composed of diffuse subgroups, how is violence or- ganized? Our answer to this question is "Not very well and not very often," because most gang violence serves important symbolic pur- poses within the gang. In addition, most gang violence is retalia- tory, a response to violence--real or perceived--against the gang.

Gang violence serves many functions in the life of the gang. First, and most important, it produces more violence through the processes of threat and contagion. These mechanisms strongly re- flect elements of collective behavior. Second, it temporarily in- creases the solidarity of gang members, uniting them against a common enemy by heightening their dependence on each other. When gang violence exceeds tolerable limits, a third function may be evident: the splintering of gangs into subgroups and the decision by some individuals to leave the gang.

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