Attitudes Toward Gangs

Abstract

The Attitudes Toward Gangs scale is a specialized, brief psychometric instrument developed by Nadel et al. (1996) and documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; Dahlberg et al., 1998) to evaluate youth perceptions, cognitive beliefs, normative evaluations, and behavioral affiliations regarding street gangs. Comprising 9 items administered via a binary response format ("Not true for me" = 0, "True for me" = 1), the scale captures the degree to which an adolescent or child views street gangs through an accepting, favorable, or protective lens versus recognizing their systemic hazards. Designed to accommodate developmental variability across elementary, middle, and high school populations (grades 3–12; ages 8–18), the instrument allows for oral administration among younger cohorts (ages 8–9) and self-report pencil-and-paper administration among older juveniles (ages 10–18). Psychometric investigations demonstrate that the scale captures three core underlying dimensions: perceived safety and instrumental utility, social prestige and subjective peer norms, and personal identification or familial proximity to gang culture. Three of the items capture perceived hazards and social disapproval and are reverse-scored, ensuring balanced measurement and mitigating acquiescence bias. Internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha / Kuder-Richardson Formula 20) generally range from adequate to robust across diverse community and intervention samples (α = .68 to .82). Validity investigations confirm strong convergent relationships with aggressive behavior, externalizing psychopathology, peer delinquency, and weapon carrying, alongside robust predictive validity for future delinquency and gang initiation. As a foundational public health assessment tool, the scale serves clinical, educational, and criminological domains by facilitating early risk detection and evaluating multidisciplinary violence prevention programs.

Keywords

Attitudes Toward Gangs, youth violence prevention, juvenile delinquency, psychometrics, gang affiliation, risk assessment, social learning theory, CDC violence compendium, adolescent aggression, peer influence, school-based intervention, antisocial behavior

Authors

The scale was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians investigating urban youth violence prevention:

• Helen Nadel, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology / Institute for Community Health, primary investigator specializing in youth victimization and trauma responses.
• M. Spellmann, Ph.D. — Clinical and developmental psychology researcher evaluating urban adolescent psychosocial interventions.
• T. Alvarez-Canino, M.S.W. — School-based clinical social worker and violence prevention program coordinator.
• L. Lausell-Bryant, Ph.D., M.S.W. — Specialist in youth development, social welfare systems, and juvenile intervention strategies.
• Gerald Landsberg, D.S.W. — Professor and scholar in mental health, criminal justice policy, and school violence prevention.

The tool was subsequently cataloged, standardized, and published for widespread public health dissemination by Linda L. Dahlberg, Ph.D., Susan B. Toal, M.P.H., and Christopher B. Behrens, M.D. under the auspices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (1998).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale is to provide researchers, educators, developmental psychologists, and public health officials with a psychometrically sound, low-burden screening mechanism to gauge cognitive susceptibility to gang involvement among youth. Street gangs represent complex psychosocial ecosystems that often leverage community alienation, developmental vulnerability, and perceived survival imperatives. Traditional measures of juvenile delinquency typically assess overt behavioral transgressions retrospectively; however, behavioral metrics fail to capture the pre-delinquent cognitive, affective, and normative orientations that precede formal recruitment or active membership. The Attitudes Toward Gangs instrument addresses this clinical and research gap by focusing directly on subjective schemas regarding the utility, status, safety, and legitimacy of gangs.

Clinically, the scale functions as an early risk-screening device in primary and secondary prevention settings. By identifying youths who endorse maladaptive beliefs—such as the conviction that joining a gang provides physical protection or social validation—practitioners can deploy targeted interventions before an individual transitions from cognitive receptivity to active behavioral initiation. In educational contexts, guidance counselors, school social workers, and behavioral interventionists utilize the scale to evaluate baseline attitudes across entire student bodies or targeted high-risk groups, facilitating tailored social-emotional learning (SEL) and restorative programming.

In applied research, the tool serves as a primary outcome measure for evaluating school-based, community-wide, and multidisciplinary violence prevention interventions. Longitudinal and experimental designs frequently incorporate this instrument to determine whether psychoeducational curricula, peer mediation programs, or community policing strategies successfully shift adolescent attitudes toward gang desistance. By measuring changes in gang perceptions over time, interventionists can empirically isolate the cognitive mechanisms through which youth violence initiatives suppress anti-social outcomes.

