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Research has demonstrated that girls are involved in gangs as members and affiliates. However, the psychological processes related to female gang membership has, to date, not been examined using a rigorous comparative design. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether female gang members exhibit distinct psychological and behavioral features when compared to female non-gang youth.

In total, 117 female students were recruited from all-girls’ secondary schools in London, UK. Gang members (n=22; identified using the Eurogang definition) were compared to non-gang youth (n=95) on self-report measures of criminal activity, sexual activity, self-esteem, anti-authority attitudes, their perceived importance of social status, and hypermasculinity, using a series of MANCOVAs.

The results found that gang members reported significantly more criminal activity, sexual activity, unwanted sexual contact, and held more anti-authority attitudes when compared to their non-gang counterparts.

These findings support Pyrooz et al.’s (2014) findings that gang membership contributes to the theoretical conceptualization of the victim-offender overlap. Practitioners need to take this into consideration when working with female gang members.

There is very little research that explicitly examines the characteristics of female gang members with suitable comparison groups. This study adds to the growing literature on female involvement in gangs and highlights the distinct psychological and behavioral characteristics of this group. In summary, these findings support the notion that female gang members are both at risk of being sexually exploited and engaging in criminal activities.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the components of a gang culture in conflict with society, and second, to explore how gangs, the community, and law enforcers externalize the gang problem from the vantage point of worldview and worldmaking.

The researcher gathered news articles from the Nexus-Lexis research database system within a one-year period (from February 2012 to February 2013). The data was randomly selected and representative of newspapers published throughout the USA. The news articles were coded based upon the aspects of culture (lens of perception, motives for human behaviors, criteria for evaluation, basis of identification, means for communication, justification for social stratification, and mode for production and consumption). A thematic analysis was also conducted to determine: the aspects of gang culture in conflicts with society; and how the gangs, the community, and the law enforcements externalize the gang conflict.

Results suggest that gang violence is largely due to issues of identity, values, and gang cohesiveness rather than the result of the pathologically based environmental conditions. Criteria for evaluation and issue of identity constituted 66 percent of the violent conflict with society. In the context of worldviews and worldmaking, gang members and law enforcement personnel are more likely to adopt a rigid, win-lose framework while members of the community are more likely to prescribe to a flexible and holistic perspective toward the gang problem. In sum, gang violence is not necessarily a deviant or antisocial act; rather, it is a result of the conflicting narratives between the gang cultures and the culture-at-large.

In dissecting gang behavior from a cultural perspective, it is easy to categorize gangs as a collective subculture. However, gang members may not view themselves as a subculture nor consider themselves as belonging to a subculture community.

By examining the function of culture – in this case, the gang culture – as it conflicts with society at large, one may better able to develop an action plan that emphasize identities, cultures, and values rather than crime and punishment. Also, it may help shed light on how the various stakeholders (i.e. the gangs, law enforcements, and the community) perceive the conflict, which may assist researcher to develop a comprehensive and holistic approach toward intervention. Finally, implementing a culturally based gang violence intervention may reduce cost.

This research is unique in that it analyzes the function of gang violence in relation to the society-at-large. Also, the research addresses the issue as to how the various stakeholders interpret the “gang problem.” Finally, this research is innovative in that it employs news articles as units of analysis rather than the traditional qualitative interviews or quantitative surveys.

As the subject of female criminology in South Africa has only recently been dealt with in a qualitative manner, this paper aims to explore if there is a potential link between rehabilitation, reintegration support and recidivism as females are often placed back into the environment which prompted their criminal behaviour, further excluding them from rehabilitative reform, which might lead them to recidivate.

The research adopted a qualitative approach using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six participants that were chosen purposively.

The paper notes a potential link between rehabilitation, reintegration support and recidivism as the female prisoners are imprinted with criminal dispositions since rehabilitation within the correctional facility has no implementation process to ensure that restoration can continue after they have been released.

Due to the limited number of the incarcerated female population and the scope of the preliminary study, the sample comprised of only six female offenders. As such, it contributes to the larger discourse of female criminality, but does not offer any recommendations.

Provides an understanding of the conditions in which the females are released. Allows for the inclusion of the female’s voice on, and reflection of, rehabilitation and recidivism. Notes a link between rehabilitation, reintegration and recidivism. Creates a pathway for further research in the exploration of a gendered reform approach.

While the subject of female criminology in South Africa has only recently been dealt with in a qualitative manner, this study offers an insight into how females who offend are often placed back into the environment which prompted their criminal behaviour.

This paper aims to discuss the importance of having several entry points into the field, via gatekeepers who do not belong to law enforcement agencies, in contexts where the police cannot be defined as trustworthy.

The argumentation of this paper is based on qualitative research on women and gangs in Honduras. An ethnographical methodology was implemented, which included over a year of observations, 65 interviews and two focus groups in gang-controlled communities and detention centers in Central America (with a focus on Honduras), between 2017 and 2020. The paper implements a feminist reflexive approach, focusing on patriarchy, positionality and silence.

Collaborating with the police as gatekeepers in gang research needs to be reevaluated. In countries such as Honduras, the police are riddled with corruption and impunity, which eventually leads to mistrust among gang members and other citizens. Hence, it is recommended to approach other, non-law enforcement, gatekeepers, who often stand much closer to the gangs and have a less conflicted or biased position toward them and toward other people living in gang areas.

A feminist reflexive approach is recommended for researching women and gangs, and thus also for choosing the right gatekeepers in the field, taking into account researchers’ and gatekeepers’ positionality.

