Disaggregating gang activity: an exploratory study of the socio-demographic context of gang activity

This paper examines the social ecology of gang activity in Fort Worth, Texas, a community with decades-long and recent growth in Latino immigrant populations. Focusing on the contextual correlates of police-defined gang incidents, the paper explores the relationship between traditional social ecological measures of concentrated disadvantage, residential stability, Latino immigration and racial composition and police-defined gang crime activity in Fort Worth communities. To better understand the social ecological dynamics that correlate with gang activity, the analysis uniquely disaggregates gang activity using 1) the police department’s gang-related classification system and, 2) four categories of gang crime behaviors within police classifications. Overall, the findings reveal that traditional social ecological indicators are significantly related to gang activity; however, the relationship collapses with disaggregation by gang-involved and gang-related crime behaviors and the four disaggregated crime classifications. Implications for research, theory, and policy are discussed.