David C. Pyrooz

University of Colorado Boulder | CUB · Department of Sociology

This study takes stock of empirical research examining the relationship between gang membership and offending by subjecting this large body of work to a meta-analysis. Multilevel modeling is used to determine the overall mean effect size of this relationship based on 1,649 effect size estimates drawn from 179 empirical studies and 107 independent d...

Gangs present serious challenges to the management and order of prisons. Restrictive housing is viewed by correctional officials as one of the few effective responses to gangs, yet public officials and advocates continue to push for reductions in its use. Some evidence suggests gang affiliates are overrepresented in restrictive housing, although th...

The California Gang Database (CalGang) is the first, largest and arguably most controversial shared gang database in the United States. This study examined its demographic composition and disparities in 103,840 records input by 222 unique law enforcement agencies between 2017 and 2022; the database was 94 per cent male, 66 per cent Hispanic, 23 per...

This study examines how the public views gangs, surveying 1,000 US adults using a vignette of a teenage collective. Through a factorial design, elements crucial to gang definition debates were randomly manipulated: the name of the group, its racial composition, behavior severity, and organizational structure. Findings reveal that a name associated...

Criminologists maintain a vested interest in hard-to-reach populations, such as active offenders, former prisoners, and affiliates of criminal enterprises. For five decades, policymakers and researchers have sought national estimates of gang activity. Traditional methods, such as surveys sampling law enforcement agencies or youth populations, have...

During the last decade, health criminology-the study of health outcomes for justice-involved individuals and their families-has gained traction in the field. We extend health criminology to the study of street gangs by drawing on the stress process perspective. Gang membership is conceptualized as a primary stressor that leads to secondary stressor...

The California Gang Database (CalGang) is the first, largest, and arguably most controversial shared gang database in the United States. This study examined its demographic composition and disparities in 103,840 records input by 222 unique law enforcement agencies between 2017 and 2022; the database was 94% male, 66% Hispanic, 23% Black, 51% 18 to...

Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis,...

The Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society is the premier reference book on gangs for practitioners, policymakers, students, and scholars. This carefully curated volume contains 43 chapters written by the leading experts in the field, who advance a central theme of “looking back, moving forward” by providing state-of-the-art reviews of the literature...

The Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society is the premier reference book on gangs for practitioners, policymakers, students, and scholars. This carefully curated volume contains 43 chapters written by the leading experts in the field, who advance a central theme of “looking back, moving forward” by providing state-of-the-art reviews of the literature...

For more than three decades, developmental and life-course criminology has been a source of theoretical advancement, methodological innovation, and policy and practice guidance, bringing breadth and depth even to well-established areas of study, such as gangs. This review demonstrates how the developmental and life-course perspective on gangs can b...

Background The purpose of this study was to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic changed U.S. prison operations and influenced the daily work of prison staff. Methods In collaboration with the National Institute of Corrections, we administered a survey to 31 state correctional agencies in April 2021 and conducted five focus groups with 62 correctiona...

For more than three decades, developmental and life-course criminology has been a source of theoretical advancement, methodological innovation, and policy and practice guidance, bringing breadth and depth even to well-established areas of study, such as gangs. This review demonstrates how the developmental and life-course perspective on gangs can b...

Between 1990 and 2021, for adult offenders, Colorado punished felony murder with a mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole. Felony murder was classified as a class 1 felony, along with other theories of first-degree murder, such as after-deliberation and extreme indifference murder, as well as first-degree kidnapping, until Governor Jared...

Community violence intervention and prevention initiatives aim to develop local infrastructures that inoculate communities from violence. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to evaluate an intervention designed to facilitate disengagement from gangs and desistance from crime. An impact evaluation, based on a preregistered randomized control...

Background: This study will evaluate Functional Family Therapy-Gangs (FFT-G), an extension of a family-based therapeutic intervention-Functional Family Therapy (FFT)-designed to help troubled youth exhibiting mild to severe behavior problems overcome delinquency, substance abuse, and violence. FFT-G, however, addresses risk factors that are typica...

