June 2004 TOPICS:
Crime and Violence in the Youth’s “Whatever Culture”
Youth Crime Prevention, Intervention and Social Policy
Who Joins a Gang?
Tracking Gangs and Violence
Gun Violence and Changing Patterns of Homicide
Ethnic Diversity and Subcultures of Gangs in Los Angeles
Crime and Violence in the Youth’s “Whatever Culture”
Elliott Currie, professor of criminology, law and society, focuses on the analysis of crime and criminal justice policy. His work has been widely read by both the scholarly community and general public and his acclaimed book, Crime and Punishment in America, made him finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. He is most recently the author of The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence. Based on a series of interviews with American teens, the book probes the roots of drug abuse, violence and other problems among mainstream teenagers. Currie has offered assistance to the U.S. Congress, the state of California, the British Home Office and other government offices. Contact Currie at (949) 824-1387 or ecurrie@uci.edu.
Youth Crime Prevention, Intervention and Social Policy
C. Ronald Huff is dean of UCI’s School of Social Ecology, past-president of the American Society of Criminology and a noted expert on gangs and youth crime. He has written extensively on youth violence, prevention, intervention and social policy, and his books on the topic include three editions of the widely acclaimed “Gangs in America.” Huff has served as a consultant on gangs and youth violence to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI National Academy, the Ohio and Hawaii attorneys general and numerous other federal, state and local agencies. From 1979 to 1999, he served as director of the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State University, where he also directed the School of Public Policy and Management from 1994 to 1999. He currently serves on the California Attorney General’s Research and Policy Advisory Board. Contact Dean Huff at (949) 824-6094 or rhuff@uci.edu
Huff: “Belonging to, and being accepted by, a social group is very important in adolescent development, but our research shows that gang involvement is dysfunctional and leads to greatly increased chances of being arrested, injured and/or killed. Our research on the subject of gangs is designed to expand our knowledge and improve our public policies and efforts toward the prevention, intervention, and control of gang-related crime.”
Who Joins a Gang?
Cheryl Maxson, an associate professor of criminology, law and society, studies why some youths choose to join gangs while others prove to be gang-resistant. Currently, Maxson is involved in a study that follows the lives of 400 youths in high-risk neighborhoods. In another project, she is assessing how a civil gang injunction can change a neighborhood’s qualify of life. She is a co-editor of “The Eurogang Paradox: Gang and Youth Groups in the U.S. and Europe,” the first published volume on street gangs in Europe. She is also co-editor of two editions of “The Modern Gang Reader” and co-author of “Responding to Troubled Youth.” Maxson serves on the editorial boards of four academic journals in criminology and public policy, and as an adviser to the National Youth Gang Center, the National Evaluation of Safe Schools/Healthy Children and the Orange County Bar Foundation. Contact Maxson at (949) 824-5150 or cmaxson@uci.edu.
Maxson: “We have to establish credible research that identifies effective prevention and intervention strategies when it comes to gangs; otherwise our resources and efforts will be spent on policies generated by fear and political rhetoric.”
Tracking Gangs and Violence
James Meeker, professor of criminology, law and society and associate dean of students for the School of Social Ecology, is a former director of Orange County’s Gang Incident Tracking System – a collaboration of UCI and local law enforcement that helped the county identify trends in street violence through a computerized geographic tracking system. He is now exploring how this same technology can help identify the legal needs of poor communities and the delivery of legal services by legal aid organizations. He has published numerous articles on gangs, access to justice for the poor, domestic violence and the impact of criminology research on public policy. Contact Meeker at (949) 824-1463 or jwmeeker@uci.edu.
Gun Violence and Changing Patterns of Homicide
George Tita, an assistant professor of criminology, law and society, has provided research assistance for gun-violence reduction programs in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights and the LAPD’s 77th Division neighborhoods. He is also the lead researcher on a project studying incidents of homicide in the Watts neighborhood over a 20-year time period, tracking the changing patterns of homicide as Watts has transformed from approximately 80 percent African-American and 20 percent Latino in 1980, to 40 percent African-American and 60 percent Latino in 2000. Tita is a member of the National Consortium on Violence Research, a research and training center specializing in violence research. Contact Tita at (949) 824-4927 or gtita@uci.edu
Ethnic Diversity and Subcultures of Gangs in Los Angeles
James Diego Vigil, professor of criminology, law and society, is the author of “A Rainbow of Gangs: Street Cultures in the Mega-City,” a cross-cultural study of gangs in Los Angeles. Vigil has identified the factors that lead to gang membership in four ethnic Southern California groups – Chicano, African American, Vietnamese and Salvadoran. Vigil has also served as director of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty (UCLA), director of Chicano studies (UW Madison), director of ethnic studies (USC) and as chair of the National Center for Gang Policy. His other books include From Indians to Chicanos: The Dynamics of Mexican-American Culture, Personas Mexicanas: Chicano High Schools in a Changing Los Angeles, and Barrio Gangs: Street Life and Identity in Southern California. Contact Vigil at (949) 824-6113 or vigil@uci.edu.
Vigil: “The disintegration of families, schools and law enforcement has created a void – particularly for urban immigrants at the vulnerable stage of adolescence – that is filled by a street subculture that provides youth with social connections and engagement.”
