Does the Public Support Anti-Gang Policies and Practices and Can Opinions be Swayed? Experimental Evidence from a National Survey of Americans

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Does the Public Support Anti-Gang Policies and Practices and Can Opinions be Swayed?
Experimental Evidence from a National Survey of Americans
David C. Pyrooz,1 James A. Densley,2 and Jose Antonio Sanchez3
1 Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder
2 School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University
3 Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Texas Christian University
Keywords: Gangs; Public Opinion; Criminal Justice; Police; Courts; Corrections
Correspondence:
David C. Pyrooz, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder
483 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
303-492-3241
David.Pyrooz@colorado.edu
ORCid: 0000-0001-6915-3812
Funding Information: Funding to support this research was provided by the Institute of
Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder as part of their 2023 Research
Development Award cycle. The content of this article and subsequent interpretations are solely
those of the authors.
* This is the authors’ pre-print copy of an article published in the Journal of Criminal Justice.
Please consult the published version here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2024.102265

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Does the Public Support Anti-Gang Policies and Practices and Can Opinions be Swayed?
Experimental Evidence from a National Survey of Americans
Abstract
Purpose: For the last five decades, gangs have been a criminal justice priority, commanding the
attention of police, courts, and corrections. Legislative bodies and local, state, and federal
agencies have adapted or engineered policies and practices to combat the influence of gangs.
While these efforts have been subject to inquiry by researchers and media, they have largely
been uninformed by public opinion.
Methods: We surveyed 1,000 adults in the United States to understand public support for five
common yet controversial responses to gangs spearheaded by the criminal justice system.
Results: There was a widespread consensus of support for police gang databases, civil gang
injunctions, Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO), and sentencing
enhancements, but not solitary confinement. Respondents were not swayed by the experimental
presentation of evidence of racial disparities in gang databases or the psychological impacts of
solitary confinement; support for civil gang injunctions fell when learning of potential
constitutional violations but not violence reduction; support for RICO fell when learning of the
organizational structure of street gangs and the potential for guilt-by-association; and sentencing
enhancements were no longer supported upon learning the financial cost.
Conclusions: Public opinion maintains a significant role in criminal justice policy and practice
on gangs that criminologists should subject to research and evaluation. This research underscores
the importance of evidence-based policy formulation and the need for ongoing dialogue between
the public, researchers, and policymakers to address challenges as complex and inexorable as
gangs and gang violence in communities.

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Before the 1970s, the burden of responsibility to address gangs was in the community
and social work domain (Bookin‐Weiner & Horowitz, 1983; Decker et al., 2022; Hureau et al.,
2023; Rosen & Venkatesh, 2007; Spergel, 1995). Most responses to gangs involved community
mobilization, organization, and street outreach, from the Group Guidance Project and Ladino
Hills Project in Los Angeles (Klein, 1971) to the Midcity Project in Boston (Miller, 1962) and
the Chicago Youth Development Project (Gold & Mattick, 1974) to Mobilization for Youth in
New York City (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960). Even a cursory read of the classic literature on gangs
would reveal how rare it was for the criminal justice system—police, courts, and corrections—to
be the subject of research and evaluation. That changed with the “social problems” turn that
began in the 1960s (Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2015). The link between violence, firearms, drug sales,
and gangs appeared to strengthen (Howell & Decker, 1999; Miller, 1975), and with
macrostructural demographic, economic, political, and social shifts (Coughlin & Venkatesh,
2003; Moore, 1991; Pyrooz et al., 2024), including the rise of tough-on-crime policy (Beckett &
Sasson, 2003; Feld, 2019), gangs became a criminal justice priority.
For five decades, gangs have commanded the attention of police, courts, and corrections.
Legislative bodies and local, state, and federal agencies have adapted or engineered laws,
policies, and practices to combat the influence of gangs. The list of criminal justice responses to
gangs is extensive (Gravel et al., 2013; Klein & Maxson, 2006), and examples abound. Law
enforcement uses specialized gang units to gather intelligence on gangs, document gang
members, investigate gang crimes, and suppress gang activity (Katz & Webb, 2006). Prosecutors
draw on legislation permitting sentencing enhancements for crimes with a gang nexus to secure
plea agreements and lengthen prison sentences (Yoshino, 2008). Corrections agencies commonly
place gang affiliates in restrictive housing to curtail their influence on the social order of prisons

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(Toch, 2007). Many of these responses to gangs have been the subject of research and
evaluation, as well as criticism from academics, advocates, and journalists, which in turn has
brought about criminal justice reform (see Decker et al., 2022).
Missing from the discussion about criminal justice system responses to gangs is the
opinion of a core constituency: the public. This is curious because taxpayer monies fund local,
state, and federal criminal justice agencies, creating a fiduciary responsibility to the public.
Agency leaders are elected or appointed public officials, creating a civic responsibility to the
public. The public also bears the challenges presented by gangs as well as any burdens of the
criminal justice response, creating a feedback loop. In a democratic society, public opinion is
critical in understanding what issues matter and what solutions to those issues are palatable
(Pickett, 2019; Roberts & Stalans, 2018), shaping everything from resource allocation to the
types of crime prevention and enforcement strategies, including gangs.
Does the public support prominent criminal justice responses to gangs? And can public
opinion be swayed? This study is the first to poll the public to gather opinions about responses to
gangs. We did this by surveying 1,000 people living in the United States in September 2023
about five prominent responses to gangs—spanning police to courts to corrections—that have
attracted controversy. Respondents were queried about their support for police gang databases,
civil gang injunctions, criminal enterprise prosecution, gang sentencing enhancements, and
solitary confinement. These queries were also experimentally manipulated to include behavioral,
economic, legal, psychological, and sociological arguments and evidence to determine if public
opinion was swayed. While public opinion is not the sole determinant of decision-making about
responding to gangs, it ought to factor into the debate about criminal justice policy and practice.
After all, shifts in public sentiment towards issues such as climate change, same-sex marriage,

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gun violence, the death penalty, and cannabis legalization, to name a few, have influenced
legislative changes in jurisdictions worldwide. While under-researched in criminology, public
opinion acts as both a directive and a check on policymakers, shaping law enforcement and
legislative actions generally, and as we contend, specifically, in response to gangs.
Responding to Gangs
Miller (1975, 1982), Klein (1995), Spergel and Curry (1993), and others documented the
proliferation of gangs in the United States. They estimated that by 1960, gangs were present in
54 cities, primarily the urban core of large metropolitan areas. By 1980, this number tripled to
172, and by 1992, it ballooned to 766 cities. The most recent (2012) results of the National
Youth Gang Survey revealed that the vast majority of cities with over 50,000 residents and about
half of suburban counties reported gang problems in their jurisdictions, extending across all 50
states (National Gang Center, n.d.). The proliferation of gangs, Klein and Maxson (2006, p. 20)
contended, “has changed important aspects of our society and seldom in desirable ways.” They
pointed to the loss of life efficacy for people involved in gangs as well as the impact of gangs on
community life. Criminologists have expended considerable effort in documenting the
prevalence of gang activity and determining its consequences for people and communities. The
result is an extensive profile of qualitative and quantitative evidence that tends to align with
Klein and Maxson’s position (for a review, see Decker et al., 2022).
Klein and Maxson (2006) also emphasized an impact rarely explicitly considered by
criminologists: the organizational mandate to respond to gangs. Youth services agencies needed
to adjust their models to accommodate (or exclude) gang populations (e.g., Curry & Decker,
2002; Thornberry et al., 2018). Local, state, and federal government agencies had to accept the
reality that gangs existed in their jurisdictions, devise strategies of action, and divert resources

