Is female gang involvement increasing?
In the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (see FAQ No. 10), male versus female differences in the proportion who joined gangs was not as large as previous research had suggested. The male-to-female ratio in this national sample was approximately 2:1 (11 percent of males versus 6 percent of females) (Snyder and Sickmund, 2006, p. 70). Also, in a 15-city purposive sample, almost equal proportions of boys (8.8 percent) and girls (7.8 percent) self-reported gang membership (Esbensen et al., 2008). By comparison, while law enforcement agencies report widespread documentation of gangs with female members (National Youth Gang Center, 2009, see Gangs With Female Members), proportionally few of the gang members documented by law enforcement are female (National Youth Gang Center, 2009, see Gender of Gang Members). Concerns of gang membership among girls have received increased scholarly attention (Moore and Hagedorn, 2001). During early adolescence, roughly one-third of all gang members
