Gang Influence: Mediating the Gang–Delinquency Relationship With Proactive Criminal Thinking

Controlling for basic demographic variables, parental knowledge, prosocial peer associations, and precursor measures of each outcome, the current study sought to compare two putative intervening mechanisms for the gang affiliation–participant delinquency relationship: a social learning mechanism (proactive criminal thinking) and a self-control mechanism (reactive criminal thinking). The two mechanisms were explored in 3,136 (1,519 male, 1,612 female) early adolescents (mean age = 12.14 years) from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) study. A three-wave path analysis of Waves 1 to 3 of the G.R.E.A.T. study revealed a significant social learning pathway (gang affiliation → proactive criminal thinking → delinquency) and a nonsignificant self-control pathway (gang affiliation → reactive criminal thinking → delinquency). These findings were then replicated using data from Waves 4 to 6. From these results, it is concluded that gang affiliation may increase future delinquency by providing youth with increased opportunities to learn proactive criminal thinking.