Adolescent Gang Development: An Epidemiological Criminology Approach

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD, issued a call to the healthcare community in 1991 (more than ten years ago): "The professions of medicine, nursing, and the health-related social services must come forward and recognize violence as their issue and one that profoundly affects the public health." According to the World Health Organization, significant gains have been made in epidemiology to understand risk factors for violence and to apply prevention strategies. However, the effectiveness of gang prevention and intervention strategies used to reduce affiliation and manage youth gang-related activities, is questionable. This is mainly due to the complex and comprehensive processes of gang development that must be understood in a public health criminogenic context. Gang members are afflicted by pathologies and the violence associated with those pathologies is a public health issue with some remedies rooted in public health criminogenic research. In this session, participants will learn about (1) criminogenic factors, i.e., cognitive distortions, which refer to values, attitudes or behaviors that lead to or cause crime; (2) criminogenic traits, i.e., temperament, that if left unaddressed increase the likelihood that the offender will continue to engage in criminal activities; and (3) criminogenic needs, i.e., criminal personality; antisocial attitudes; values, and beliefs; low self-control; criminal peers; substance abuse; and dysfunctional family, which are dynamic risk factors, that when addressed, affect the youth offender's risk for recidivism.