Many U.S. cities witnessed both de-policing and increased crime in 2020, yet it remains unclear whether the former contributed to the latter. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluate highly focused interventions atypical of day-to-day policing, use cities as the unit of analysis...

Gang and violence intervention programs have become a staple in American cities. These programs often find themselves navigating turbulent political environments, a challenge that can be exacerbated during times of societal upheaval, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study examines how the pandemic impacted the forms and functions of the G...

Between 1990 and 2021, for adult offenders, Colorado punished felony murder with a mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole. Felony murder was classified as a class 1 felony, along with other theories of first-degree murder, such as after-deliberation and extreme indifference murder, as well as first-degree kidnapping, until Governor Jared...

A top priority of prison authorities is maintaining a safe and orderly institutional environment. Gangs are believed to impede this objective, warranting bespoke policies and practices. Drawing on the process-based model of regulation, we depart from orthodox explanations for the gang-misconduct link and argue that gang affiliates are treated less...

A prison gang is a durable group that shares a collective identity, maintains a locus of custodial influence, exhibits collective behavior, and engages in a pattern of illegal activity. Prison gangs proliferated in recent decades for reasons that remain unclear. The classic view of prison gangs—conspiratorial, hierarchical, monolithic, predatory, a...

Gangs are multifaceted and varied, so any attempt to understand them cannot be restricted to a singular approach. On Gangs provides a diverse and comprehensive survey of the available theories for understanding this social issue as well as the broad range of responses to it. The authors look at the many influences on gangs’ operation, growth, preve...

Gang membership is a well-established correlate of criminal offending and violence. This has led scholars to examine the degree to which a variety of risk factors and domains are linked to gang membership, as well as explain the association between gang membership and offending. One such risk factor may be psychopathy. The issue of psychopathology...

Gang research has spanned nearly a century. In that time, we have learned that gang membership increases the chances of involvement in homicide as a victim or offender. The violence that embroils gang life, both instrumental and symbolic, often has consequences. In this paper we review the gang homicide literature covering topics such as definition...

Background Over the past decade there have been numerous and impassioned calls to reform the practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. This article examines the development, implementation, and processes of a restrictive housing reentry program in the Oregon Department of Corrections. It draws on data from official documents, site observati...

Overlooked in the extensive literature on self-control theory are propositions with respect to street gangs. In Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) perspective, gangs are loose confederations of youth with low self-control and their criminological relevance is attributable to “politics and romance” rather than to rigorous empirical research. Prior res...

Scholars often have a vested interest in journal quality and prestige, as publications in "high impact" journals can influence career decisions and outcomes. Yet, two of the most commonly used bibliometrics-the Google Scholar (GS) h5 index and the Web of Sciences five year impact factor (5Y-IF)-sometimes lead to vastly different rankings. In the fi...

Objectives Longitudinal data offer many advantages to criminological research yet suffer from attrition, namely in the form of sample selection bias. Attrition may undermine reaching valid inferences by introducing systematic differences between the retained and attrited samples. We explored (1) if attrition biases correlates of recidivism, (2) the...

Correctional services, both institutional and within the community, are impacted by COVID-19. In the current paper, we focus on the current situation and examine the tensions around how COVID-19 has introduced new challenges while also exacerbating strains on the correctional system. Here, we make recommendations that are directly aimed at how corr...

Snitching refers to conveying inside and potentially incriminating information about others to authorities. In contrast to prior criminological accounts of snitching, which rely on small and purposive samples, we used a probability sample of 802 male prisoners in Texas to study the status, prevalence, acceptability and correlates of snitching. We a...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-020-09404-9

There is considerable speculation that prisons are a breeding ground for radicalization. These concerns take on added significance in the era of mass incarceration in the United States, where 1.5 million people are held in state or federal prisons and around 600,000 people are released from prison annually. Prior research relies primarily on the sp...