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from other pressing matters (Decker & Curry, 2000; Huff, 1989). Police, courts, and corrections
officials similarly had to adjust policy and practice, creating specialized responses in reaction to
the perceived novelty of the problems their agencies were facing (Crouch & Marquart, 1989;
Dahmann, 1982; Katz, 2001).
With the prioritization of gangs by criminal justice agencies came laws, policies, and
practices devised to combat their influence.1 The list is far too extensive to review every
response in the domain of police, courts, and corrections. We focus on five prominent responses
because they have been used widely, evaluated, and/or have attracted controversy. In the current
study, these responses were polled to assess public opinion. The following sections provide an
overview of the responses, including their prevalence, operations, evidence, and controversy, the
latter guiding our experimental manipulation of vignettes.
Gang Intelligence Databases
Law enforcement agencies use databases to collect, store, manage, and analyze
information on people and groups involved in gang-related activities (Densley & Pyrooz, 2020;
Huff & Barrows, 2015). They contain information on names, aliases, demographics, residences,
criminal histories, alliances and rivalries, and other elements (Brown, 2008). Eleven states and
the federal government regulate their use, which can be shared statewide, across regions or task
forces, or limited to local jurisdictions (Decker et al., 2022). Gang databases are common in law
enforcement agencies. A 1992 survey of 149 police departments serving populations exceeding
1 This is not to say that non-criminal justice responses to gangs ceased to exist, to be sure. The comprehensive gang
model, for example, involves opportunity and service provision interventions along with suppression (Gebo et al.,
2015). Other approaches entail public health responses that exclude criminal justice entirely, such as hospital-based
intervention and cognitive behavioral or family therapy (Jannetta et al., 2024). The gang response pyramid, which
moves from general prevention at the bottom to targeted suppression at the top, is a common way to locate strategies
(Decker et al., 2022), though others have introduced community health and community safety as a means to
differentiate criminal justice versus non-criminal justice responses (Kearley et al., 2023). Our interests are with
criminal justice responses, partly because of how gangs have been prioritized across components of the system, but
also because of the obligation of government to respond to the interests of citizens.

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250,000 residents showed that 66% used a computerized system to record gang intelligence
(Johnson et al., 1995). A 2007 survey of 365 gang units in police departments and sheriff’s
offices with over 100 sworn officers revealed that 91% maintained a computerized system to
track individual gang members (Langton, 2010). As California’s Department of Justice
(https://oag.ca.gov/calgang) explained, gang databases are designed to provide “law enforcement
investigators with useful intelligence to solve crime and protect the public.”
Critics, however, dispute such claims (e.g., Jacobs, 2009). There are a range of issues
raised about gang databases: freedom of association and free speech criticisms owing to vague or
inconsistent entry criteria; due process criticisms because there is little or no recourse to
challenge entry; privacy rights criticisms because retention periods outlast gang membership;
and equal protection issues owing to any profiling, harassment, or discrimination that results
from placement; and the evidence that databases enhance public safety are sparse (for a review,
see: Densley & Pyrooz, 2020). Argualy the most significant concern, experimentally
manipulated in this study, is racial/ethnic disparities in the data, which often are dramatic enough
to infer biased policing practices. A recent examination of the 153 local law enforcement
agencies in California, for instance, found that Black and Hispanic males were 33 and 11 times
more likely than White males to be listed as gang members, respectively, even after accounting
for age differences in the population (Pyrooz & Densley, 2024). These disparities have deep
roots (Decker et al., 2022), but the fact they exist at all has moved governments to act decisively.
For example, the overrepresentation of Black and Hispanic males led Portland, Oregon to shut
down its 20-year-old database in 2017 (Brosseau, 2016), and Chicago, Illinois, did the same in
2023 (Tye, 2023). Critics contend that gang databases are yet another form of colorblind racism
(Trujillo & Vitale, 2019) and thus should be abolished. Does the public agree?

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Civil Gang Injunctions
Injunctions rely on civil rather than criminal remedies to target gangs. Police and
prosecutors collaborate to gather evidence that establishes a gang as a public nuisance, which in
turn leads to the enjoining of named gang members who are prohibited from a wide range of
criminal and noncriminal activities in a geographically delimited area, termed a “safety zone”
(Maxson et al., 2005; O’Deane, 2011). Violating the court order can result in being held in
contempt of court, a misdemeanor resulting in jail time and/or monetary fines. Civil gang
injunctions originated in California in the early 1980s and grew in popularity throughout the
1990s and 2000s; O’Deane (2011, p. 316) documented over 150 injunctions in California.
Civil gang injunctions have attracted legal and scientific scrutiny. There is persuasive
evidence that they reduce crime and violence without displacing it to outlying areas (Ridgeway
et al., 2018). However, critics argue gang injunctions are an extension of an apartheid-like
system of justice that maintains “racial boundaries” and limits the life opportunities of already
marginalized people (Muniz, 2014; Santos & Bickel, 2017). Others claim injunctions are too
expensive for taxpayers and redundant to existing legal remedies (Garcia-Leys & Engel, 2024;
see also Grogger, 2005). Concerns about due process and civil liberties have further raised the ire
of legal scholars, bringing about litigation across municipalities and counties because
constitutionally protected activities (e.g., freedom of association) are prohibited, enjoined
individuals have no right to counsel and little recourse to contest being enjoined, while being
subject to a lower standard of guilt (Bloch & Meyer, 2019; Crawford, 2009; Werdegar, 1999).
Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
RICO, and related federal criminal enterprise laws such as Continuing Criminal
Enterprise and Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering, were designed to target criminal

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organizations that engage in a pattern of criminal activity over time. The federal government can
secure a conspiracy conviction—20 years of imprisonment—by proving the enterprise exists, it
affected interstate commerce, a defendant was associated with the enterprise and participated in
its conduct as evidenced by two predicate acts in the last decade. It is hard to fully enumerate the
federal government’s use of RICO in terms of charges or convictions. Johnson et al.’s (1995)
survey indicated that 17% of large-county prosecutors have used RICO for gang prosecutions.
Woods (2011) identified 160 prosecutions brought against 115 gangs. The U.S. Department of
Justice’s Violent Crime and Racketeering Section oversees approval of such charges, and while
they do not make their deliberations public, a cursory scan of their press releases indicates
widespread application to gangs (https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-vcrs/violent-crime-
and-racketeering-section-vicar-press-room).
RICO was enacted in 1970 to target organized crime by drawing on enterprise theory
(Wheatley, 2008). Complex organizations that run afoul of the law require alternative remedies
to combat their behavior (Astvasadoorian, 1998; Blakey & Gettings, 1980). Legal scholars,
however, have raised concerns about the application of RICO to street gangs in part because,
contrary to popular belief, they are not complex organizations (e.g., Decker et al., 1998) and
typically lack economic interests consistent with the interstate commerce clause on which RICO
was based (see Blumenstein, 2009; Litt, 2021). Moreover, gangs, as social networks with kinship
and relational ties based on family, neighborhood, and race/ethnicity (Papachristos et al., 2024),
are highly susceptible to guilt-by-association (Howell & Bustamante, 2019; Morselli &
Kazemian, 2004), including people who have left the gang (Harper, 2015).
Criminal Sentencing Enhancements
Sentencing enhancements extend terms of imprisonment for criminal convictions based

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on the conduct or status of the offender, such as bias-motivated crimes, firearm usage in the
commission of a crime, or career offender statutes. Thirty-two states and the federal government
maintain statutes to enhance penalties for crimes with a gang nexus (Decker et al., 2022).
California, the first state to enact gang enhancements, defined a crime with a gang nexus to be
“for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with any criminal street gang” with the
“specific intent to promote, further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members”
(California Penal Code Section 186.22 (b)). Doing so could result in five additional years of
imprisonment for a serious felony and 10 additional years for a violent felony. It is unclear how
frequently gang enhancements are used by states or the federal government.
The purpose of sentencing enhancements is to deter crime and incapacitate offenders who
violate laws that legislative bodies prioritize (Yoshino, 2008; Zatz & Krecker Jr., 2003).
California, for example, declared it was in a “state of crisis” when enacting the Street Terrorism
Enforcement and Prevention (STEP) Act in 1988, the nation’s first anti-gang legislation, which
included sentencing enhancements. Nationwide, including in California, however, the appetite
for large correctional populations has attenuated (Clear, 2021; Eren, 2023). Sentencing
enhancements and related laws that lengthen imprisonment stand in the way of decarceration
(Tonry, 2017). For example, a study of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office revealed that
gang enhancements accounted for four percent of all enhancement time served, about 180
additional years of incarceration in the small sample Dagenais and colleagues (2019) analyzed.
Owing to the direct expenses associated with housing, feeding, and providing healthcare for
prisoners, keeping individuals incarcerated for longer periods represents a significant financial
burden on the criminal justice system and, by extension, taxpayers. The daily operational costs of
prisons, including staffing, security, maintenance, and the provision of basic needs and services

