SOCIAL-LEARNING THEORY, SELF-REPORTED DELINQUENCY, AND YOUTH GANGS - A NEW TWIST ON A GENERAL-THEORY OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

Social learning theory has been applied to a wide variety of criminal, delinquent, and deviant behavior. The current study examines the util ity of applying selected elements of the theory to the examination of youth gangs. The subjects consist of a stratified random sample of mal e and female 9th-grade public school students living in a southwestern state. Following the logic of Akers' variant of social learning theor y, we ask the following question: To what extent are attitudes toward gangs and gang activity, social reinforcers and punishers, and differe ntial associations linked to self-reported gang involvement and gang-r elated delinquency? We found that the social learning perspective prov ided considerable insights into gang membership. Our analysis of group -context offending was related to both social learning theory and gang membership. Other forms of self-reported delinquency, however, while linked to social learning theory, were unrelated to gang membership. T hese findings portend significant theoretical and policy implications for future studies of youth gangs.