Longitudinal data are essential to research in criminology and criminal justice. Despite attrition's implications for validity, understanding its sources is underexplored empirically. We examine the correlates of retention using covariates organized into domains of prediction, prevention, and projection. Data from the LoneStar Project, a three-wave...

There is a paucity of research comparing gang members and domestic extremists and extant studies find few explicit linkages. Despite this, there remains a great deal of interest in possible similarities between these criminal groups. Driving this interest is the possibility of adapting policies and practices aimed at preventing entry into criminal...

Exceptional mortality risk among police-identified young black male gang members ABSTRACT Gang membership is associated with many risky behaviors but is often overlooked as a source of mortality among young Americans. Gang Member-Linked Mortality Files (GM-LMFs) match St. Louis, Missouri gang members listed in a law enforcement gang database to mor...

Objectives: Reentry experiences for the 600,000 people released annually from federal and state prisons differ vastly. We contend that gangs, which rose to prominence alongside mass incarceration, are an overlooked source of variation in reentry experiences. Drawing on precepts from the street gang literature, we test whether patterns of recidivism...

Despite increased attention to the process of disengagement from gangs, there is still much to learn. Recent research has underscored the importance of religious beliefs and practices in the process of disengaging from membership in gangs and desisting from involvement in crime. Using a large sample of prison inmates (N = 802), 301 of whom were for...

The convict code guides behaviors, beliefs, and interactions of incarcerated people by encouraging them to mind their own business, never back down, keep to themselves, and not get too close with correctional officers. Within communities, a similar subculture exists, termed the code of the street, which values respect, toughness, autonomy, and anti...

People confined in jail and prison are especially vulnerable to outbreaks of communicable diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Corrections officials across the country have responded by shifting institutional practices, including suspending visitation and programming, as well as releasing some prisoners early. Missing from leading...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of the second author was spelled incorrectly. The correct name of the second author is “David Pyrooz.”

Criminologists largely rely on national deidentified data sources to study homicide in the United States. The National Death Index (NDI), a comprehensive and well-established database compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, is an untapped source of homicide data that offers identifiable linkages to other data sources while retaining...

Technology has ushered in a new era of intelligence-led and 'big data' policing, and police gang databases are part of this paradigmatic shift. In recent years, however, gang databases have come under intense public scrutiny. For example, Amnesty International and others argue that London's Gangs Matrix is discriminatory and violates data-protectio...

Purpose Serious head injuries, also known as traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), are associated with an increase in aggression and violent tendencies. The current study extends the literature on head injuries by examining whether gang membership is associated with an elevated risk of head injury in prison, and the extent to which this relationship is...

Measurement is critical to advancing theory and research in criminology. Yet, criminologists are often forced to rely on data sources that are not intended to be used for research or collected in contexts where subjects may have incentives to misreport. This is particularly true of data in institutional corrections research. This study leveraged no...

Pyrooz and Decker pull apart the bars on prison gangs to uncover how they compete for control. While there is much speculation about these gangs, there is little solid research. This book draws on interviews with 802 inmates - half of whom were gang members - in two Texas prisons; one of the largest samples of its kind. Using this data, the authors...

In an era of decarceration, social scientists need to understand prisoner reentry experiences. Longitudinal studies are one strategy to accomplish this goal. Yet, the retention of a formerly incarcerated population across waves of interviews is challenging due to their transient lifestyles and limited support systems, which may be further complicat...

Technology has ushered in a new era of intelligence-led and “big data” policing, and police gang databases are part of this paradigmatic shift. In recent years, however, gang databases have come under intense public scrutiny. For example, Amnesty International and others argue that London’s Gangs Matrix is discriminatory and violates data-protectio...

Measurement is critical to advancing theory and research in criminology. Yet, criminologists are often forced to rely on data sources that are not intended to be used for research, or collected in contexts where subjects may have incentives to misreport. This is particularly true of data in institutional corrections research. This study leveraged n...

