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Operationalizing Gang Membership

Abstract Although an extensive amount of research in the last decade has focused on juvenile gangs and the consequences of gang involvement, there has been considerable debate in the literature concerning both the conceptualization and the operationalization of the term gang membership. This research examines the extent to which the operationalization of gang membership impacts prevalence rates of both gang membership and delinquent involvement and whether this varies by gender. The findings suggest that the type of operationalization utilized by the researcher does impact both the prevalence rates of gang membership and delinquent involvement. Further, this impact varies by gender. An unrestricted definition of gang membership compared to more restrictive definitions yields conflicting findings with regard to the impact of gender on gang membership. Whereas the unrestricted measure of gang membership yielded significant gender differences, the more restrictive measure of organized gang membership produced no significant gender differences. The findings indicate the need to further address the issue of operationalization in our empirical studies of gang membership and to be sensitive to the potential impact this may have on gender differences reported by researchers.