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.There is also some evidence that the age range of gang membership is expanding;instead of aging-out in their late teens and early twenties, gang members may stayinvolved well into adulthood.A few studies such as Martin Jankowski s Islands in the Street and Sudhir Ven-katesh s American Project, have revealed much more organized and profitable gang-based drug structures but these corporate gangs seem to be more of the exceptionthan the rule.A growing body of research on female gang members and their involvement indrug sales and other illicit activities reveals inconsistent fi ndings.Whereas some re-search (such as Lauderback and colleagues San Francisco study) shows women to beplaying a more central and independent role in gang-based drug sales, other research,such as Venkatesh s 1998 Chicago research on gang drug sales, finds women s involve-ment to be largely linked to, or controlled by, gang males, and others find that women sdrug sales and gang-based economic activity varies along ethnic/racial/cultural lines.For example, both Dave Brotherton s San Francisco research and John Hagedornand Mary Devitt s Milwaukee study, revealed that African American girl gangs weremore independent and self-organized than were the Latina groups they studied. GANGS AND THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY 91Other Underground Economic Activity of GangsDecker and Van Winkle s study of St.Louis gangs confi rms previous research,which suggests that the majority of gang members time is spent hanging out andengaging in typical teenage rather than criminal activity.However, gang membersadmitted engaging in a variety of property crimes, especially theft; approximatelytwo-thirds said they stole things with their fellow gang members.The most commonitems stolen in descending order of frequency were cars, clothes, and electronics.Consistent with Malcolm Klein s 1995 research, which found that gang memberscriminal activity is of the spontaneous cafeteria-style kind, most of the St.Louisgang members acts of theft were opportunistic and unplanned.Importantly, the nature and extent of gang members illicit economic activity isinfluenced by myriad factors, including illegitimate and legitimate market dynamicswithin the community.Mercer Sullivan s 1989 research on gang/clique-involvedyouth in three different New York neighborhoods revealed that distinctive criminalopportunities were available to youth in each community: Neighborhoods variedin how openly drugs and stolen goods could be sold on the street and in their particu-lar combinations of diffuse and specialized markets.Some neighborhoods containedspecialized fences for gold, auto parts, and other goods; all neighborhoods containeddiffuse markets, based primarily on personal networks, in which youthful supplierscould sell illegal goods and services to ordinary residents for their own use. Race, Ethnicity, and Control as a Factor in Gang Economic ActivityNot only are there variations in the underground economic activities of gangs indifferent geographical locations (Huff, for example, found that in Broward County,Florida, theft, auto theft, and selling stolen goods were the leading economic activi-ties of gangs, whereas in Cleveland and Denver, drug sales top the list); but alsoimportant, ethnic gangs engage in different economic enterprises.For example,Asian gangs economic crimes are wide-ranging, including extortion, home invasion,prostitution, gambling, and drug trafficking.Chinese gangs studied by Ko-lin Chin,Jeffrey Fagan, and Robert Kelly in New York City show that the formation of gangswas shaped and harnessed by established highly organized Chinatown communityorganizations and associations, which acted as major power centers and maintainedsocial order.Chin and Fagan show that there are both legitimate and illegitimatesocial orders regulating political, economic, and social activity, and that the Chinesegang stands midway between the street gang and the organized crime syndicate.While most community associations are involved only in maintaining the legitimatesocial order, some are involved in criminal activities as well.Certain territorial rightsto such activities as loan sharking, alien smuggling, and drug trafficking, are estab-lished within the context of the illegitimate order.Given the fact that Chinese communities in urban areas are separate entities, be-cause of language and cultural differences, the established associations run theseenclaves.Disputes are handled within the confines of these areas.In instances wheredisputes cannot readily be resolved (e.g., territorial or business disagreements), gangmembers essentially become the enforcement arm of the various associations.It iseither in intra- or inter-association disputes about protection payments, loans to as-sociation members, political differences between associations and loyalty of members,all issues not easily resolved, where gangs were often used to threaten or enforce as-sociation dictates at times through acts of violence.Vietnamese gangs tend to show 92 GANGS AND THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMYa limited range of economic activity, with an emphasis on threats of violence aroundissues of extortion and home invasion targeting women and children
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