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Cited by 532

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and Why Does it Matter?

Esbensen, Finn-Aage, Winfree, L. Thomas, He, Ni, Taylor, Terrance J.·2001·Crime & Delinquency
DOI 10.1177/0011128701047001005
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Abstract

The recent explosion in gang research has highlighted the importance of consistent definitions for gang affiliation and gang-related crime. Definitional questions have assumed greater significance in the wake of broad-ranging prevention and intervention strategies. In this article, the authors utilize a sample of approximately 6,000 middle-school students to examine the youth gang phenomenon using five increasingly restrictive membership definitions. The least restrictive definition includes all youth who claim gang membership at some point in time. The most restrictive definition includes only those youth who are current core gang members who indicate that their gang has some degree of organizational structure and whose members are involved in illegal activities. The authors examine the differentially defined gang and nongang youths on various demographic characteristics, theretical factors, and levels of self-reported crime. The authors also address the theoretical and policy implications of shifting definitions of gang membership.

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Metadata

Authors
Esbensen, F.-A., Winfree, L. T., He, N., & Taylor, T. J.
Venue
Crime & Delinquency
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2001-01
Volume
47
Issue
1
Pages
105-130
ISSN
  • 0011-1287 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-387X
DOI
10.1177/0011128701047001005
OpenAlex
W2123098813
Cited by
532
References
48
FWCI
13.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and Why Does it Matter? https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/0011128701047001005
The paper
Esbensen, F.-A., Winfree, L. T., He, N., & Taylor, T. J. (2001). Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and Why Does it Matter? Crime & Delinquency. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128701047001005

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.