TY - JOUR
T1 - A comparative study of youth gangs in china and the united states
T2 - Definition, offending, and victimization
AU - Webb, Vincent J.
AU - Ren, Ling
AU - Zhao, Jihong Solomon
AU - He, Ni Phil
AU - Marshall, Ineke Haen
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The US portion of the ISRD-2 was supported by the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice (#2006IJCX0045). The project Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PI are Drs. Ni "Phil" He and Ineke Haen Marshall from Northeastern University. Points of view or opinions contained in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funding agency.
PY - 2011/9
Y1 - 2011/9
N2 - While the research on youth gangs in the United States has been around for generations, relatively little research on Chinese youth gangs has been published in Western journals. The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of the gang involvement of school-age youth in China and to explore whether or not some of the correlates associated with gang participation in the West, such as patterns of offending and victimization, are found in China. The data were collected from 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in both China and the United States using the same survey instrument, namely, the second International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD-2). The results suggest that the U.S. sample has higher prevalence of self-nominated gang membership than the Chinese sample. In addition, the lifetime and last year participation rates in various criminal acts among the gang members in the Chinese sample were much lower than those in the U.S. sample. Last year prevalence of victimization was also examined between the gang members and nongang members in both samples. Finally, the definition of gang member identification was further explored to probe how culture, language, and social context can affect the understanding of a gang among the survey respondents.
AB - While the research on youth gangs in the United States has been around for generations, relatively little research on Chinese youth gangs has been published in Western journals. The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of the gang involvement of school-age youth in China and to explore whether or not some of the correlates associated with gang participation in the West, such as patterns of offending and victimization, are found in China. The data were collected from 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in both China and the United States using the same survey instrument, namely, the second International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD-2). The results suggest that the U.S. sample has higher prevalence of self-nominated gang membership than the Chinese sample. In addition, the lifetime and last year participation rates in various criminal acts among the gang members in the Chinese sample were much lower than those in the U.S. sample. Last year prevalence of victimization was also examined between the gang members and nongang members in both samples. Finally, the definition of gang member identification was further explored to probe how culture, language, and social context can affect the understanding of a gang among the survey respondents.
KW - cross-cultural study
KW - offending
KW - victimization
KW - youth gangs
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U2 - 10.1177/1057567711418825
DO - 10.1177/1057567711418825
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80053972909
SN - 1057-5677
VL - 21
SP - 225
EP - 242
JO - International Criminal Justice Review
JF - International Criminal Justice Review
IS - 3
ER -