Targeted Outreach - Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention ...

28 Targeted Outreach
Table 11
Change in Reported Gang Membership Over a 12-Month Period
Percentage of youth who: Prevention Intervention
Comparison Target Overall Comparison Target Overall
Join a Gang 8% 5% 7% 13% 12% 13%
Stay in Gang 4% 4% 4% 11% 22% 17%
Stay out of Gang 67% 62% 65% 49% 31% 39%
Leave a Gang 21% 28% 24% 27% 34% 31%
Total Number in Sample 188 204 392 45 58 103
Note: There are no statistically significant differences among groups.
• Less substance use with gang members,
• Fewer number of delinquent behaviors overall,
• Higher valuing of school,
• Spending more time on homework, and
• More positive family relationships.
It is important to point out that increased levels of
participation did not have a negative effect for the
14- to 18-year-olds; rather, there is no effect for more
frequent attendance by the older group on these
measures. What we do not know, however, is whether
a duration of longer than one year in the program
might have a positive effect for older youth on this
set of outcomes as well. The negative behaviors displayed
by older youth may be more entrenched in
their lifestyle and may take longer than one year to
significantly change.
What Were the Effects on Gang
Involvement?
In the analyses discussed above, we examined
whether participants are more or less likely than
comparison youth to join or leave gangs; however, we
found no differences between the two groups in
those rates. We also found no relationship between
how frequently the youth attend the Club and
whether they join or leave a gang, although we did
see differences in reductions of gang behaviors, as
noted above.
The rates of joining and leaving a gang, as well as
remaining in a gang or out of a gang, for GPTTO
and GITTO youth, versus their respective comparison
groups, are illustrated in Table 11. Although we
did not see a difference between participants and
comparison youth on these specific variables, as
noted earlier in this chapter we did find a reduction
in gang and delinquent behaviors that may be important
precursors to youth’s disengaging or dissociating
entirely from their gang peers. This would be consistent
with the goals of two of the intervention Clubs,
where staff and collaborating agencies emphasized
that they do not expect the youth to leave the gang,
which could be dangerous, and because they are
aligned in their neighborhoods with certain gangs
for life. Rather, staff at these Clubs emphasized that
they are striving to instill in youth more positive values
and alternatives to the gang lifestyle.
What Do These Results Tell Us?
The findings reported in this section show the effects
on youth’s lives of one year’s participation in GPTTO
and GITTO. Taken together, these results provide an
indication of the positive effect involvement in
GPTTO and GITTO can have on youth. The findings
are stronger for intervention youth than prevention
youth. Being more effective among youth who
already exhibit problem behaviors, namely gang association
and delinquency, is surprising since youth
programs are typically better at deterring the initiation
of bad behavior than changing an established
pattern. However, the GITTO projects had been in
existence longer and therefore had more time to
develop their programs and intervention strategies;
whereas the GPTTO Clubs were only in their second
year of implementation. Further, it may have helped
that the target youth identified for GITTO fit a more
narrowly defined range of youth and, therefore, the
intervention can take a more focused approach.