The unexpectedly social world of gangs
we have familiar words
to label gang violence and the emotions
they evoke words like senseless
brazen cruel from this
it becomes convenient to think of gang
members as different than the rest of us
we use words like anti-social for
instance
to describe them pointing out the fact
that many of their actions break the
social contract we have
not to cause harm to one another
i’m a criminologist and a famous theory
in my field
describes the relationships of criminals
as cold
and fragile but how about cooperative
supportive helpful how about
loyal it’s indeed a mistake to see gang
members as different
than the rest of us when it comes to
social behavior
gang members structure their
relationships the same way we all do
their breaking of the social contract
doesn’t mean that they lack the capacity
for social bonding they have the same
needs to connect
we all have in fact i
argue that it is their fundamentally
human capacity to cooperate
that allows them to do what they do
yes sometimes to commit violent crimes
but perhaps as a silver lining it also
allows
them and allow us to work through an
exit plan
i understand the logic of associating
violence
with individuals who appear not to care
about others
but the violence itself is not the
product
of people who lack the ability to
connect
instead it’s the very unfortunate
outcome
of something deeply social that is
embedded
in the gang in some twisted way perhaps
gang members care so strongly about
their friends
that violence emerge when a very similar
group comes to threaten them
but this is not a bad people problem
it’s a social network
problem in this talk
i will show how this shift in thinking
about the sociability of gang members
matter very much for the way that we
handle them when coming through the
criminal justice system
and what we expect of them upon release
how networks are central to what they do
how they do it
and why they do it and i will use this
information
to think through a range of solutions
that put social networks
at the forefront but let me be clear
from the get-go
i don’t believe gangs are a social good
that we need to nurture
in any way like the rest of you i’d
rather have gang members use their
social skills for social good
i’m saddened by the hurt caused by gang
violence in my community
here in bc i do not propose that acts of
violence go
unaddressed or unpunished what i’m
saying is that punishment alone
won’t help what i’m saying is that by
pushing aside
the social elements of gang behavior in
our handling
of gang members we are setting them and
ourselves
for failure gang membership
is not a death sentence there is a life
after gangs and for many it may start
with connecting
with someone credible someone who has
been through it
like they have this became so salient to
me
after i met jordan ex-gang member
long-time enforcer and debt collector
for a major gang here
in the lower mainland what first struck
me
about jordan is how eager he was to
connect with young people
and share his message wait
well that’s not true what first struck
me about jordan
is how scary he was tall and bulky
full sleeve of gang tattoos mohawk
haircut
you could tell that yeah he was probably
doing a good job of scaring people for a
living
so after i met him what first struck me
about jordan
is how essential it was for him to be
that person who gives kids
a credible voice to talk about gang
issues
in words that they understand and also
for the kids were already caught up in
the web of gangs he was giving them a
way out
hope of a life after gangs
but let me tell you something crucial
about jordan
although he went through a sort of
transformation by exiting gang life
deep down he’s basically the same guy
the anger issues the adhd the impulses
they don’t disappear with gang exit he’s
the same guy with anger issues but he
controls them
better part of it is sheer motivation
but this motivation is much more
effective
when embedded in a supportive social
network
he became accountable to himself but
also to others
transform the network if you want to
change the behavior
see gang culture requires that you
retaliate that you right the wrongs
the tit-for-tat gang violence is
respected
it’s expected and reinforced in gang
networks
but the people in gangs are not so
different
gang members form a community of their
own a social structure
in which many of the same rules apply
after years of doing research on gangs
i realized that understanding this the
social networks of gangs
is the first and most fundamental step
in helping solve the problem
of gang violence
so what do we learn from looking at the
social networks
of gang members the first point
is that their social networks are not so
different
than our social networks their patterns
of cooperation
are similar but
their cooperation occurs under much more
stressful conditions than ours
and that stress the risks that they take
it makes their social connections even
more important to them
put yourself in their shoes for a minute
as a gang member
everyone is out to get you the police
can arrest you for your latest fight
or for drug dealing your fellow gang
members
because they know what you do can tell
the police on your activities
and act as informants rival gang members
hope for nothing more than to catch you
without your crew
and what do gang members do to overcome
these obstacles
they create brotherhoods they emphasize
trust
and social connections among themselves
remember jordan one of his tattoos the
one that starts the sleeve at the wrist
is a tattoo of the word brotherhood
something he got done with six
of his fellow gang members to mark their
bond to the gang
because it was that important to them
no matter where we look gangs tend to
form social units that mimic
the other social groups we have and that
we all belong to
including our family most gangs will
have anywhere from
10 to 25 members and sometimes but
rarely
a whole lot more but you shouldn’t see
these 25 people
as all hanging out together as this
block
of 25 people gang members don’t have
time for everyone in the network
they hang out for the most part with
four or five close friends
and that’s it not unlike how we go about
our own friendships
do you invite all of your friends to
dinner on a given saturday
of course you don’t and be honest you
didn’t invite them all to your wedding
either
well gang members don’t hang out with
everyone in their network either
research studies comparing the social
networks of gang members to non-members
show that there are no statistically
