Quincy (Qinsi) Zhou is a senior at Michigan State University studying Criminal Justice with a minor in Peace and Justice Studies. Quincy partnered with Drs. Chris Melde and Steven Chermak (Professors in the School of Criminal Justice) on this University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum research project.
For my UURAF project, I partnered with Dr. Chris Melde and Dr. Steven Chermak on the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) Follow-up study. My goal was to examine the impact of gang membership and having delinquent peers on early adulthood criminal offenses. Our findings would suggest whether further investment and development of early intervention programs was warranted.
My study utilized data obtained from the G.R.E.A.T. Follow-Up Study. The baseline measurements used were collected between 2006 and 2011, when the original G.R.E.A.T. Program ran. Roughly 4,000 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 14, from seven cities across the United States, participated in the program. Among the students surveyed during the original G.R.E.A.T. program, 13.4% self-reported to be a gang member, and 23.6% self-reported to have delinquent peers but no gang membership.
The data collected through the G.R.E.A.T. Follow-Up Study has shown that youths who self-reported gang membership were more likely to commit crimes in early adulthood compared to individuals who reported having delinquent peers but not being a member of a gang. Both categories of youths were more likely to commit crimes as young adults compared to individuals who were not exposed to either adolescent risk factor.
We used a logistic regression model to eliminate the impact that sex, race/ethnicity, and age may have on the data. It was very clear that gang membership and having delinquent peers increased the chance of an individual committing crimes in young adulthood. For example, youths who reported gang membership were approximately 200% more likely to have committed a violent crime in young adulthood compared to youths who were not members of gangs. Youths who reported having delinquent peers were roughly 100% more likely to commit a violent crime in young adulthood compared to their peers who did not report having delinquent friends.
We concluded that the impact of these two adolescent risk factors (youth gang involvement and having delinquent peers) is significant. Therefore, early intervention programs such as therapy, home visits, and other juvenile-related assistance efforts should be further invested in and developed to lower the likelihood of potential future criminal conduct of youths.