The Influence of Gangs on a Person's Life - Research Paper Example

? Krohn et al. . The cascading effects of adolescent gang involvement across the life Criminology, 49(4), 991-1028. Basic Information What type of study is this and why do you believe it is this type of study? This is an explanatory type of study because it explains how a particular social behavior or phenomenon comes to have an impact. Here, in this particular study, the behavior of gang involvement is explained to have an impact on the entire life course of an individual. What is the research question in this article? The research question in this article is what impact gang involvement that happens in adolescence, has on the adult life chances and adult criminal behavior of individuals. What is specifically meant by adult life chances is a satisfactory family life and economic well-being at the age ranging from late 20s to early 30s. And what is meant by adult criminal behavior is persistent criminal behavior at the age of 31. What concept represents the independent variable(s) in this article and what is the conceptual definition of this concept discussed by the authors? The independent variable in this study is gang involvement in adolescence. Gang involvement is defined as a self report of being a member of any street gang or “posse” between the age of 14 to 31 and the level of gang involvement is measured in terms of the number of waves in which a particular individual was involved with a gang between the age of 14 to 31. What concept represents the dependent variable(s) in this article and what is the conceptual definition of this concept discussed by the authors? The dependent variables in this study are precocious transitions, economic hardship, family problems, street crime and arrest. The concept of precocious transitions is defined as to include any, some, or all of the behaviors- early nest leaving (no longer resides with parents by wave 9), dropping out from high school prior to graduation (not graduated by wave 10), cohabitation (not married yet living with a partner when the individual is between 20 and 22 years of age) and teenage parenthood (had a child before the age of 20). Economic hardship is defined as to include unemployment (at 29 years of age) and income pattern (at 29 years of age). The concept of family problems is defined as to include scores corresponding to arguing, lose tempers, and physical fights at wave 13. The concept of street crime relates to the individual scores corresponding to being involved at the age of 31, in any of the 13 different street crimes listed. The concept of arrest is defined as self-reported arrest during 13th or 14th wave. What are the null and research hypotheses related to this research question? The null hypothesis for this study is that there is no relationship between gang involvement in adolescence and life chances and criminal behavior in adulthood. The research hypothesis is that it is involvement in a gang that impacts an individual male’s life chances and eventually leads to criminal behavior as he matures into adulthood. Sample, Research Design and Data Collection Describe the sample (who or what was used and how they were selected) used in this study. The sample used in this study was the data from Rochester Youth Development Study which was a multi-wave panel study on how delinquency and drug use developed among the youth. This (RYDS) study had collected 14 waves of data from 1000 adolescents as they grew from 14 to 31 years of age and the study by Krohn et al (2011) has used the same data by way of a longitudinal analysis of data gathered from males alone which was not done by the original study. What type of research design did the authors use in this study and how was it structured? The research design was based on the structural equation model that allows to have an approximate measurement of cause-effect relationships, all the same leaving enough space for taking into account the estimation error. The design was structured so as to measure both the observed and latent variables. The two-step process involved the estimation of a confirmatory factor analysis model that ensures the measurements are reliable and secondly, the estimation of the structural regression model so as to test the hypothesis. As part of the design, what type of study (i.e., cross-sectional or longitudinal) did the authors’ use? As part of the design, the authors used a longitudinal study. What type of data did the authors collect (self-report, official data, etc.) and how did they collect it? The authors collected self-reports, data from secondary sources, and official data from the police, schools and social services. The self-reports were collected by interviewing the respondents nine times (waves), data from secondary sources were collected by interviewing the parents of the respondents eight times, and official data was collected from official sources mentioned above and from their official records. Briefly describe how the independent and dependent variables were measured. What were the operational definitions of each of these variables and what types of measures were used to capture each one? The independent and dependent variables were measured using joint significance test and bootstrap standard errors. The independent variable in this study is gang involvement in adolescence. Gang involvement is defined as a self report of being a member of any street gang or “posse” between the age of 14 to 31 and the level of gang involvement is measured in terms of the number of waves in which a particular individual was involved with a gang between the ages of 14 to 31. The dependent variables in this study are precocious transitions, economic hardship, family problems, street crime and arrest. Precocious transitions is defined as to include behaviors- early nest leaving (no longer resides with parents by wave 9), dropping out from high school prior to graduation (not graduated by wave 10), cohabitation (not married yet living with a partner when the individual is between 20 and 22 years of age) and teenage parenthood (had a child before the age of 20). Economic hardship is defined as to include unemployment (at 29 years of age) and income pattern (at 29 years of age). Family problems is defined as to include scores corresponding to arguing, lose tempers, and physical fights at wave 13. Street crime relates to the individual scores corresponding to being involved at the age of 31, in any of the 13 different street crimes listed. Arrest, as a dependent variable, is defined as self-reported arrest during 13th or 14th wave. To capture each of these variables, self-reports gathered from interviews, secondary data gathered from interviewing the parents of the respondents, and official data from police, schools and social services were used. Where there any additional, control measures included in this study? If so, name at least three of them and briefly describe each one. There were many additional control variables included in this study. These included aggression, academic aptitude, conventional values, and concentrated disadvantage. Aggression is a control variable measured based on the data gathered from parents’ interviews using a 11-item child behavior checklist. Academic aptitude is a summing up of the academic abilities of the respondent as gathered from California Achievement Tests in reading and Math when the respondents were at the age of 12. Conventional values as a control variable was defined as the self-reported importance that respondents gave to good reputation inside the community, studying hard to win good scores, working hard so that one can move ahead, and to saving money as an investment for future. Concentrated disadvantage was an estimation compiled from US Census 1990 based on the economic backwardness that existed in and around the place where the respondent was residing. Results and Assessment In sum, what were the results of this study as they relate to the research question? The results of this study showed that there was a direct impact of gang involvement on precocious transitions and there was also a direct impact of precocious transitions on economic hardships and family problems in adulthood. In this manner, gang involvement in adolescence was found to have an indirect impact on economic hardships and family problems in adulthood. The results also showed that gang involvement has an indirect impact on the likelihood of arrest in adulthood just because experiencing family problems and economic hardships have a direct impact on the likelihood of arrests. It is also revealed by this study that gang involvement has only a partial and that too indirect impact on street crimes because street crimes are directly influenced by family problems in adulthood but not directly influenced by economic hardships in adulthood. Based on these results, how would you assess the research question and hypotheses posed by the authors? Based on the results obtained from this study, it is proven that there is an impact of gang involvement in adolescence on life chances and criminal behavior in adulthood, as is suggested by the research question and hypothesis. But the impact is not direct one but an indirect influence passed on through a causal chain. What was one of the study’s methodological strengths identified by the author? Briefly explain. One of the methodological strengths of this study as identified by the authors has been the life course perspective that was used. Life course perspective, unlike conventional approaches to research, has been found to broaden the whole research perspective itself by incorporating information from prolonged life courses of individuals rather than limiting itself to data gathered from a particular moment in time and space. What was one of the study’s methodological weaknesses identified by the author? Briefly explain. One methodological weakness that has been identified in this study by the authors themselves has been that this study has not estimated the impact of control variables like aggressiveness and concentrated disadvantage though it is admitted that they could be decisive in defining the dependent variable outcomes. It is evident that an individual’s aggressiveness and concentrated disadvantage could influence his life course in a significant way. By keeping them as mere control variables, this study faces the risk of giving undue importance to an isolated independent variable at the cost of equally important, other independent variables. Read More