Extant theoretical work on gang exit has focused more on the pushes and pulls that motivate de- identification, rather than the mechanisms underlying the process of disengagement. How gang members successfully communicate their unobservable “inner change” to outsiders and eventually escape the grip of the gang is unresolved. This article reinterpre...

There are over one million gang members in the United States, but effective practices and programs to facilitate disengagement from gangs are rare. This first aim of this article was to introduce the intervention strategy of the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID), a public agency operating at the core of a network of partners seeking to red...

Gang membership is believed to impede success in the legitimate economic market while simultaneously supporting success in the illegal market. We extend the study of the economic effects of gang membership by using a within‐ and between‐individual analytic design, decomposing gang membership into multiple statuses (i.e., entering a gang, continuous...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.

This article elaborates upon the authors’ 2017 op-ed, “To deal with Antifa, designate it a street gang,” published in The Wall Street Journal. Following recent calls to declare Antifa, a loosely-organized collective of anti-fascists, a domestic terrorist organization, we argue for the categorization of the group as a street gang instead. We advocat...

There is considerable speculation that prison plays a role in radicalization. Many individuals involved in acts of political extremism have spent time in prison, adding credibility to such claims. Despite these assertions, there is little empirical evidence regarding the prison-radicalization link because access to prisons is challenging and there...

This chapter reviews the relationship between gangs, schools, and violence in the United States. The first section examines the scope of the problem by situating gang membership in the life course. The second identifies the extent to which gangs and gang members are present in schools, and the effects of this presence on schools and the consequence...

Prisons have been described as the final frontier for research on gangs and gang members. Criminological research in prisons is rare due to restricted access to facilities, concerns about harsh public scrutiny, and worries about security. There are added challenges for survey research involving prison gang members, as it is believed that gang norms...

The impact of parenthood on leaving a street gang is not well understood. This is likely because researchers in prior studies have not accounted for multiple dimensions of gang exit, possible gender differences, and potential selection bias. In this study, we use a sample of 466 male and 163 female gang members from the National Longitudinal Study...

The origins and escalation of group violence are central to the criminological enterprise. Explanations of collective violence were developed when face-to-face interactions constituted the primary form of social exchange. The Internet and related technologies provide new formats for social interaction and collective behaviors and have become increa...

The purpose of this article is to situate knowledge on the pushes and pulls of disengagement from gangs within the inventory of gang intervention programs. Drawing on developmental and life course criminological theory and three major, multi-site studies on gang disengagement, we examined the self-reported pushes and pulls that led gang members to...

Despite calls for research on the similarities and differences between violent extremist groups and criminal street gangs, there have been few empirical comparisons. We develop a comparative model that emphasizes explicit, spurious, and indirect linkages between the two groups and use national sources of data on domestic extremists and gang members...

Purpose: This study explored whether police departments have engaged in " de-policing " —withdrawal from active police work—in response to unprecedented levels of negative attention, as well as the correlates of changes in police behavior. Methods: Using data from 118 of the 121 police departments serving jurisdictions over 5000 residents in Missou...

Gang members are overrepresented among incarcerated populations in the United States. The link between incarceration and gang membership is beyond dispute, but serious questions do surround the causal mechanisms underlying this relationship. In this study, we develop and test theoretical models-origination, manifestation, and intensification—that f...

This paper uses integrated theory to explain gang fighting. Integrated theory combines elements of social control, social learning, and strain theories. We focus on gang fighting to assess the generality of integrated theory because it constitutes serious violent collective behavior which is linked to other problem behaviors. Few explanations for s...

Objectives Gang members are more likely to be victimized violently than non-gang youth, but the extent to which this relationship is confounded, direct, or mediated remains unclear. This study responds to recent calls by scholars for more methodologically sound research in this area with the goal of uncovering the pathways between gang membership a...