Rethinking How We View Gang Members: An Examination into Affective, Behavioral, and Mental Health Predictors of UK Gang-Involved Youth
| Published date | 01 April 2020 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Author | Sarah Frisby-Osman,Jane L. Wood |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419893779 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
893779YJJ0010.1177/1473225419893779Youth JusticeFrisby-Osman and Wood
research-article2020
Special Issue Article
Youth Justice
2020, Vol. 20(1-2) 93 –112
Rethinking How We View Gang
© The Author(s) 2020
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Members: An Examination into
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225419893779
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Affective, Behavioral, and
Mental Health Predictors
of UK Gang-Involved Youth
Sarah Frisby-Osman and Jane L. Wood
Abstract
Mental health difficulties, conduct problems, and emotional maladjustment predict a range of negative
outcomes, and this may include gang involvement. However, few studies have examined how behavioral,
mental health, socio-cognitive, and emotional factors all relate to adolescent gang involvement. This study
examined 91 adolescents to compare non-gang with gang-involved youth on their conduct problems,
emotional distress, guilt-proneness, anxiety and depression, and use of moral disengagement and
rumination. Analyses revealed that gang-involved youth had higher levels of anxiety, depression, moral
disengagement, and rumination. Gang-involved youth also had higher levels of conduct disorder and
exposure to violence, but they did not differ from non-gang youth on levels of emotional distress and guilt-
proneness. Discriminant function analysis further showed that conduct problems, moral disengagement,
and rumination were the most important predictors of gang involvement. Discussion focuses on how
intervention and prevention efforts to tackle gang involvement need to consider the mental health and
behavioral needs of gang-involved youth. Further research is also needed to build an evidence base that
identifies the cause/effect relationship between mental health and gang involvement to inform the best
practice when tackling gang membership.
Keywords
gangs, mental health, moral disengagement, psychological, rumination
. . . to tackle gang membership effectively it is vital that we learn to live with
the juxtaposition that gang members are violent individuals and also vulnerable victims,
and that the current one-dimensional perception that gang members are
merely violent perpetrators is amended.
(Beresford and Wood, 2016: 153)
Corresponding author:
Sarah Frisby-Osman, Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology, University of Kent, Kent CT2 7NZ, UK.
Email: so302@kent.ac.uk
94
Youth Justice 20(1-2)
Adolescent gang involvement gains widespread attention from professional and public
audiences because of the serious implications it has for the youth involved and the social
fabric of communities. A recent report estimates that 27,000, 10- to 17-year olds are street
gang members (Children’s Commissioner, 2018: 15) and these children tend to have a
range of needs, including poor mental and emotional health (Mayor Office for Policing
and Crime, 2018; McDaniel, 2012). The etiology of gang membership is multifaceted
with a range of precursors, often occurring simultaneously and across numerous risk fac-
tors such as family, individual characteristics, social situations, peer groups, and environ-
mental factors (Raby and Jones, 2016; Thornberry et al., 2003). Thus, addressing the
issues posed by gangs is far from straightforward, but it is one that requires ‘better co-
operation and collaboration . . . between traditionally divergent institutions and agencies’
(Densley, 2011: 20). Yet, the prevailing view of gang members focuses primarily on their
criminality and violence (Beresford and Wood, 2016).
Recently in the United Kingdom, gang-related homicide increased from 29 per cent in
2016 to 37 per cent in 2018 and gang-related knife-crime involving victims aged below 25
is higher (57%) than that committed by non-gang members (34%; Mayor Office for
Policing and Crime, 2018). Thus, it is unsurprising that gang-related violence is an urgent
government priority. However, gang involvement is complex and punitive approaches
such as harsher sentencing laws and inappropriate use of intelligence tools (Densley,
2011; Wood et al., 2016) cannot address these complexities in full.