significant differences
their networks vary from small to large
in the same ways as ours
and they vary from dense to sparse in
the same ways as well their networks
provide the same type of social support
and help
that our networks do i think you get the
idea
in their form and in their size the
social networks of gang members
provide the same type of social support
that our networks provide
the second point and take away message
that we got from research on social
networks and gangs
is that even the least cooperative act
that gang members do
the gang conflict is a direct
consequence
of their investment in social networks
gang violence is an amplified version of
any conflict
in that conflicts even ours are social
acts at their
core think about it we fight with the
people we know
and we fight when the people we know are
under threat
in our case of course we’re talking
about minor disagreements
arguments that are not lethal well let’s
let’s hope
but for gang members the consequences
are sometimes
much more serious gang violence is
contagious
precisely because gang members invest so
much in the brotherhood
so much into cooperative behavior a
threat from rivals
is an invitation for retaliation even if
the threat is not to you personally
but to one of your brothers and this
part is key
gang members experience so much more
violence than others
because they are embedded in this type
of social network
call it masculinity respect gang culture
those are all important parts of an
identity
that has been forged by social networks
the shape of the network determines the
length of the chain of violent events
the more connected is the victim of a
gang crime
the more likely is the chain to continue
shooters tend to know their victims and
victims their shooter
their relationship is why they care
about the fight
in the first place my graduate student
and i
applied this idea right here in the
lower mainland to help solve one of the
most
violent conflict that we have witnessed
in surrey
the starting point victims of gang
violence
we went back five years inside police
databases
to map their social interactions and we
repeated this process with every victim
of gang violence that
year and what did we find
we found that they belonged to the same
social network
as many as 85 percent of gang violence
victims
belong to the same social network with
anyone
on either side of the conflict being
within two
to three handshakes away from each other
importantly we found that the
individuals who were the most connected
in year one were also the most likely to
get shot in year two
and three and this in itself is quite
remarkable
knowing your position in the network now
can help predict if you’ll become a
victim in the future
our work on this is very recent and thus
has yet to be published
but he replicates point by point locally
similar work that has been done by
northwestern university sociologist
andrew papacristo over the last 10 years
in multiple cities
in america so what
why does it matter to know that gang
members are unexpectedly good
at social cooperation or that gang
violence
spreads through social networks well it
matters for two
important reasons first it matters
because if the mechanisms are similar
we can use information on these networks
not simply to understand violence
but to help reduce it one thing that
networks don’t do is to make the
violence appear more acceptable
but perhaps it can make the violence
appear less
unpredictable it is preventable like
other diseases
like coven 19 that spread through social
networks
as my colleague papa cristo puts it the
violence is tragic
but it’s not random we can do something
about it second
it matters because we need to realize
that when we’re asking gang members
to exit gang life we’re asking them also
to exit their social support their
family
and this is very hard to do it would be
for any of us
it’s a dramatic shift in their life that
requires not just
life skills but also to rebuild a new
social network
that would be focused on pro-social
behavior
the impetus is both on them to harvest
the most pro-social elements of their
network
to facilitate the disengagement from
gangs
and also on us to help them manage old
and new relationships
as they plan their exit and i believe
it’s within reach for two reasons
first research shows that network-based
interventions can work
some of the most promising programs on
gang exit
either have a strong mentorship
component or
they propose an alternative community
where gang members can connect
and feel that they belong second
numerous studies show that the social
networks of gang members
are varied they contain a mix of people
who commit crimes
and others who don’t and this matters
quite a bit
when comes the time through to think
through an exit plan
a plan that would identify the most
pro-social elements of these networks
and activate them for the purpose of
disengagement
from gangs in thinking about gang exit
don’t simply destroy the old network and
hope for magical success
success will come if we nurture new
social
networks to replace the old
remember jordan what got jordan
out well it’s a combination of things
but first and foremost are key social
connections
who are there to support his move first
to a girlfriend
falling in love helps tremendously with
so many things really
so he had a supportive girlfriend and a
family that was still willing to be
there for him
something that jordan told me when we
were talking about his gang exit
is how his parents were there to pick
him up after he was released from prison
his friends were still incarcerated no
one picked them up
after their release they waited for the
next bus to bring them home
jordan was able to reconfigure his
social network
to emphasize pro-social activities
and now he does it for others just like
these two teenagers he mentored
shown here at their high school
graduation
the science on network-based
interventions is young
social networks and mentorships are no
silver bullet
they won’t alone provide all of the
tools that are necessary
for gang members to exit gangs and not
look back
here i simply urge criminologists and
anyone
who is impacted by gang violence
to include networks in their plans
success won’t come without taking stock
of the networks of gang members
in my research this is where i’m going
network methods are already there for us
to implement
and former gang members who are genuine
and want to help
may be amenable to become mentors like
jordan but they too
need a network to make it happen they
need
us thank you