| Gangs are social groups bound together with the purpose of committing acts of criminality. Violent crime tied to gangs continues to rise in the United States, as does gang membership. Female participation in gangs has been historically understudied whereas the experience of male members has been the focus of gang research since its origin. With the rise of feminist scholarship in the 1970s came awareness of not only the existence but also the expanding rate of female participation in crime. Scholarship on female gang membership has risen over the past 3 decades yet much of what is known focuses on reasons that female members join gangs. Information about why and how female members decide to leave gangs is vital to public safety and human services. A qualitative study using the descriptive phenomenology model was conducted at a gang intervention program in a major U.S. city. Open-ended interviews were done with 8 women recruited through purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Relational cultural theory and the age-graded theory of social control were studied and utilized for research design and in analyzing the data. The research participants provided thorough descriptions of negative experiences (e.g., losses, traumas) that led them to desist from gang activity and eventually seek help building their lives as individuals apart from gangs. Following these losses, the participants worked hard to rebuild their lives both individually and with the assistance of interventions and connections gained through the program. Similarities were found between what was helpful to each participant in affecting changes and desistance from gang membership, including the development of a new reward system and the development of new frameworks for looking at the world, relating to others, and self-understanding. |