Police corruption in relation to gangs and gang-related crimes often goes unreported and silences people living in gang-controlled areas. This paper exposes these conflicted roles, not only regarding police abuse vis-à-vis gangs and people living in gang areas but also in relation to gang researchers in the field.

This study examines the relationships between the age at which female juvenile offenders receive their first sentencing and individual risk factors, family risk factors, and race. The individual risk factors include dropping out of school, physical abuse, sexual abuse, prostitution, substance abuse, gang involvement, poverty, pregnancy, and the existence of co‐defendants. The family risk factors include parents’ marital status, familial criminal activity, education level of parents, and receipt of public assistance. The results showed individual risk factors to have a statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable, age at first sentencing. Family risk factors did not have a statistically significant relationship to the dependent variable. Socio‐demographic risk factors were found to be statistically significant only indirectly, through the individual risk factor scale.

Purpose – Recent research on the gender culture and femininity of adolescent girls found that girls construct their gender identity in various ways that are intertwined with race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. However, these existing studies focused on either general schoolgirls (see Ali, S. (2003). To be a girl: Culture and class in schools. Gender and Education, 15(3), 269–283; Bettie (2003); Weiler, J. D. (2000). Codes and contradictions: Race, gender identity and schooling. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Renold, E. (2005). Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring children's gender and sexual relations in the primary school. London: Routledge) or delinquent girls in a gang (see Miller, J. (1998). Gender and victimization risk among young women in gangs. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 35, 429–453; Miller (2001); Joe-Laidler & Hunt (2001); Schalet, A., Hunt, G., & Joe-Laidler, K. (2003). Respectability and autonomy: The articulation and meaning of sexuality among the girls in the gang. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32, 108–143; Messerschmidt (1995); Messerschmidt, J. W. (1997). Crime as structured action: Gender, race, class, and crime in the making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), and only a few studies paid attention to girls who showed overt oppositional behaviors at school.

Methods – The research uses qualitative methods and explores the gender identity of two adolescent girls in a junior high school in Taiwan, who are regarded as problem or “bad” girls by the school faculty.

Results – The two girls both manifested “ladette” culture (Jackson, 2006). On the one hand, they showed masculine behaviors such as fighting, troublemaking, disobeying school regulations, and using drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, they deliberately emphasized their femininity and sexual maturity in the way they dressed, talked, and behaved.

In this paper, readers are introduced to the stories of Sarah, Ashley, and Chanelle, who represent different racial categorizations, class backgrounds, entryways into sex work, and histories of sexual victimization. These three women were each convicted as sex offenders because of their involvement in the prostitution of women or girls. This paper demonstrates that these women did not view their actions as sex offenses because their perceptions of themselves, men, women, sexuality, and prostitution were profoundly influenced by interconnecting experiences in their life histories. Child sexual abuse, economic needs, and abusive interpersonal relationships all impacted how these women viewed themselves and their actions. This paper briefly reviews the historically divisive and ultimately detrimental debate between feminists who frame all prostitution as sexual violence and feminists who advocate for full legalization of sex work. Sarah, Ashley, and Chanelle’s stories illustrate the complexities that exist within the lives of women who become involved in prostitution due to a variety of circumstances and social inequalities. Sarah, Ashley, and Chanelle were not completely hapless victims disenfranchised by their pimps, nor were they fully agentive sexual entrepreneurs unfairly targeted by the state. These women made a series of decisions based on their needs for survival, their personal economic desires, and their beliefs about men, women, and sexuality. This paper provides ample room for the women’s voices, and documents their explanations for why and how they became involved in prostitution, as well as the prostitution of other women and girls.

Although there is a vast array of theories on crime, one area that is largely under-represented is that of the actual experience of the offender engaged in criminal acts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the individual and phenomenological experiences of crime amongst women offenders.

The sample consisted of 128 women who had committed a criminal offence, with an average age of 36.40 years (SD=11.12). Participants were recruited to take part in the study by answering a questionnaire exploring the emotions and narrative roles they experienced during commission of a crime. From this, participants’ Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) was determined.

Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) analyses revealed that emotional experiences and narrative roles were thematically associated, and when both were subjected to SSA analysis, two main themes of CNE were identified: Avenging Angel and Choiceless Victim. The Choiceless Victim experience was the most representative of women’s experiences in this study.

The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Future directions for research are also outlined.

The findings offer an alternative perspective and theoretical framework for examining women offenders’ criminal experiences.

In 2018, the National Human Trafficking hotline received 275 cases of human trafficking in Pennsylvania, a higher than average portion of the 10,949 human trafficking cases received for the USA. Whether human trafficking victims receive services or enter the criminal justice system as prostitution offenders depends on how police identify them, as police officers are usually the first to interact with human trafficking victims. Thus, understanding how police identify human trafficking is important. The purpose of the study is to explore Pennsylvania police perceptions of human trafficking.

Scenarios were presented in a survey to 489 Pennsylvania police officers.

Police training improved officer identification of human trafficking (vs prostitution) involving older victims. Officers with more tenure were less likely to identify older victims of human trafficking than officers with less tenure. However, older officers were better able to successfully identify older (i.e. age 25 years) victims of human trafficking, but officer age had no effect on identifying younger (i.e. age 15 years) victims of human trafficking. The implications are discussed in the study.

The study contributes to the literature by testing (1) whether training affects police ability to identify human trafficking victims in a scenario, controlling for other factors and (2) whether victim age affects officer identification of human trafficking victims. More officers correctly identified younger victims of human trafficking when force was explicitly stated, but more officers misidentified younger victims when force was not explicitly stated and older victims when force was explicitly stated.