Female Gang Subculture

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Female gang members and their criminal subculture is a very interesting issue in the study of the underclass and street-based criminal subcultures, due to the fact that there has been a failure in adequately reporting female gang activity and how they as females contribute to gang activity. Since females also grow up surrounded by the street underclass, there have been cases where they have displayed importance in gangs with their similar upbringing, yet we still do not have a good grasp of all the ways they contribute in the gang criminal subculture.

To address this issue in the current paper, I reviewed the literature on black female gang members in philadelphia for this class. I choose that as an in-class reading summary because
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One of the sources I turned to was the national youth gang center. This organization conducts many surveys that give a researcher a different insight to the involvement of female gang members.The surveys I found are qualitative research that ask females personal questions. These surveys will usually ask the respondents about their own gang involvement and illegal activities. Mostly these surveys are meant to display the difference between gang youth females and non gang youth females. But a downside to self-report surveys is the possibility of deceit in the want to conceal or exaggerate their behavior. Especially if the youth know they are participating in an anonymous survey for the youth gang agency, some may take the self-report lightly and not answer the surveys truthfully. According to the youth gang agency, youth feel that they may need to make themselves look good to other gang members by lying on the surveys. Gangs are what most of the youth grew up around I find it an honor to participate in their activities.

An example of a question asked in a self- report is as follows, “ Have any of your brothers or sisters been in a gang?” Some may ask about gang involvement or incidents. “ Have you ever been beaten by a rival gang member?” There are even questions asking personal issues such as, “ Would you be in a relationship with a rival gang member?” (Knox, 2008)These types of questions help understand about female gang involvement and