Social control at the margins: Utility of Black's theory of law in policing gang affiliates

While a lack of consensus on classification in criminal justice theory has handicapped development, the conflict foundation has received broad attention across criminal justice theory. Donald Black (1976) suggested that five extra-legal characteristics -- stratification, culture, organization, social control, and morphology -- influence the amount of law the system exerts on individuals. As a function within morphology, Black stated that marginalized people, just by the very nature of being fringe dwellers, receive more formal social control and severe legal consequences than those remaining in the status-quo. This mixed-methods study tested Black's marginalization thesis, while the global perspective addressed the polarized foundations of criminal justice theory. By observing a cohort of juvenile offenders' cases from introduction through processing, as well as ethnographic observation of a large urban police department, this study focused on the role of gang affiliation in the criminal justice system. The results were generally unsupportive of Black's marginalization thesis and discovered a culture of utility for policing gangs. Resulting implications traverse theory, research design, and policy.