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Methods: Based on nine annual waves of national panel data from the NLSY97, this study uses growth curve and group-based trajectory modeling to examine the dynamic and cumulative prevalence of gang membership, variability in the pathways into and out of gangs, and the correlates of these pathways from ages 10 to 23.

Results: The cumulative prevalence of gang membership was 8%, while the dynamic age-graded prevalence of gang membership peaked at 3% at age 15. Six distinct trajectories accounted for variability in the patterning of gang membership, including an adult onset trajectory. Gang membership in adulthood was an even mix of adolescence carryover and adult initiation. The typical gang career lasts 2 years or less, although much longer for an appreciable subset of respondents. Gender and racial/ethnic disproportionalities in gang membership increase in magnitude over the life-course.

Conclusions: Gang membership is strongly age-graded. The results of this study support a developmental research agenda to unpack the theoretical and empirical causes and consequences of gang membership across stages of the life-course.

Method: Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and propensity score matching were used to assess the cumulative and longitudinal effects of gang membership on seven educational outcomes, including educational attainment in years and six educational milestones. After adjusting for nonrandom selection into gangs, youths who joined a gang were compared annually to their matched counterparts from 1998 to 2009.

Results: Selection-adjusted estimates revealed disparities between gang and nongang youth in education attainment. Youth who joined gangs were 30 percent less likely to graduate from high school and 58 percent less likely to earn a four-year degree than their matched counterparts. The effects of gang membership on educational attainment were statistically observable within one year of joining, and accumulated in magnitude over time to reach -0.62 years (ES=0.25) by the final point of observation.

Conclusion: The snare-like forces linked to the onset of gang membership have consequences that spill into a range of life domains, including education. These findings take on added significance because of a historical context where education has a prominent role in social stratification.

The key findings in this dissertation include: (1) selection adjustments partially or fully confounded the effects of gang joining; despite this (2) gang joiners had 70 percent the odds of earning a high school diploma and 42 percent the odds of earning a 4-year college degree than matched individuals who avoided gangs; (3) at the 11-year mark, the effect of gang joining on educational attainment exceeded one-half year; (4) gang joiners made up for proximate deficits in high school graduation and college matriculation, but gaps in 4-year college degree and overall educational attainment gained throughout the study; (5) gang joiners were less likely to be employed and more likely to not participate in the labor force, and these differences accelerated toward the end of the study; (6) gang joiners spent an additional one-third of a year jobless relative to their matched counterparts; and (7) the cumulative effect of gang joining on annual income exceeded $14,000, which was explained by the patterning of joblessness rather than the quality of jobs. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings, as well as directions for future research, are addressed in the concluding chapter of this dissertation.

Methods: Data were from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, which is representative of youth born between 1980 and 1984. Age-specific patterns of gang joining, participation, and leaving are estimated based on youths (N=7,335) self-reported gang membership at the baseline and eight subsequent interviews, which were combined with population age estimates from the 2010 U.S. Census to produce national estimates of gang membership. Sampling variance-adjusted bounds were estimated based on assumptions about missing cases and survey design effects. Demographic and socioeconomic variables are used to compare differences between gang and nongang youth.

Results: Youth gang members were disproportionately male, black, Hispanic, from single-parent households, and families living below the poverty level. We estimated that there were 1,059,000 youth gang members in the United States in 2010 (bounds ranging from 675,000 to 1,535,000). The prevalence of youth gang membership was 2.0% (1.2%-2.8%), peaking at age 14 years at 5.0% (3.9%-6.0%). Annually, 401,000 (204,000-639,000) juveniles join gangs and 378,000 (199,000-599,000) exit gangs, with a turnover rate of 36%.

Conclusions: We discovered that significantly more people are involved with gangs than previous estimates would suggest. Clinicians and policy makers must recognize that youth gang members may not conform to popular perceptions of gang demographics. The patterns of youth gang membership observed in this study support prevention programs aimed at children before the teen years. This strategy is more likely to succeed than gang intervention or suppression strategies aimed at teens.