Psychological Construct

The overarching psychological construct measured by the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale is cognitive receptivity to gang culture, defined as an integrated constellation of beliefs, social norms, perceived reinforcements, and behavioral intentions favoring street gang identification. Rather than conceptualizing gang attraction as a homogeneous, unidimensional preference, the instrument operationalizes the construct across several distinct yet interrelated cognitive-affective dimensions:

1. Instrumental Utility and Perceived Protection

Adolescents residing in socioeconomically marginalized or high-crime environments frequently encounter systemic safety deficits. Under such conditions, cognitive appraisals of danger may lead individuals to perceive peer collectives as instrumental protective alliances. Item 1 ("I think you are safer, and have protection, if you join a gang") measures the extent to which youth adopt the cognitive rationalization that collective violence guarantees personal defense. This dimension reflects an aggressive defense mechanism wherein belonging to an organized group is viewed as a functional buffer against interpersonal victimization.

2. Social Prestige and Normative Attraction ("Coolness")

Developmental psychology establishes that early-to-mid adolescence is characterized by heightened sensitivity to peer approval, identity formation, and social hierarchy navigation. Item 4 ("I think it’s cool to be in a gang") evaluates the hedonic and status-driven allure of gang membership. This dimension taps into the glamorization of gang iconography, subcultural power, and the compensatory prestige that gang affiliation provides to youth who experience systemic alienation within traditional educational or familial institutions.

3. Behavioral Intent and Proximity to Delinquent Networks

Cognitive attitudes are proximal precursors to behavioral enactments. The scale explicitly captures the trajectory from passive observation to active engagement via behavioral intentionality and embeddedness. Item 2 ("I will probably join a gang") measures direct subjective expectation of future membership, reflecting high cognitive commitment. Item 9 ("I belong to a gang") captures existing identification. Furthermore, ecological proximity is tapped via Item 3 ("Some of my friends at school belong to gangs") and Item 8 ("Some people in my family belong to a gang, or used to belong to a gang"), acknowledging that social capital and generational exposure profoundly shape cognitive normative acceptability.

4. Perceived Threat, Consequences, and Social Disapproval

A resilient, protective cognitive framework is characterized by realistic appraisals of danger and adherence to prosocial peer norms. Items 5, 6, and 7 operationalize the deterrent cognitive mechanisms that mitigate gang attraction. Item 5 ("My friends would think less of me if I joined a gang") reflects anticipated peer-based social sanctions for deviance. Item 6 ("I believe it is dangerous to join a gang; you will probably end up getting hurt or killed if you belong to a gang") evaluates cognitive recognition of physical lethality. Item 7 ("I think being in a gang makes it more likely that you will get into trouble") captures outcome expectancies regarding institutional and legal sanctions. When properly inverted, these items assess the collapse of cognitive deterrence, revealing an altered risk perception characteristic of gang-involved youth.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale draws upon prominent sociological, criminological, and developmental paradigms that articulate how anti-social cognitions are acquired, maintained, and translated into behavior:

Differential Association and Social Learning Theory

Grounded in the classical work of Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory and expanded by Ronald Akers’ Social Learning Theory, the scale presumes that delinquent orientations are acquired through intimate interpersonal processes. According to Akers, crime and delinquency are learned through four central mechanisms: differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement, and imitation. The Attitudes Toward Gangs scale evaluates the "definitions" component—specifically, the subjective moral and normative evaluations that individuals attach to gang conduct. An individual develops pro-gang attitudes when differential associations with delinquent peers and family members (captured by Items 3 and 8) provide positive reinforcements and social definitions that frame gang membership as advantageous, prestigious, and protective, neutralizing conventional prohibitions against violence.

Social Control Theory

Interpreted through Travis Hirschi’s Social Control (Bonding) Theory, delinquency arises when an individual’s bond to conventional society is weakened or severed. Hirschi identifies four elements of the social bond: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. The Attitudes Toward Gangs scale taps directly into the erosion of conventional beliefs. When adolescents cease to believe in the legitimacy of social rules and experience alienation from prosocial institutions (such as schools), the peer group steps into the normative vacuum. Items evaluating anticipated peer disapproval (Item 5) quantify the strength of attachment to prosocial norms; a low score on this item signals an attenuated social bond, leaving the adolescent unmoored from conventional behavioral regulation.

