The
Task Force On
Youth
Violence and Gangs
Main Menu | Contact Us | Disclaimer
~ Girls and Gangs ~
"Nearly all research concludes that males dominate gang membership. Some studies have indicated that females represent less than 10 percent of all gang members, and one recent study estimated the figure as low as 3 or 4 percent. Other studies have reported that the proportion of females in gangs is much larger, ranging from approximately one-fourth to one-third of all gang members in urban adolescent samples.
"Agencies responding to the 1996 National Youth Gang Survey reported that ... females accounted for 11 percent of gang members (see table 15 below)." (Source: 1996 National Youth Gang Survey, July, 1999, Summary, Shay Bilchik, Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Table 15, below, is from the same source.)
There appears to be a growing interest in girls and gangs among gang researchers and those who want to provide prevention and intervention programs for females. Their concern, it would seem, is well taken as the participation of females in gang activity seems to be slowly increasing in some jurisdictions.
Much of the evidence for this is anecdotal since collection of data from the police is somewhat skewed. Police, and the courts, are less likely to attribute gang membership to females which may be producing an under reporting of this data.
Field Note: Marsha used to work with a female youth gang called the Sisters, a "very tough and violent" group of about twelve African-American girls.
"The members of the Sisters were all alike. Same hairdos, same clothes, same makeup, same walk. The girls got together in Junior High School. I think they're tougher than male gang members." Marsha was referring to how the girl gang members intimidate and interact with other people as compared to the male gang members with whom she works.
On several occasions Marsha noticed that several members of the Sisters would stand around after school and watch other girls participate in Double Jump (jumping two ropes at the same time). After a few weeks of this, Marsha introduced the girls to the sport and was eventually successful in altering their behavior (becoming less involved in deviance and criminality).Marsha told me that the Sisters enjoyed the physicality, the competition, working together and are now referred to as a team called the Black Enchanters. In time, they began to win trophies and started to travel extensively to compete. "Most of the Sisters are married now. They're mothers, employed, and no longer in trouble with the law."
Marsha also got the female gang members interested in 4H and their related activities. She took members of the Sister to visit farms and "They saw things they would never have seen where they lived in the inner city. The new experience, the things they saw, and the fact that someone cared enough to share this experience played a role in changing their attitudes," which, Marsha believes, led to positive behavioral changes.
She said that " ... just showing them another way of life really helped since they knew no other way of life prior to that. How does someone have choices when there are none to make?"
Are female gang members simply an addendum to male gangs or do they have a significant role to play in male-dominated gangs? Are there all-female gangs? It has been estimated that "less than 2 percent (1.76 percent) of all gangs in the United States in 1998 were female dominated." (Source: 1998 National Youth Gang Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, November 2000.)
Over the past several decades the role of females in gangs has become only slightly clearer as research continues on this subject.
The United States National Institute of Justice, in its annual survey of gangs, reports in the 1998 survey, in Table 14 (below), that females make up a larger percentage of all gang members in small cities and in suburban and rural settings.
The same report reveals that females are a larger proportion of the gang population in the Northeast region of the United States than anywhere else in the nation (see Table 15, below).
Finally, the authors of the report state that "Survey responses indicated that less than 2 percent of all gangs in the United States in 1998 were female dominated." This would not be disturbing were it not for the fact that the total number of gang members now believed to reside in the United States is approximately 800,000. This means that as many as 16,000 young girls may be involved in gang activity in our nation.
For the latest (March 2001) data on female gangs see Female Gangs: A Focus on Research, by Joan Moore and John Hagedorn, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Washington, D.C.
For additional information on how we can help young women please visit this site from Connect for Kids.