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for inmates, are substantial; it costs $106,000 to imprison someone for one year in California
(https://www.lao.ca.gov/PolicyAreas/CJ/6_cj_inmatecost), such that the wholesale elimination of
gang enhancements for a small sample of cases in San Francisco equated to $19 million in
savings. Is the public willing to support sentencing enhancements for gang crimes?
Solitary Confinement
Isolating incarcerated people for 22 or more hours per day with limited or negligible
physical or social interaction is referred to as solitary confinement (Garcia, 2016). This practice
has a long history in the field of corrections (Rubin & Reiter, 2018), though with the rise of mass
incarceration and the creation of supermax facilities, it became a fixture in contemporary prisons
(Pizarro & Stenius, 2004). The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that about four percent of
federal and state prisoners were held in restrictive housing on any given day and that 20 percent
spent at least one night in restrictive housing in the last 12 months (Beck, 2015). Prisoners end
up in restrictive housing for disciplinary, protective, or administrative reasons; gang affiliates are
overrepresented in solitary confinement by a factor of three because they disproportionately
check off each of these boxes (Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2020).
Correctional officials have endorsed solitary confinement as one of the few effective
means to control gangs in prison (Mears, 2005; Winterdyk & Ruddell, 2010), which has even
been described as a “silver bullet” (Vigil, 2006, p. 33). Although most states have rolled back the
practice, including California in response to hunger strikes and a class-action lawsuit (Reiter,
2016), gang affiliates were commonly placed in solitary confinement for administrative purposes
(Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2020). The practice remains controversial because it is predicated on status
rather than behavior or need and, upon placement for administrative reasons, there are few
options to return to the general population—“snitch, parole, or die” (Toch, 2007). The most

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fervent opposition to solitary confinement, including statements from public figures (e.g.,
President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy), is undergirded by research
on its adverse impacts on mental and physical health (Haney, 2018; Morgan et al., 2016),
including mood, psychotic, and hostility symptoms and self-harm, and mortality.
Public Opinion, Criminal Justice Policy and Practice, and Gangs
Public opinion plays a pivotal role in shaping criminal justice policies and practices
(Pickett, 2019; Roberts & Stalans, 2018), including in response to gang-related activities (Klein
& Maxson, 2006). In democratic societies, policymakers are influenced by the electorate’s views,
which can drive significant changes in policy, law, and resource allocation (Burstein, 2003).
Research has shown that public attitudes towards crime and offenders can significantly impact
penal policies (e.g., Duxbury, 2021; Enns, 2016) , and this is especially relevant in the context of
gang responses, where public perceptions influence the adoption of practices like sentencing
enhancements, gang injunctions, and intelligence databases.
The power of public opinion is perhaps best illustrated by laws named after crime victims
that target specific offenses the public perceives as particularly egregious.2 High-profile cases
involving gang violence have similarly shaped public sentiment, leading to targeted legislation.
For example, laws like California’s STEP Act, aimed at combating gang crime, and the 1994
Federal Crime Bill, which included a separate title on “Criminal Street Gangs,” reflect public
demand for stringent measures against gangs (Decker et al., 2022). While the influence of media
portrayals of gangs can amplify public fear and demand for tough-on-crime approaches
2 For example, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act,
named for Jacob Wetterling, a Minnesota eleven-year-old who was abducted by a stranger in 1989, and Megan’s
Law, enacted in 1996 after the murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka, which requires law enforcement to disclose
information about registered sex offenders to the public (Kappeler & Potter, 2018). These laws, born out of public
reactions to high-profile cases, demonstrate how public sentiment can galvanize legislative action.

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(Hagedorn, 2022; McCorkle & Miethe, 1998), heightened public concern about gang activity has
also led to increased funding for “community violence intervention and prevention” initiatives,
such as the Comprehensive Gang Model and street outreach and violence interrupters (Hureau et
al., 2023; The White House, 2021).
The public’s ability to directly shape criminal justice policy and practice is further
evidenced in states with initiative processes that allow for proposed laws or amendments to be
placed on the ballot if enough voters sign a petition. California’s Proposition 21, the “Gang
Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act of 1998,” which passed in 2000 with 62% of the
vote, is one example of direct public influence. The law authorized wiretapping of gang
activities, created a new crime of recruiting for gang activities, increased penalties for gang-
related crimes, and instituted the death penalty for gang-related murder. Cullen, Fisher, and
Applegate (2000) observed that the American public appears to accept, and in some cases prefer,
a variety of punitive policies, such as capital punishment, three-strikes laws, and imprisonment.
However, support for these “get tough” policies is not entirely firm; the public has a dual
tendency toward punitiveness and progressiveness (Cullen et al., 2000). Hence, public opinion
on crime can evolve, leading to policy revisions, as seen with the amendment of California’s
“Three Strikes” law, which mandated life sentences for offenders convicted of three felonies
based on public support (Bird et al., 2022), as well as recent developments with the STEP Act.
The sway of public opinion can pose challenges for policymakers. Populist demands may
overshadow evidence-based approaches to gangs (Papachristos, 2011), for instance, creating
tension between punitive and rehabilitative strategies (Logan & Gaes, 1993). Evidence suggests
that information intended to persuade for or against a policy causes people to update their
positions accordingly (for a review, see Coppock, 2023). In his concurrence in Furman v.

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Georgia (1972), Justice Thurgood Marshall famously posited that increased awareness about the
death penalty tends to foster opposition to it, except when support is grounded in retributive
beliefs. In empirical studies, scientific research has influenced public perceptions on various
criminal justice matters, including the “Marshall hypothesis” on support for the death penalty
(e.g., Bohm & Vogel, 2004; Cochran & Chamlin, 2005), but also punitive attitudes (Indermaur et
al., 2012), the perceived effectiveness of the police and criminal justice system (Boehme et al.,
2023), and crime prevention strategies (Pickett et al., 2022).
Deeply ingrained and politically charged beliefs tend to be more resistant to change
(Boehem, et al., 2023). For this reason, understanding the correlates of public opinion, such as
demographics (e.g., age, gender, and race) and economic, political, and social (e.g., religiosity,
party affiliation) factors, is crucial. There is support that men generally hold more punitive
attitudes than women (Applegate et al., 2002; Gault & Sabini, 2000). Research has found that
while generational differences in public support for correctional policies are small, Millennials
(born between 1981 and 1996) are only modestly punitive and largely support progressive
policies (Lee et al., 2022). Racial and ethnic perceptions can also shape attitudes, while
communities that have experienced gang violence firsthand may strongly support aggressive
policing measures (Carr et al., 2007; Chiricos et al., 2004). Studies have further shown that
conservative ideation is a predictor of support for more punitive approaches (Baker et al., 2015;
D. Johnson, 2009; Payne et al., 2004), which in turn may encourage conservative-dominant
legislatures to enact more punitive policies (Jacobs & Helms, 1996; Stucky et al., 2007).
The Current Study
Intelligence databases, civil injunctions, criminal enterprise laws, criminal sentencing
enhancements, and solitary confinement are five common, and controversial, criminal justice

