Offending Patterns of Youth Gang Members and Leavers

Using data from the Pathways to Desistence Study, the self-reported offending of a sample of 175 adjudicated youth gang members, with a mean age of 16.02 years at the baseline, were investigated over a period of seven years. A new variable of gang member or leaver was created for each of the ten waves of data after the baseline, and a series of independent samples t-tests were undertaken to investigate self-reported offending frequencies. Gang members reported significantly higher scores for 15 out of 220 offense reports, and 2 out of 10 reports for exposure to violence. Gang leavers scored significantly higher than gang members for 3 out of 220 offense reports; 2 for violent offense categories. All effect sizes for significant tests were found to be very small, suggesting that leaving a gang does not automatically lead to offending desistance.