Most examinations of youth gangs have been limited to a single city or a single state. In this article we examine gang affiliation in a multisite survey of 5,935 eighth grade students in 42 schools located in 11 cities across the United States. We use this diverse sample to examine two related issues: the demographic composition of gangs and the level of delinquent activity of gang members compared with nongang members. Our findings call into question the validity of prevailing notions about the number of girls in gangs and their level of delinquency involvement, and the number of white youths active in gangs and the extent of their illegal activities.
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Esbensen et al. (1998) studied this question.