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responses to gangs. They do not emerge and exist in a vacuum. Instead, these approaches reflect
broader societal attitudes, fears, and demands for safety and order. Understanding public opinion
about such measures is crucial because constituent support or opposition can significantly
influence policy decisions and the adoption, modification, or abandonment of specific criminal
justice practices (Pickett, 2019). Gauging public sentiment is essential for developing policies
that are not only effective but also socially acceptable and supported. Understanding the
demographic correlates of public opinion on criminal justice responses, moreover, can inform
targeted communication and educational efforts to address misconceptions and promote
informed dialogue about the complexities of responding to gangs.
This study focuses on a national sample of Americans. We recognize that some criminal
justice responses to gangs are localized while others operate at the state or federal level. We
consider this part of a broader endeavor to understand public opinion, returning to the
implications of these choices in the discussion section. The experimental design of the current
study not only explores public support for criminal justice responses but also whether opinions
can be swayed by scientific evidence and information. Both subjects are practically important
because effective gang responses often require community engagement, cooperation, and
collaboration between criminal justice agencies and the public (Decker, et al., 2022). Public
support for these initiatives can enhance their legitimacy, facilitate the pooling of resources, and
improve the likelihood of sustainable success (Abt, 2019; Kennedy, 2011).
Methodology
Data
We examine public opinion on responses to gangs using data collected by YouGov, a
well-known market research and data analytics firm. YouGov is regularly used in academic

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disciplines and fields, particularly in political science, to gain insight into public sentiment and
political opinion. Online survey research designs are increasingly used in scholarship concerning
public opinion on criminal justice topics, such as policing, corrections, and punishment (see, e.g.,
Shi & Roche, 2024, for an overview). YouGov is especially valuable as an alternative to phone-
or housing-based sampling where questions concerning gangs and gang-related issues are
unlikely to be included owing to cost and/or prioritization.
YouGov uses multistage matched design sampling by: (1) enumerating the target
population through a synthetic sampling frame based on the American Community Survey, (2)
generating a target sample by random sampling within various demographic and political
stratifications, (3) selecting a matched sample from a large pool of online opt-in panelists based
on characteristics such as age, education, gender, and race/ethnicity, and (4) weighting the
matched sample to the sampling frame to adjust for imperfect matching. YouGov’s sampling
methodology has been shown to yield generalizable relational inferences that approximate
findings from high-quality probability samples based on housing units such as the General Social
Survey (Graham et al., 2021), thus distinguishing their methodology from alternative web-based
approaches (e.g., crowdsourcing).
We contracted with YouGov to field a customized survey on social groups and public
opinion for 1,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60.3 Individuals who opt-in to
YouGov’s panel are sent a brief email with an invitation to participate in a survey. The email
indicates the “points” a respondent would receive for completing the survey and prompts them to
3 We recognize that populations exceeding our upper age bound constitute the largest share of the voting population
and disproportionately serve on juries—two examples of areas where people are likely to “receive” the idea of
gangs. The broader aims of the survey, along with the scope of funding, required that we target adults between ages
18 and 60 years owing to generational differences in exposure to gang activity. Linear, quadratic, and non-
parametric approaches to the age associations revealed similar findings on public opinion toward gang responses.

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click a link to open the survey. In our instance, an invitation email was sent to 2,684 individuals
in September 2023, of whom 1,731 individuals clicked the link to open the survey to the page
requesting their consent to complete the survey (blinded Institutional Review Board #XXXX).
YouGov removed individuals if they exceeded a demographic quota (N=405), partially
completed the survey (N=120), or did not satisfy their quality checks (N=193). The resulting
sample consisted of 1,013 respondents who completed a survey lasting approximately 12
minutes, which YouGov matched down to a final sample of 1,000 respondents.4
Measures of Public Opinion on Gang Responses
The dependent variables in this study are public support for five policies and practices
used to respond to gangs, captured after each description of a gang response and its (lack of)
experimental manipulation (see below). Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they
agreed or disagreed with a statement surrounding the use of a policy or practice. The five
outcomes were worded as follows:
(1) “The police should use gang databases;”
(2) “Civil gang injunctions should be used to target gangs;”
(3) “RICO should be used to target street gangs;”
(4) “Criminal sentences for gang crimes should be enhanced;” and
(5) “Gang members should be placed in solitary confinement while they are incarcerated.”
4 We intentionally use “national sample” instead of “nationally representative sample” owing to YouGov’s opt-in,
matched rather the probability sampling. Still, we must emphasize that the univariable values we obtain closely
approximate values from the American Community Survey. We examined the characteristics of 1,771,695
individuals ages 18 and 60 years from one-year (2022) ACS data obtained from the Integrated Public Use Microdata
Series (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml): age 39.2 (our survey) v. 39.4 (ACS) years; male 50.0% v. 50.5%;
White 58.1% v. 55.2%; Black 13.5% v. 12.4%; Hispanic 18.8% v. 20.1%; Asian 3.3% v. 6.2%; Other/Multi
Race/Ethnicity 6.3% v. 5.9%; married 50.4% v. 47.4%; less than high school 6.6% v. 7.9%; high school diploma
30.7% v. 34.9%; some college 28.7% v. 23.2%; 4-year degree 22.4% v. 21.8%; and post-grad degree 11.7% v.
12.2%. An item on neighborhood fear (“Is there any area near where you live – that is, within a mile – where you
would be afraid to walk alone at night?”) was inserted into the survey as a generalizability check (Thompson &
Pickett, 2020). 39.7% of our sample responded “yes,” comparable to October 2021 (37%) and 2023 (40%) Gallup
polling (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx), and the General Social Survey (37%)
(https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends?category=Civil%20Liberties&measure=fear).

18
Respondents, in turn, were presented with a 5-point Likert scale to report their level of
agreement with the statements. Since we are interested in whether the public supports criminal
justice responses to gangs, we measured whether a respondent agreed with the statement, as
evidenced by indicating they “Strongly Agree” or “Agree,” which was coded 1. The remaining
responses were coded 0, which included “Strongly Disagree,” “Disagree,” and “Neither Agree
nor Disagree.” These three categories, we reasoned, indicated a lack of support for the response,
at least based on the definition and qualifier found in the descriptive prompt.
With a dichotomous outcome variable, we quantified the association between public
support and the experimental conditions using logistic regression. We also sought to leverage all
five response categories by exploring these associations using ordinary least squares and ordered
logistic regression. The sign and significance of the effects, which can be found in Appendix A,
were substantively similar to the logistic regression results.
Measures of Gang Responses and Experimental Conditions
The independent variables in this study are based on the descriptions of the five policies
and practices used to respond to gangs. Each description included a baseline description that
defined the policy or practice; all respondents were provided with this condition. An equal
fraction of the sample was assigned to receive only the baseline description or a supplementary
condition; this was assigned at random to mutually exclusive groups. The supplementary
condition presented respondents with additional information about the policy or practice derived
from arguments/evidence in the behavioral, economic, legal, psychological, and sociological
literatures discussed above.5 Table 1 provides a complete description of the baseline description
5 Note that while the experimental conditions were assigned at random, the presentation of the five policies and
practices were not. While we cannot determine if ordering altered support for a given anti-gang policy/practice, we
do not find any evidence that assignment to any specific condition influenced support for unrelated outcomes. Also,
for the solitary confinement variable, a programming error resulted in respondents being presented only with a

