In the '60s and '70s, people didn't pay a lot of attention to gangs. I think gangs still existed, but gangs had fallen out of criminological favor.

In the '60s and '70s, people didn't pay a lot of attention to gangs. I think gangs still existed, but gangs had fallen out of criminological favor.

The girls go to the gang in order to get protection from victimization that's occurring in their lives. And also it's a place to be, because they're often rejected from and rejecting their families.

The most dangerous kind of girl involvement with gangs is one where the girls are just sort of hanging around the gang boys or even being part of the male gang.

One of the differences between boy gangs and girl gangs is for girls it's much more relational and much less violent.

Girls often feel very powerless in their lives and their families, and they kind of mimic the male violence as a way to try and get some of that male power that they see lacking in their own lives.

When some of the gangs got involved with the drug trade, particularlythe crack cocaine trade, and the lethal violence started to flare up in the '80s, then there was a great deal of public attention on gangs and a great deal of concern about what was going on in these social groups.