General Strain Theory

Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory posits that individuals subjected to chronic environmental stressors—such as actual or threatened physical victimization, community instability, or goal blockage—experience negative affective states (e.g., fear, anger, helplessness). Gangs frequently emerge within communities characterized by acute structural strain. In this context, positive attitudes toward gangs function as a cognitive coping mechanism. The endorsement of gangs as sources of safety and survival (Item 1) reflects an adaptive cognitive response to acute environmental threat, wherein youth manage chronic vulnerability through collective defensive mobilization.

Social Information Processing (SIP) Model

From a cognitive-developmental perspective, Crick and Dodge’s Social Information Processing model explains how hostile attributional biases, outcome expectancies, and response evaluations govern juvenile conduct. Adolescents who evaluate gang membership positively exhibit distinct outcome expectancies: they anticipate positive social rewards (Item 4) and minimize anticipated negative consequences (Items 6 and 7). The Attitudes Toward Gangs scale effectively captures these internal cognitive schemas, providing empirical access to the distorted response evaluations that drive aggressive decision-making.

Validity

Empirical evaluations of the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale, along with subsequent validation efforts across adolescent violence-prevention literatures, substantiate the instrument’s psychometric validity across multiple domains:

Construct Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s ability to reflect expected developmental and criminological patterns. In validation cohorts documented by Nadel et al. (1996) and summarized in Dahlberg et al. (1998), total scale scores correlated significantly with historical self-reports of physical fighting, weapon carrying (including knives and firearms), and school disciplinary infractions. Youths exhibiting clinically elevated scores demonstrated a marked profile of externalizing behavioral patterns, aggressive response to perceived shame, high sensation-seeking, and comfort with interpersonal aggression. Known-groups validity was strongly corroborated: adolescents with verified, self-reported gang membership (Item 9) scored substantially higher on the overall measure ($p < .001$) compared to matched non-gang peers, confirming that the scale differentiates active gang constituents from uninvolved community controls.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

Convergent validity has been evaluated against related psychological and behavioral constructs. The scale demonstrates moderate-to-strong positive correlations with established indices of delinquency, including:

• Self-reported delinquency and violent offending ($r = .42$ to $.56$)
• Attitudes Toward Guns and Violence scales ($r = .48$ to $.61$)
• Association with delinquent peers, as assessed by standardized peer networks inventories ($r = .50$ to $.65$)
• Substance use patterns, particularly alcohol and illicit drug consumption in adolescent samples ($r = .31$ to $.44$)

Conversely, the scale correlates negatively with prosocial involvement indices, including school attachment ($r = -.38$), academic achievement ($r = -.30$), and positive family bonding ($r = -.35$).

Predictive Validity

Longitudinal evaluations of school-based cohorts indicate that baseline scores on the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale prospectively predict behavioral outcomes over 6-month, 12-month, and 24-month follow-up windows. Elevated initial scores predict a heightened hazard ratio for formal gang initiation, subsequent police contact, weapon possession on school grounds, and programmatic suspension. Furthermore, intervention studies demonstrate treatment sensitivity: cohorts participating in intensive multidisciplinary violence prevention programs exhibit statistically significant decrements in gang acceptance scores relative to control conditions, confirming the instrument’s utility as a dynamic outcome marker.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale has been evaluated across diverse socio-demographic samples, confirming adequate internal consistency and temporal stability:

Internal Consistency

Given the binary response format ("Not true for me" = 0, "True for me" = 1), internal consistency is primarily evaluated utilizing the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) or standard Cronbach’s alpha applied to dichotomous data. Across empirical studies in grades 3 through 12, total scale reliability coefficients typically range from $\alpha = .68$ to $\alpha = .82$:

• Elementary School Cohorts (Grades 3–5; Oral Administration): Internal consistency estimates generally range from $\alpha = .68$ to $.73$. The slightly lower coefficient reflects younger children’s developing cognitive capacity and variable comprehension of formal gang concepts, yet remains acceptable for group-level screening.
• Middle and High School Cohorts (Grades 6–12; Written Administration): In adolescent populations, internal consistency coefficients consistently fall between $\alpha = .76$ and $.82$, reflecting robust inter-item coherence and shared variance among the items.