19
and supplementary conditions, including how each were coded, while Table 2 provides
descriptive statistics for the experimental and non-experimental measures.
* Table 1 *
* Table 2 *
Measures of Correlates
Demographic, economic, political, and social measures from the survey were included as
correlates of public support for gang responses and to aid in correcting for any imbalances in the
random assignment of conditions.6 These include Age in years based on birth year and month,
Male (= 1, female = 0), and Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Other races/ethnicities, using White as
the reference category. Also included were indicators of whether respondents were Married (=1,
not married or in domestic partnership = 0) and lived in a household with Children under age 18
years (= 1, no children in household = 0). Economic indicators include Education attainment in
years, whether the respondent was temporarily or prolongingly Unemployed (= 1, not
unemployed = 0), annual family Income (in thousands), and Parental Education as the highest
level of education of one or both parents (mean=14.0 years, sd=2.1). If respondents described
themselves as “leaning,” being a “not very strong,” or a “strong” Democrat or Republican, they
were recorded as such, while those who stated they were Independent or “Not Sure” were used
as the reference category. Lastly, Religious Importance was based on a four-point scale ranging
baseline and supplemental condition (i.e., there was no baseline-only condition to gauge generic public support),
which is detailed in Table 1.
6 The experimental condition was “piped” into the prompt at random, though that does not guarantee equal
representation of group sizes (as evidenced by small differences in proportion) or characteristics. We tested the latter
by regressing the experimental conditions on the non-experimental correlates. Of the 225 comparisons we observed
19 statistically significant differences in correlates at the .05 alpha level, which is slightly higher than what we
would expect by chance (11 differences). This was driven primarily by civil gang injunctions and Asian. For the
former, one experimental condition was more male than the others (56% vs. 48%, 47%, and 48%), another was more
Democrat (50% v. 21%, 42%, and 41%), and yet another was Asian (6% v. 3%, 3%, and 2%). Asian accounted for
six of the 19 between-group differences. All analytic models correct for these imbalances.

20
from religion being “Not at all important” to “Very important.”
Analytic Strategy
Our approach to understanding public opinion on responses to gangs proceeds in three
stages. First, we report univariable statistics. In doing so, we begin by describing the sample and
their support for the five gang responses in which they were queried. Second, we use logistic
regression to quantify the association between the experimental conditions and support for gang
responses. We plot these results using predicted probabilities holding all demographic,
economic, political, and social measures at their mean values. This allows us to achieve a sense
of baseline support for gang responses and whether research-based arguments and evidence sway
the public’s support in one direction or another. Finally, we determine the non-experimental
correlates of support for gang responses. In both regression-based stages of the analysis, the
reported results are derived from a single analytic model for each outcome. For presentation
purposes, we report the experimental and non-experimental results separately.
Results
Descriptive Statistics and Public Opinion of Gang Responses in a National Sample
The 1,000 respondents in the YouGov sample approximate the demographics of people
between ages 18 and 60 years in the United States, as evidenced in Table 1. The majority of the
sample was White (58%), with Hispanic (19%) and Black (14%) people the second and third
largest racial/ethnic groups. Half of the sample reported being married and about one-third
indicated they had children under the age of 18 years. The sample maintained, on average, nearly
14 years of education, equivalent to completing a 2-year college degree. Ten percent of the
sample was either temporarily laid off or unemployed. The average annual family income was
$78,600. Forty-four percent of respondents indicated they at least leaned Democrat in their

21
voting preference and 29 percent leaned Republican; the remainder were independent. The
average respondent indicated that religion was somewhat or not too important in their life.
Table 2 contains descriptive statistics for the outcome variables. In addition to reporting
any (dis)agreement with the statements, mean values and standard deviations on the five-part
scale are also provided. The values reported are for the entire sample regardless of the
experimental condition to which they were assigned. On the whole, the public tended to support
the five criminal justice gang responses. The majority of the sample agreed that police gang
databases, civil gang injunctions, and RICO should be used, and, although slightly crossing the
majority, criminal sentences should be enhanced for gang crimes. In contrast, a plurality of
respondents felt that gang members should be placed in solitary confinement. While support for
gang responses was not universal, for all five outcomes, a greater portion of the respondents
agreed with the gang responses than disagreed. Still, there were a fair amount of neutral views on
the responses, ranging from 26.5% to 31.1%, which for our purposes, we considered non-
agreement in the scaling of the outcome. Does public opinion differ based on the information
provided about the gang response?
* Table 3 *
Experimental Effects of Research on Public Opinion of Gang Responses
Table 3 and Figure 1 provide the results from a series of logistic regression models
detailing how public support for gang responses changes based on respondent assignment to
experimental conditions. Whereas Table 3 reports the unstandardized coefficients, standard
errors, and odds ratios, Figure 1 represents the associations as predicted probabilities (both of
which adjust for demographic, economic, political, and social correlates).
* Table 4 and Figure 1 *

22
The use of police gang databases was supported by nearly three-fifths of respondents in
the base condition. Those presented with the supplemental condition, where the base description
was altered to reflect racial/ethnic disparities in composition, did not shift support (odds
ratio=0.95, 95% CI=0.742, 1.348). Put simply, equal proportions of the respondents believed the
police should use gang databases regardless of disparities they may harbor.
Civil gang injunctions also enjoyed wide support; two-thirds of the respondents who
received the base condition agreed they should be used. Yet in contrast to gang databases, public
opinion varied when supplemental conditions were presented to respondents. Informing
respondents that civil gang injunctions reduce violence did little to bolster support for their use
(b=0.070, p=0.754). In contrast, the prospect of civil gang injunctions undermining constitutional
protections of due process and civil liberties lowered support for their use by about 16
percentage points (p=0.002). When presenting respondents with both conditions, constitutional
violations appeared to override any potential benefits of violence reduction, as evidenced by a
13-percentage point decline in support relative to the base condition (odds ratio=0.575, 95%
CI=0.376, 0.878).
Two-thirds of respondents in the base condition supported the use of RICO to target
gangs. Support for RICO, however, declined when respondents were presented with either
supplemental condition. Notifying respondents of the differences in organizational structure
between street gangs and organized crime groups reduced support by nearly 17 percentage points
(odds ratio=0.503, 95% CI=0.353, 0.717), and the prospect of punishing non-gang members
reduced support by 21 percentage points (odds ratio=0.425, 95% CI=0.296, 0.611). These ranked
among the largest swings we observed in reaction to supplemental information, and for the guilt-
by-association condition, change was such that it pulled down public opinion below the majority.

23
Gang sentencing enhancements were supported by three-fifths of respondents in the base
condition. They believed that someone associated with a gang who committed a crime with a
gang nexus should receive 5-10 additional years of incarceration. Support for this shifted when
respondents were told the cost of incarceration, as indicated by a 15-percentage point reduction
(odds ratio=0.546, 95% CI=0.408, 0.731). Similar to RICO and the guilt-by-association
condition, this was enough to reduce support below the majority of respondents.
The final response we tested, solitary confinement, maintained the least support among
all outcomes. As noted above, we lacked a base description, though it seems unlikely that
providing one would have made a difference. While there were no statistically significant
differences across the experimental conditions, we would have expected respondents’ support to
align with the perspectives of correctional officials based on appealing to authority. Yet that
isolated condition received the least support, as evidenced in the predicted probabilities, while
the mention of psychological impacts resulted in support trending upwards. But overall, the
public does not support the placement of gang affiliates in solitary confinement, regardless of
whether correctional officials believe it makes prisons safer or the psychological consequences.
Non-Experimental Correlates of Public Opinion of Gang Responses
Now that we have demonstrated that public support for gang responses shifts when
offering arguments and evidence derived from the scholarly literature, we turn to understanding
the population characteristics associated with the outcomes. Respondents were assigned at
random to receive the experimental descriptions, which offered the opportunity to determine the
demographic, economic, political, and social correlates of support. Table 4 presents these
findings.
* Table 5 *

