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Gang Youth and Friendship Networks in California Correctional Facilities: Examining Friendship Structure and Composition for Incarcerated Gang and Non-Gang Youth

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Gang Transitions and Transformations in an International Context

Abstract

This chapter examines the potential differences across egocentric friendship networks of gang and non-gang youth incarcerated in California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). This study is a first step in beginning to understand the relationship between peers and institutional misconduct for gang-involved youth since it asks whether or not gang and non-gang youth build different types of friendship groups while incarcerated. These differences highlight the potential for intervention and programming that targets peer group dynamics that may vary between gang and non-gang youth.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Interestingly, prison officials often refer to gangs as “security threat groups.” We retain the term “gang” as most appropriate for bridging the literature relevant to our work.

  2. 2.

    DJJ was previously called the California Youth Authority or CYA .

  3. 3.

    Southerners, Northerners, Bulldogs, Crips, Bays/415, Bloods, Asians and Peckerwoods are the institutional gangs identified by DJJ.

  4. 4.

    DJJ can hold youth past their 18th birthday, so the population is not limited to 18 and under.

  5. 5.

    See Maxson et al. (2012), for a more thorough description of the official designation practice.

  6. 6.

    See Goodman (2008), for a study of the racialized sorting process in adult prison reception centers in California.

  7. 7.

    These were primarily for assault and robbery but 11 % of the sample was convicted of murder.

  8. 8.

    While the pictures show some friend’s friend connections, these were removed for final analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

    Shannon E. Reid

  2. Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Cheryl L. Maxson

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Correspondence to Shannon E. Reid .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology, Law, and Soc., University of California, Irvine, California, USA

    Cheryl L. Maxson

  2. Department of Criminology and Crim Jus, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Finn-Aage Esbensen

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Reid, S.E., Maxson, C.L. (2016). Gang Youth and Friendship Networks in California Correctional Facilities: Examining Friendship Structure and Composition for Incarcerated Gang and Non-Gang Youth. In: Maxson, C., Esbensen, FA. (eds) Gang Transitions and Transformations in an International Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29602-9_6

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