As gang involvement includes more exposure to violence (Melde and Esbensen, 2013),
which in turn is associated with mental illness, such as anxiety and depression and mala-
daptive affective processes, such as emotional desensitization (Kennedy and Ceballo,
2016; Kerig et al., 2016), research is needed to understand how these relate to gang mem-
bership. That is, a better understanding of behavioral, emotional, and mental health diffi-
culties experienced by young people at risk or involved with gangs (Children’s
Commissioner, 2018; see DeLisi et al., 2019) will provide an infrastructure for effectively
tackling and reducing gang involvement. The aim of this study is to identify the affective,
behavioral, mental health, and socio-cognitive predictors of gang involvement. The arti-
cle begins with an examination of the existing literature in relation to gang membership,
violence, mental health outcomes, and gang members’ affective, behavioral, and socio-
cognitive needs. Findings from the current cross-sectional study, which examined the
emotional needs, mental health, and socio-cognitive predictors of gang involvement in
England, are reported. To end, the results are discussed in line with current evidence and
the implications the findings have for prevention and intervention with gang-involved
youth are identified.
Gang Membership, Exposure to Violence, and Mental Health
Outcomes
Exposure to violence, including violent victimization among gang members, is well docu-
mented. Peterson et al. (2004) identify how adolescent gang members aged between 12
and 16 years are more likely to experience violent victimization, including serious vio-
lence, before, during, and after gang involvement compared with non-gang youth (60%
Frisby-Osman and Wood
95
and 12%, respectively; Taylor et al., 2007). This is supported by later findings that active
gang members (97.8%) are violently victimized more so than youth who are loosely
involved with a gang (79.9%) and non-gang youth (67.1%; Katz et al., 2011).
Exposure to violence is also associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms,
such as depression, delinquency, and increased aggression (Gorman-Smith and Tolan,
1998; Schilling et al., 2007). It is therefore unsurprising that behavioral disorders, includ-
ing conduct problems mediate the relationship between gang membership and antisocial
behavior (DeLisi et al., 2019). Equally, some authors further note how higher levels of
antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) distinguish gang members from non-gang mem-
bers (Mallion and Wood, 2018). Research examining adolescent indicators of ASPD in
adulthood (characterized by emotion dysregulation, unpredictable and heightened emo-
tional experiences, low empathy, and engagement in violence, (American Psychiatric
Association (APA), 2013; Howard, 2015; Mallion, 2017) identifies how individuals diag-
nosed with conduct disorder (CD) in adolescence are more likely to develop ASPD in
adulthood and engage in higher levels of crime and violence (Loeber et al., 2006). Further
research shows how CD and ASPD correlates with anxiety and depression (Goodwin and
Hamilton, 2003), and Loeber and colleagues (2006) note how when CD is comorbid with
depression, substance misuse (marijuana), and callous-unemotional traits, the risk of
developing ASPD increases.
CD in adolescence and ASPD in adulthood also positively correlate with traumatic
experiences in childhood, including exposure to violence (Ballard et al., 2015; Holmes
et al., 2001). Evidence suggests that exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs;
defined as ‘potentially traumatic events that can have negative lasting effects on health
and wellbeing’, Boullier and Blair, 2018: 132) have a cumulative effect on later behavior.
Exposure to ACEs also relates to lower levels of mental and emotional wellbeing (Boullier
and Blair, 2018), and the greater the number of ACEs experienced in adolescence, the
greater the impact on mental health into adulthood (Chapman et al., 2004; Schilling et al.,
2007). A range of ACEs, such as adverse familial experiences, exposure to delinquency
and violent victimization, and mental health difficulties have also been linked to a risk of
gang involvement; and just as it is with the impact on mental health, the greater the num-
ber of ACEs, the greater the vulnerability of the child to gang involvement (Raby and
Jones, 2016; Thornberry et al., 2003).
Collectively, the above evidence suggests that youth who become involved in gangs are
vulnerable to a range of problems, particularly mental health difficulties (Beresford and
Wood, 2016; Watkins and Melde, 2016). Although research investigating gang members’
mental health is still in its infancy, there is plenty of evidence that gang members, com-
pared with non-gang counterparts, are involved in higher levels of criminality and vio-
lence (Gatti et al., 2005), which also relate to mental ill health. In line with the ‘cumulative
effects’ concept, the more exposed to violence a youth is (e.g. via familial maltreatment),
the more she or he becomes vulnerable to mental illnesses (Lynch, 2003; Lynch and
Cicchetti, 1998), including anxiety, depression, and symptoms of psychological distress
(Foster et al., 2004; Gorman-Smith and Tolan, 1998; Kennedy and Ceballo, 2016).
Consequently, it is...
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