Birds of a Feather Fight Together Status-Enhancing Violence, Social Distance and the Emergence of Homogenous Gangs

• Published in: Journal of quantitative criminology Vol. 34; no. 1; pp. 189 - 219
• Main Authors: Gravel, Jason, Allison, Blake, West-Fagan, Jenny, McBride, Michael, Tita, George E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Science + Business Media 01.03.2018; Springer US; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Criminology and Criminal Justice; Game theory; Gangs; Group formation; Law and Criminology; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Nonviolence; ORIGINAL PAPER; Racial groups; Rewards; Social contract; Social distance; Sociology; Statistics; Street gangs; Victimization; Violence; Violent crime; Status; Violence; Group formation; Game theory; Gangs
• ISSN: 0748-4518; 1573-7799
• DOI: 10.1007/s10940-016-9331-8

Objectives This study proposes a theoretical framework for understanding two empirical findings from gang research: (1) gangs are generally racially homogenous, even in heterogeneous environments, and (2) gang violence tends to be intra-racial. We draw from the extensive literature on street gangs as well as from research on group formation and status-enhancing behavior to develop a theoretical model of gang formation. Methods Using game theory, we model the simultaneous decisions of individuals to commit status-enhancing acts of violence and to seek protection by joining a gang. We then conduct computer simulations to examine the resulting patterns of violence and gang composition. Results We demonstrate that as long as some social distance exists between racial groups in a community, gang violence will be intra-racial and gangs will be homogenous. We find that our results are robust to a number of simple variations of the model and allow us to generate several hypotheses about the nature of gang formation and patterns of violence. Conclusions When violence is motivated by socially constructed rewards, socially closer targets are likely to yield greater rewards. In such a system, individuals must reduce their likelihood of victimization by entering a social contract of non-violence (i.e. gang membership) with individuals who might view them as status-enhancing targets (i.e. socially close individuals). The result is that gangs are made up of socially close individuals interested in attacking other socially close individuals. Therefore, gangs tend to be racially homogenous and violence is overwhelmingly intra-racial.