Getting Out and Integrating In: Examining Desistance Among Gang-Involved Youth in the Criminal Justice System

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

The preponderance of youth gang research has focused on onset and continuity, with desistance being an understudied phenomenon. Further, in Canada there is a paucity of research on youth gangs in institutional and/or community supervision settings, possibly because of the numerous strategic and operational challenges of conducting research with youth in the criminal justice system.

To address these gaps, an exploratory qualitative study of youth gangs in Ottawa, Canada was conducted with the support of the Youth Services Bureau; the local agency responsible for administering youth justice services. Through in-depth interviews and focus groups with youth justice staff, community youth service providers and justice-involved youth, the goals were to gain a better understanding of experiences of gang involvement, motives and methods for leaving the gang, and to examine how institutional and community interventions may impact the process of desistance.

This poster presentation will provide a detailed overview of the research methodology, including the author’s epistemological engagement, research questions, data sources, data collection activities and sampling procedures employed in order to achieve the abovementioned goals. The major findings of this first phase of the project will be summarized and the research questions for the following phase will be identified.

Author

• Laura Dunbar, University of Ottawa