24
On the whole, men were more supportive of gang responses than women—the odds of
support were 60% greater for gang databases, 35% for civil gang injunctions, 83% for RICO,
74% for sentencing enhancements, and 76% for solitary confinement. No other correlate was
consistently associated with public support for all five outcomes. Older respondents were more
likely to support gang databases, civil gang injunctions, and RICO than younger respondents, but
there were no differences between sentencing enhancements and solitary confinement. While
Asians were more likely than White, Black (p=0.037), and Hispanic (p=0.030) respondents to
support civil gang injunctions, there were no other demographic differences in public support.
Respondents with young children were more likely to support RICO, sentencing
enhancements, and solitary confinement than those without children or with adult children.
Wealthier respondents were more likely to support RICO, but not other responses, than
respondents with lower annual incomes. Religiosity also differentiated support for gang
responses. Respondents who prioritized religion in their lives showed greater support for gang
databases, civil gang injunctions, sentencing enhancements, and solitary confinement (but not
RICO), where the predicted probabilities for “not at all important” to “very important” swung
from 0.53 to 0.67, 0.47 to 0.70, 0.38 to 0.61, and 0.24 to 0.50, respectively.
Support for gang responses was also divided along political lines. Respondents who
identified as Democrat tended to support gang responses at a rate that was similar to
Independents; solitary confinement, however, was the exception. Respondents who identified as
Republican, in contrast, tended to be more supportive of gang responses than Independents, such
as gang databases, civil gang injunctions (p=0.051), and sentencing enhancements. By extension,
Republican respondents also tended to support gang responses more than Democrat respondents,
including for gang databases (p=0.000), sentencing enhancements (p=0.000), and solitary

25
confinement (p=0.015).
Given that the associations reported above are pooled across experimental conditions, we
also explored the prospect of correlate x condition effects, which are suggestive of the population
characteristics persuadable by arguments/evidence. Few of the interactions were statistically
significant at conventional or marginal alpha levels. Hispanic people tended to be more
supportive of gang databases in the experimental condition (b=.146, p=.087), while White and
Black people maintained equal support across conditions. Republicans were equally supportive
of civil gang injunctions across conditions, whereas Independents and Democrats were both less
supportive when learning of constitutional violations. A similar pattern was found for religiosity;
when religion was very important, respondents were equally supportive across conditions, but at
lower levels, constitutional violations reduced support. Respondents were less likely to support
RICO when presented with low organization (b=.078, p=.038) and guilt-by-association (b=.076,
p=.045) conditions at lower (-1 SD) but not upper (+1 SD) levels of income; a similar pattern
emerged by parental education, albeit only for the guilt-by-association condition. Lastly, the
effect of the financial cost of sentencing enhancements factored into support for respondents
with lower, but not upper, levels of income (b=.063, p=.055).
Discussion
“Gang violence shocks Los Angeles.” The New York Times headline on February 7,
1988, was accompanied by a picture of 27-year-old Karen Toshima, who lay dying on a
sidewalk. Unlike most gang violence in Los Angeles and elsewhere, this murder generated
considerable media attention. Toshima, an artist, was an innocent bystander of an inter-Crip
conflict that occurred in an area thought to be immune from gang activity, Westwood Village, a
short walk from the University of California-Los Angeles campus. Then State Assemblymember

26
Maxine Waters was quoted in the article: “We are tired and we’re not going to take it
anymore…our babies cannot play in the front yard because they might be shot.” Within eight
months, California’s governor, George Deukmejian, signed into law the first anti-gang
legislation in the United States, codifying criminal sentencing enhancements for gang crimes
(among other subsections of the statute).7 Every member of the State Assembly and Senate voted
in favor of the 1988 Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (STEP).
Criminal laws, policies, and practices neither emerge nor reform in a vacuum (Erikson &
Tedin, 2019). Elected and appointed officials are sensitive to the wants and desires—the
“punitive sentiment”—of the public (Enns, 2016; Pickett, 2019; Ramirez, 2013). Whether the
public supports criminal justice responses to gangs has never been determined, primarily because
these questions have not been asked in criminology or political science. Instead, scholars who
study gangs regularly interview and poll gang and non-gang young people and policymakers and
practitioners, inquiring about topics such as gang activity, definitions, and proliferation; or they
administer the Eurogang expert survey (Klein, 1995; Miller, 1975; Weerman et al., 2009). But
there seems to be little doubt that police, courts, and corrections are at least somewhat responsive
to public sentiment. Maxson and colleagues (2005), for example, titled their article on the
effectiveness of civil gang injunctions in San Bernardino, California, with a quote from a local
teenager, “It’s getting crazy out there.” Civil gang injunctions, by design, must engage the local
community to establish a gang as a public nuisance, providing testimonials of residents and
business owners. And on the flipside, the courts have been sensitive to issues raised by the local
community in response to attempts to impose civil gang injunctions, as Garcia-Leys and Engel
7 The murder of Toshima did not spur the drafting of the legislation, which had been in the works for several years
(Klein, 1995, pp. 178–182), but it certainly loomed large in the minds of California legislators, given its bipartisan
support and unanimous final vote.

27
(2024) documented an “opposition campaign” in a Southern California city.
We polled 1,000 adults in the United States to learn about their support for five common
yet controversial responses to gangs employed by components of the criminal justice system.
Embedded within our descriptions of the responses were experimental conditions used to
determine if support would change with the presentation of new information about the pros and
cons of these responses. Three findings emerge from this research that merit further
consideration for criminal justice policy and practice.
First, the American public broadly supports criminal justice system responses to gangs.
This underscores a consensus on the importance of tackling gang-related problems and a belief
that the criminal justice system has the authority to carry out this task. Notably, support extends
across a variety of strategies used to blunt the activities of gangs, including police gang
databases, civil gang injunctions, gang sentencing enhancements, and the application of RICO
laws to gangs. Anywhere from three-fifths to two-thirds of respondents who received the base
description of these responses supported them. However, the notable exception to this trend is
the public’s stance on solitary confinement, which does not enjoy majority support, which we
interpret in part as reflecting the distinctiveness of this type of punishment (e.g., Reiter, 2016). In
contrast to the other gang responses in our study, the plight of people held in solitary
confinement has received national and international media coverage, summarized by watchdog
organizations such as Solitary Watch (https://solitarywatch.org). However, it seems equally
susceptible to public influence, if not directly by citizen critique, indirectly in response to public
outcry that leads appointed and elected officials to act.
Second, the power of informed discourse can shape public opinion on policies and
practices used to respond to gangs. Specifically, we observed that the experimental provision of

28
additional arguments/evidence regarding certain gang responses could significantly sway public
support. The public was less supportive of civil gang injunctions when presented with
constitutional concerns, RICO cases when learning of the limited organization and structure of
street gangs and the prospect of net-widening beyond gang members, and sentencing
enhancements when learning of the final implications for taxpayers. These findings align with
others who have found that public opinion can vary when presented with alternative options for
punishment or additional context to inform decision-making (e.g., Cullen et al., 2000). They also
underscore the potential for research and evidence-based discussions to influence specific public
sentiments on criminal justice policy and practice, a paramount concern for criminologists. Such
findings are critical for policymakers and practitioners who must navigate the delicate balance
between implementing effective violence reduction strategies while also maintaining public trust
and approval (Abt, 2019; Kennedy, 2012).
Third, support for different responses to gangs depends, in part, on demographics,
political orientations, and socioeconomic arrangements, illustrating the importance of
considering a broad spectrum of experiences and perspectives when formulating and
communicating gang policy and practice. This is consistent with research that shows how various
constituencies differentially support policies that are more or less punitive (e.g., Stucky et al.,
2007). In terms of gangs, greater support was found among men more than women, older more
than younger people, Republicans more than Democrats and Independents, and parents with
young children. By understanding the factors that predict support or opposition to specific
measures, policymakers can tailor their approaches and communication strategies to address the
concerns and values of diverse communities. Still, this study falls short of offering a test of any
theoretical perspectives that aim to explain support for anti-gang policies and practices, though

