American Gangs Use Internet for Bragging, Not Cybercrime, Study Finds Emily Deruy - ABC/Univision
go to original April 5, 2013

While gang members from Mexico to Russia go online to track down targets, intimidate adversaries and run lucrative Internet scams, American gangs are decidedly less savvy when it comes to the Internet.

Members of American gangs use the Internet mostly to boast about their activity, according to "Criminal and Routine Activities in Online Settings: Gangs, Offenders, and the Internet," a new study in Justice Quarterly. The study was funded by Google Ideas, a "think/do tank" that looks at technology's impact on society.

The authors surveyed more than 400 current and former gang members in five U.S. cities. Nearly half of the gang members said their gang posted videos of its activities online, and more than half said they searched out videos from other gangs, often for entertainment. A quarter said they researched rival gangs online.

The study concluded that gang members use the Internet as much, if not more, than people who are not in gangs. The authors found that, while gang members and non-gang members alike use Facebook at equal rates, "[this] changes when we turn to MySpace, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Notably, over one-quarter of current and former gang members, compared to one-sixth of non-gang respondents, report using alternative sites, such as YouTube, Hoodup, and WorldstarHipHop."

What American gang members don't much use the Internet for is coordinating activity or recruiting new members. Fewer than one in five gang members surveyed said their gang had a website, and only about 10 percent said their gang organized or recruited online.

"American gangs use the Internet much like an electronic graffiti wall," wrote the authors.

Read the rest at ABC/Univision

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!