Are today’s gangs different from gangs in the past?
One of the major differences between modern-day gangs and gangs of the past is their greater use of firearms. Modern-day street gangs recruit youths who possess firearms, and gang involvement promotes the use of them (Lizotte et al., 2000; Sheley and Wright, 1995). In a Rochester, New York, study, the rate of gun carrying was about ten times higher for gang members than it was for nongang juvenile offenders (Thornberry et al., 2003). Gang members who owned and/or carried guns also committed about ten times more violent crimes than one would expect from their numbers in the sample population. In the NYGS, jurisdictions experiencing higher levels of gang violence—evidenced by reports of multiple gang-related homicides over survey years—were significantly more likely than those experiencing no gang homicides to report that firearms were “used often” by gang members in assault crimes (47 percent vs. 4 percent of the jurisdictions, respectively) (Egley et al., 2006). The growth of prison ga