29
we certainly believe that would be a productive line of inquiry.
This research can be expanded and enhanced in important ways. While carefully selected
and informed by arguments and evidence in the literature, we must emphasize that the scope of
this study is limited to five gang responses and between two and four experimental conditions.
There is much room for future research to explore public opinion on a wider array of community
health and safety responses to gangs (Decker et al., 2022; Kearley et al., 2023). Such expansions
could include investigations into the effectiveness and public perception of gang crackdowns,
community violence interruption, focused deterrence strategies, the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang
Model, and various clinical interventions, among others. It bears mention that the brief
descriptions used in our survey, while designed for clarity and brevity, may not fully capture the
complexities and nuances of each gang response strategy. This limitation suggests the need for
more detailed and comprehensive presentations of policy options to inform the public and elicit
nuanced opinions, opening the door for focus groups and other methods to elicit community
input. It would be beneficial to query individuals from the Baby Boomer generation about their
opinions on criminal justice policy and practice. Since our broader study aims and funding
required targeting individuals born after 1964 and the functional form of the association between
age and support was linear, public support for the five policies/practices examined is likely even
stronger.
Moreover, our study selectively randomized certain controversial aspects of gang
responses without addressing others, such as sunset clauses on gang databases, theories of
deterrence and incapacitation underlying sentencing enhancements, or the use of gang units
(Decker et al., 2022). Future research should aim to cover a broader range of contentious issues
to provide a more complete picture of public opinion dynamics. As a cross-sectional rather than

30
dynamic study, we also only captured levels of support rather than trends, which may or may not
tap the punitive mood of the public (Enns, 2016; Ramirez, 2013). We are mindful that our survey
was fielded in September 2023 after a historic rise in homicide and violent crime nationally
(Rosenfeld & Lopez, 2020). Future research should not only examine levels and trends but also
explore a wider range of covariates, including those that measure potential ecological influences
of criminal and gang activity on attitudes to responses to gangs, broadly defined.
Our findings were derived from a national sample of Americans, and as Barrows and
Huff (2009, p. 695) recognized, when considering the scaling of gang databases—quoting
Thomas O’Neill—that just like politics, “gang problems are often unique to specific locales.” It
almost certainly means that opinions could differ based on the complex interplay of perceived
effectiveness, financial and ethical considerations, potential human rights concerns, and perhaps
most importantly, perceptions of criminal gang activity proximal to respondents. Criminal
activity, as Pickett (2019) summarized, is what moves the needle on public punitive policy
preferences. As Gravel and colleagues (2018) found in British Columbia, Canada, moreover,
gang homicides typically attract more media coverage than non-gang homicides. We see this
research as establishing a baseline for levels of support of criminal justice responses.
What we can say is criminologists have a role to play when informing public debate on
public policy (Blomberg et al., 2024; Decker & Wright, 2018), including gang responses. Klein
(1995, pp. 178-182), for instance, recounted his 1986 meeting with early proponents of
California’s STEP Act, including futile efforts to inform the drafters of the legislation of research
on gangs. But STEP is perhaps the best example to illustrate how gang policy and practice are
dynamic rather than static and that there is room for research to inform legislation. The Fair and
Accurate Gang Database Act of 2017, for example, moved governance of California’s gang

31
database to the California Department of Justice and made agency-level reports of the
demographics of entrants and removals public, citing that the criteria for designating someone as
a gang member and retention of the individual in the database should be “consistent with
empirical research.” More recently, the STEP Forward Act of 2021 redefined a “criminal street
gang” with an emphasis on organization (as opposed to mere association), reduced the criminal
offenses eligible for sentencing enhancements, and bifurcated underlying charges and sentence
enhancements in criminal trials, citing experimental research on the prejudicial effects of gang
allegations (Eisen, et al., 2014; Eisen et al., 2013).
In conclusion, the current study represents the first attempt to gather the opinions of the
public on criminal justice responses to gangs, a constituency that has been largely ignored or
whose pulse has been measured, at best, indirectly. We found that while the public generally
supports most of the common yet controversial criminal justice policies and practices, they also
respond to arguments and evidence for and against these policies and practices. This research
underscores the importance of evidence-based policy formulation and the need for ongoing
dialogue between the public, researchers, and policymakers to address challenges as complex
and inexorable as gangs in our communities and societal institutions.

32
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Table 1. Language of the Baseline Descriptions and Supplemental Condition(s)
Gang Databases
Baseline description (=0): “A gang database is a centralized system used by law enforcement agencies that
collects and stores information about known and suspected gang members, their affiliations, criminal
activities, and other relevant details. Law enforcement agencies claim that gang databases assist in
investigations and aid in identifying and apprehending individuals involved in gangs and crime. Civil
rights groups claim that gang databases stigmatize young people and serve no public safety purpose.”
Supplemental condition (=1): “…In cities throughout the United States, Black and Hispanic people are
considerably overrepresented as gang members in these databases.”
Civil Gang Injunctions
Baseline description (=0): “A civil gang injunction is a court order obtained by prosecutors and enforced by
police to restrict the activities of known gang members within a specific geographic area of a city. It
typically includes conditions such as curfews, bans on gang associations, and restrictions on displaying
gang-related symbols or attire.”
Supplemental condition (=1): “…Legal professionals worry these injunctions violate due process rights and
civil liberties.”
Supplemental condition (=2): “…Some research shows that civil gang injunctions help reduce violence in
communities.”
Supplemental condition (=3): “… Legal professionals worry these injunctions violate due process rights and
civil liberties. Some research shows that civil gang injunctions help reduce violence in communities.”
RICO
Baseline description (=0): “The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was passed in
1970 to target organized crime groups, primarily the Italian American Mafia or La Cosa Nostra. The
law is designed to combat organized criminal activities by targeting and prosecuting criminal
enterprises. It allows for the investigation and prosecution of individuals involved in a pattern of
racketeering offenses, such as drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, and acts of violence, with
the aim of dismantling and disrupting the operations of the enterprise as a whole. While the law was
not designed with street gangs in mind, more recently, the federal government began prosecuting street
gangs using RICO.”
Supplemental condition (=1): “…This is despite the fact that street gangs lack the organizational structure
and criminal sophistication of the mafia, inconsistent with the purpose of the law.”
Supplemental condition (=2): “…One of the concerns is that since RICO creates guilt by association, as
people who are not in the gang can be punished for the crimes of the gang.”
Sentencing Enhancements
Baseline description (=0): “A gang sentencing enhancement is a common legal provision that increases the
punishment for criminal offenses that benefit a gang and are committed by individuals who are
associated with a gang. This could add an additional five to ten years of imprisonment to a person’s
sentence for a violent crime.”
Supplemental condition (=1): “…It is estimated that adding one additional year of prison time costs the
American taxpayer about $46,000.”
Solitary Confinement
Baseline description (=0): “Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment where people are isolated in a
small cell about the size of a parking space, for a significant portion of the day, typically 22-24 hours,
with minimal human contact or sensory stimulation. Gang members are often placed in solitary
confinement because they break prison rules, need protection, or pose a threat.”
Supplemental condition (=1): “…Correctional officials believe this makes prisons safer.”
Supplemental condition (=2): “…
Civil rights groups believe this is torture because prolonged isolation and a
lack of social interaction can have severe psychological effects on people.”
Supplemental condition (=3): “…Correctional officials believe this makes prisons safer. Civil rights groups
believe this is torture because prolonged isolation and a lack of social interaction can have severe
psychological effects on people.”

