A MULTISITE EXAMINATION OF YOUTH GANG MEMBERSHIP - DOES GENDER MATTER

The nature and extent of female involvement in gangs has been a relati vely neglected area of criminological inquiry. Even more rare have bee n investigations of explanations of female gang participation. This ne glect can be attributed, in large part, to a perception that the pheno menon is statistically rare and the behavior substantively unimportant . Our objectives in this research are twofold: to describe gang member ship in a general survey of eighth-grade students in a cross section o f the United States and to examine differences between boys' and girls ' attitudes associated with gang membership.