The essay is based on section III: crime partnership, networks, and gangs by Leanne Alarid and Paul Cromwell (2006). Within the study, a comparison is made on the involvement of women in felony by race and ethnicity. The study also included the involvement of women in the burglary activity. The research evaluated three types of groups that were different by race and ethnic female groups, where one was autonomous, and the other two were part of male gangs. The last part of the section covers the findings of female participation in violent gang crimes. To obtain a broader assessment of women’s type of involvement and participation in different crimes is difficult with this reading. The number of subjects is too small, and the groups and the location does not reflect every area of the country. There are differences between women who commit deviant behavior and who belong to deviant networks depending on their race and ethnicity.
The crimes in which they are involved may be differentiated by their membership in an all-female gang or male-female gang. Women’s participation in primary or secondary roles also depends on race and ethnicity as well as the gang they belong to. According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), African-American females tend to be more often members of all-females gangs, they play more primary and equal roles and had more highly developed deviant street networks. Alarid and Cromwell (2016) also mentioned that the offenses that all female organizations conducted are prostitution, selling drugs, burglary and that they carry no weapons. African-American women were less likely to be in partnership with a man who initiated criminal activities. Most of the African-American women considered themselves leaders. Yet, Alarid and Cromwell (2016) stated, that Anglo and Hispanic women were usually members of male-female gangs, who played secondary roles. But that their initiation into deviant behaviors involved hard offenses such as big drug deals, robbery, and burglary.
Alarid and Cromwell (2016) informed that most women had the element of male abuse, most of the women did not know what they were getting into, in their initiation, but drugs and alcohol were involved in all those circumstances. According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), there is a distinction between males’ and female’s aspects and parts that they play in a residential burglary. The difference, according to Alarid and Cromwell (2016) is the early initiation by males while females start their deviant behavior at a later age. In addition, to females having less contact with the judicial system. It is often assumed that criminals execute a variety of crimes, but studies show that offenders specialized in certain crimes. Within a short period criminals can become specialized in burglary, a crime that it is assumed by police that is carried out by males. In residential burglaries, most males would work alone, while females prefer a partner, because they lack the skills needed to be a successful burglar.
The study presented by Alarid and Cromwell (2016), states that addiction to drugs and alcohol were a factor for burglaries and before the crime most females would use drugs or alcohol than men. Women in burglaries can be accomplices or partners when working with other women. But while working with men, they are mostly relegated to limited secondary roles that are assigned by men. Women working as partners play primary roles and exercise more control in the selection of the target, this partnership has developed over time after the female gang gain burglary experience and specialization. According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), the reasoning for the burglaries was lack of employment, drug and alcohol use, and that it was an easy way to make money. The comparison of female gang membership in a female autonomous and male/female gang reflects the differences between race and ethnicity characteristics.
According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), all the female members have a background of abuse which can be from the home or by their boyfriends. The females in their struggle to survive, they escaped the home and found in the gangs a family, a refuge, a source of income that filled their social void. The way the gangs have evolved in their territories, and the control they exercise with a different criminality, create a difference in the way the females are treated, and the parts they play in criminality. The African American autonomous group creates more equality among its members. They have stricter rules for membership and they are street smart. The other two groups have developed some autonomy, but still depend on the males. According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), the Hispanics females were more prone to the father of their child to leave, but that is the same situation for females in the lower social class.
According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), the Hispanic gangsters were more at a financial disadvantage and depended on government aid, when in fact all races and ethnic groups who live in those areas have the same situation, the ones who live in the projects is a reflection of a need that is why the government let them live there. In the study presented by Alarid and Cromwell (2016), females in gangs are involved in crimes that involved drugs, and prostitution. From the explanation presented, the shoplifting takes place because the females’ children have needs that their mothers need to respond to. Females in gangs avoid participation in serious violent crimes and confrontations. The male/female gangs have a male-dominated organization that protects women from harm. According to Alarid and Cromwell (2016), “there is a strong relationship between gang membership and participation in crime and delinquency.” The complexity patterns of crimes related to gang membership mixture and activities.
Females leave the fighting to the young men, but girls may excite the fighting. Girls have a verbal confrontation, and they also have knife fights, but seldom use guns. For these girls the gang membership offers an economic benefit, it is an easy way to make money by selling drug sporadically. Most of these girls experienced violence in their neighborhood even before they joined the gang, but their experience with violence escalated with their involvement in gangs. Women are not necessarily the targets of homicides, and they became victims when they find themselves in big groups. Women victims of homicides are also killed indoors by a stranger contrary to the males who are killed mostly by acquaintances. The percentage of women victims of homicide are small compared to the males and is even smaller for women as perpetrators of homicide. What is surprisingly presented by Alarid and Cromwell (2016), is that women’s homicides have a higher percentage of solving than the ones for males. The information presented by Alarid and Cromwell (2016), portrait the females members of deviant organizations, first as victims of society who are influenced by their socio-economic status and their environment. Then as victims of the social structure of the gangs that they belong to.
In a way the studies blame the family structure of the lower class for their children becoming part of these deviant organizations. And the females gang members blame the lack of opportunities, jobs, and protection of their neighborhoods. The study presented by Alarid and Cromwell (2016), represented part of the actual cause that permit girls joining the gangs. It does not talk about the threat imposed on girls in schools and on the street to join the gangs. Females gang members have been victims who become victimizers. They have become specialized in certain types of crimes on which they always need partnership to be executed. Females play primary and secondary roles depending on the level of acceptance of those roles in their gangs. The females avoid participation in violent crimes and are always protected by their male counterparts. It was interesting to read Alarid and Cromwell (2016) when they mentioned that girls in a gang committed shoplifting to fulfill their children needs. They stole as a necessity, not because they wanted to.