41
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of the Study Variables
Mean
(SD)
Minimum
Maximum
Experimental Conditions
Base: Gang Databases
50.4%
0
1
+ Racial/Ethnic Disparity
49.6%
0
1
Base: Civil Gang Injunctions
23.3%
0
1
+ Constitutional Violation
25.8%
0
1
+ Reductions in Violence
34.5%
0
1
+ Violations and Violence
24.8%
Base: RICO
34.9%
0
1
+ Gangs Lack Organization
33.9%
0
1
+ Guilt-by-Association
31.2%
Base: Sentencing Enhancements
49.9%
0
1
+ Taxpayer Cost
50.1%
0
1
Base: Solitary Confinement
+ Prison Safety
33.8%
0
1
+ Psychological Impacts
31.9%
0
1
+ Safety and Psychology
34.%
0
1
Demographic
Age
39.2
(12.1)
18.06
60.98
Male
50.0%
0
1
White
58.1%
0
1
Black
13.5%
0
1
Hispanic
18.8%
0
1
Asian
3.3%
0
1
Other/Multi Race/Ethnicity
6.3%
0
1
Socio-Economic-Political
Married
50.4%
0
1
Child(ren) Under 18
34.0%
0
1
Education in years
13.8
(2.3)
10
18
Unemployed
10.4%
0
1
Income (in thousands)
78.6
(76.8)
5
500
Parental Education
14.0
(2.1)
11
18
Democrat
43.6%
0
1
Republican
28.6%
0
1
Religious Importance
1.7
(1.2)
0
3
Note: valid sample size for all study variables is 1,000 except income (N=917) and parental education (N=975). All
values include sampling weights.

42
Table 3. Public Support for Criminal Justice Responses to Gangs
Outcome
Mean
(SD)
Any
Disagreement
Any
Agreement
The police should use gang databases
3.66
(1.07)
13.8%
59.7%
Civil gang injunctions should be used to
target gangs
3.60
(1.04)
13.4%
59.7%
RICO should be used to target gangs
3.53
(1.08)
16.2%
54.5%
Criminal sentences for gang crimes should
be enhanced
3.45
(1.10)
18.0%
50.9%
Gang members should be placed in solitary
confinement while incarcerated
3.09
(1.21)
30.0%
39.2%
Note: All values include sampling weights (N=1,000). Range for all outcome variables is 1 “strongly disagree” to 5
“strongly agree.”
Table 4. Effects of Experimental Conditions on Public Support for Gang Responses
Gang
Databases
Civil
Injunctions
RICO
Sentencing
Enhancements
Solitary
Confinement
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
Gang Databases
Racial/Ethnic Disparity
-.011
(.153)
Civil Gang Injunctions
Constitutional Violations
-.666
(.213)*
Reductions in Violence
.070
(.224)
Both Conditions
-.554
(.217)*
RICO
Gangs Lack Organization
-.687
(.181)*
Guilty-By-Association
-.855
(.185)*
Sentence Enhancements
Expense of Incarceration
-.605
(.148)*
Solitary Confinement
Psychological Impacts
.190
(.183)
Safety and Psychology
.286
(.180)
Note: All results are derived from separate logistic regression models that adjust for demographic, economic,
political, and social variables. b refers to unstandardized coefficients and (rse) refers to robust standard errors. All
results include sampling weights. (N=1,000)

43
Figure 1. Predicted Probabilities of Public Support for Gang Responses by Experimental
Condition
Note: Predicted probabilities are derived from five separate logistic regression models fixing demographic,
economic, political, and social variables to their mean values. All results include sampling weights. (N=1,000)
.41
.40
.34
.44
.59
.46
.50
.67
.54
.69
.51
.67
.61
.62
.00 .05 .10 .15 .20 .25 .30 .35 .40 .45 .50 .55 .60 .65 .70 .75 .80
Solitary: Safety and Psychology
Solitary: Psychological Impacts
Solitary: Correctional Safety
Enhancements: Cost of Incarceration
Enhancements: Base Condition
RICO: Guilt-by-Association
RICO: Gangs Lack Organization
RICO: Base Condition
Injunctions: Constitutional and Violence
Injunctions: Violence Reduction
Injunctions: Constitutional Violations
Injunctions: Base Condition
Databases: Racial/Ethnic Disparities
Databases: Base Condition
Predicted Probability of Public Support

44
Table 5. Correlates of Public Support for Gang Responses
Gang
Databases
Civil
Injunctions
RICO
Sentencing
Enhancements
Solitary
Confinement
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
Demographic
Age
.301
(.083)*
.204
(.082)*
.167
(.081)*
.022
(.081)
.001
(.080)
Male
.473
(.154)*
.302
(.151)*
.603
(.150)*
.556
(.151)*
.567
(.152)*
Black
-.301
(.242)
-.073
(.260)
-.128
(.246)
.342
(.253)
-.299
(.239)
Hispanic
.081
(.210)
-.059
(.206)
.268
(.213)
.088
(.206)
-.019
(.218)
Asian
-.031
(.449)
1.004
(.462)*
.128
(.489)
.281
(.458)
-.132
(.403)
Other Race/Ethnicity
.003
(.352)
-.023
(.328)
.011
(.317)
-.324
(.325)
-.441
(.332)
Socio-Economic-Political
Married
.071
(.176)
-.329
(.176)†
-.115
(.170)
-.014
(.174)
.178
(.176)
Child(ren) Under 18
.205
(.175)
.276
(.171)
.364
(.167)*
.429
(.171)*
.427
(.173)*
Education (in years) a
.095
(.105)
-.017
(.100)
.133
(.100)
.138
(.104)
-.013
(.098)
Unemployed
-.250
(.259)
-.473
(.246)†
-.219
(.254)
-.242
(.251)
.337
(.258)
Income (in thousands) a
.129
(.100)
.103
(.096)
.251
(.097)*
.052
(.085)
-.043
(.084)
Parental Education a
.109
(.094)
.038
(.091)
.008
(.091)
-.017
(.092)
.023
(.090)
Democrat
-.097
(.190)
.103
(.187)
-.138
(.190)
-.026
(.189)
-.391
(.193)*
Republican
.862
(.219)*
.415
(.213)†
.151
(.206)
.766
(.209)*
.050
(.211)
Religious Importance
.199
(.067)*
.312
(.065)*
.095
(.065)
.310
(.065)*
.381
(.068)*
Constant
-.348
(.242)
.033
(.253)
.197
(.251)
-.788
(.233)*
-1.625
(.267)*
Note: All results are derived from separate logistic regression models that include the respective experimental
conditions as control variables. b refers to unstandardized coefficients, (rse) refers to robust standard errors, and a
refers to x standardized. * p<.05, † p<.10 (two-tailed). All results include sampling weights. (N=1,000).

45
Appendix A. Effects of Experimental Conditions on Public Support for Gang Responses
Panel A: Ordered Logistic Regression
Gang
Databases
Civil
Injunctions
RICO
Sentencing
Enhancements
Solitary
Confinement
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
Gang Databases
Racial/Ethnic Disparity
-.051
(.066)
Civil Gang Injunctions
Constitutional Violations
-.250
(.093)*
Reductions in Violence
.090
(.092)
Both Conditions
-.207
(.102)*
RICO
Gangs Lack Organization
-.276
(.081)*
Guilty-By-Association
-.438
(.082)*
Sentence Enhancements
Expense of Incarceration
-.250
(.066)*
Solitary Confinement
Psychological Impacts
-.017
(.082)
Safety and Psychology
.032
(.078)
Panel B: Ordinary Least Squares Regression
Gang
Databases
Civil
Injunctions
RICO
Sentencing
Enhancements
Solitary
Confinement
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
b
(rse)
Gang Databases
Racial/Ethnic Disparity
-.035
(.128)
Civil Gang Injunctions
Constitutional Violations
-.546
(.182)*
Reductions in Violence
.135
(.183)
Both Conditions
-.384
(.193)*
RICO
Gangs Lack Organization
-.526
(.153)*
Guilty-By-Association
-.801
(.160)*
Sentence Enhancements
Expense of Incarceration
-.538
(.128)*
Solitary Confinement
Psychological Impacts
-.014
(.161)
Safety and Psychology
.087
(.153)
Note: Panel A results are derived from Ordinary Least Squares estimation and y standardization of the outcomes.
Panel B results are derived from ordered logistic regression. Both panels report values adjusted for demographic,
socio-economic-political, and ecological-legal control variables. (rse) refers to robust standard errors and * indicates
p < .05. All results include sampling weights. (N=1,000)