Research has confirmed the link between gangs and violence, but gangs are also involved in nonviolent offending. This “cafeteria-style” offending is found in self-report surveys and qualitative interviews, but less is known about nonviolent gang crimes that come to the attention of the police. This finding could be due to not only an emphasis on understanding gang homicides but also law enforcement practices that fail to identify nonviolent crime as gang activity. To build knowledge on the variety of gang crimes that come to the attention of the police, we examine 741 gang-related incident reports collected over four years from a law enforcement agency in the United States. This study explores the reasons why incidents were attributed to gangs and compares the characteristics of violent, drug, and nonviolent gang-related incidents.
The College of Arts