Gang Identity, Performance, and Conflict Transformation in the Online World

• In Event: Can Society Control Gangs? Social Media and Gang Injunctions

Abstract

Gang scholarship has long recognized that gangs are, at their core, social groups; their members bound together by collective behavior and shared routine activities. As the Internet has become a growing forum for social activity over the last two decades, the routine activities of members of criminal networks, including gangs, have gradually migrated into the virtual realm. Though research has indicated that gang members as a whole maintain an active online presence, utilizing the Internet as much, if not more than their nongang counterparts, much remains to be learned of how, for what purpose, and to what consequence gangs and their members utilize the Internet. We outline preliminary findings of a multi-site survey examining Internet use among gang members in South-Central Los Angeles. Specific areas of inquiry include forms of Internet access, motivations behind online activities, group versus individual online identities, and the transformation of activity between the virtual and offline worlds.

Author

• Jenny West-Fagan, University of California, Irvine