Ep 451. Being a member of a street gang or motorcycle club can be generational

Little is known about intergenerational continuity in gang membership, including whether or not the cycle of gang membership even exists (Dong, Gibson, & Krohn, 2015). By in large, qualitative research suggests that intergenerational parallelism in gang membership exists, but these studies are limited to locales with long-standing gang problems resulting from migration/immigration (e.g., Los Angeles and Chicago) and utilize respondent reports of past generation participation (Horowitz, 1983; Moore et al., 1978; Vigil, 1988). Unfortunately, reliance upon this type of research as evidence for a cycle of gang membership is potentially problematic from validity and generalizeability standpoints.