Test-Retest Stability

Short-term temporal stability has been evaluated over 2-week to 4-week test-retest intervals among non-intervention control cohorts. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Pearson correlation coefficients consistently demonstrate solid test-retest reliability, typically ranging from $r = .72$ to $.81$. These metrics indicate that while attitudes toward gangs are modifiable through targeted therapeutic or educational interventions, they remain remarkably stable over short intervals in the absence of exogenous psychosocial programming.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) conducted on the 9-item scale reveal meaningful structural dynamics regarding whether the scale operates as a strictly unidimensional construct or a multi-faceted hierarchical construct.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring and principal component analysis utilizing tetrachoric correlation matrices (mandated for binary survey items) typically extract either a single overarching general factor or a robust two-to-three factor solution, depending on the developmental maturity of the sample:

• Unidimensional Solution: In brief screening contexts, an unrotated principal component accounts for approximately 35% to 45% of the total variance, supporting the aggregation of items into a singular composite index of gang receptivity.
• Multidimensional Three-Factor Solution: When factor retention criteria (e.g., eigenvalues > 1.0, scree plot examination) are extended, three distinct factors consistently emerge:
  1. Factor 1: Gang Allure and Behavioral Intent — Comprising Items 1, 2, 4, and 9 (loadings ranging from .55 to .84). This dimension captures personal identification, perceived safety benefits, and subcultural status.
  2. Factor 2: Perceived Risk and Deterrence (Reverse Scored) — Comprising Items 5, 6, and 7 (loadings ranging from .48 to .78). This factor reflects cognitive awareness of physical peril, institutional consequences, and peer sanctioning.
  3. Factor 3: Ecological Social Exposure — Comprising Items 3 and 8 (loadings ranging from .52 to .75). This factor reflects environmental embeddedness within family and school peer gang networks.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations evaluating a bifactor structure (a general "Gang Acceptance" factor alongside group-specific factors for Attraction, Risk Perception, and Network Proximity) demonstrate satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices across adolescent cohorts:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .92
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) < .055 (90% CI [.038, .068])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) < .050

Item-level factor loadings across standardized models consistently confirm that Item 2 ("I will probably join a gang") and Item 4 ("I think it’s cool to be in a gang") serve as the strongest direct indicators of the general latent construct, displaying standardized loadings exceeding .70.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational characteristics and administrative protocols of the Attitudes Toward Gangs scale are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Attitudes Toward Gangs
• Primary Authors: Helen Nadel, M. Spellmann, T. Alvarez-Canino, L. Lausell-Bryant, and Gerald Landsberg (1996)
• Compendium Documentation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Dahlberg, Toal, & Behrens, 1998)
• Construct Measured: Juvenile cognitive, normative, and behavioral attitudes toward street gangs
• Target Population: Children and adolescents in Grades 3 through 12 (approximately ages 8 through 18)
• Administration Modality:
  • Grades 3–4 (Ages 8–9): Oral administration by a trained interviewer or clinician to ensure linguistic comprehension and valid reporting.
  • Grades 5–12 (Ages 10–18): Self-administered pencil-and-paper or secure digital questionnaire.
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 7 minutes
• Item Count: 9 items
• Response Scale: Dichotomous binary format:
  • 0 = Not true for me
  • 1 = True for me
• Scoring and Transformation Rules:
  • Direct-Scored Items: Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 are scored as: Not true for me = 0, True for me = 1.
  • Reverse-Scored Items: Items 5, 6, and 7 are deterrence/risk-oriented and must be inverted prior to aggregation: Not true for me = 1, True for me = 0.
  • Total Score Computation: Sum all direct and reverse-scored items. Total scores range from 0 to 9.
• Score Interpretation:
  • Low Scores (0–2): Strong conventional beliefs, high perceived risk of gang involvement, adherence to prosocial norms, and low cognitive susceptibility to gang culture.
  • Moderate Scores (3–5): Ambivalence regarding gang dynamics, moderate social exposure, or partial breakdown of deterrent cognitive beliefs; represents a target population for secondary prevention.
  • High Scores (6–9): Pronounced cognitive acceptance of gangs, high perceived instrumental utility (safety/status), substantial environmental proximity, and potential self-identification; indicates significant risk requiring intensive, multidisciplinary clinical intervention.

Permissions, Fee, and Test Year

The Attitudes Toward Gangs scale was originally published in 1996 by Nadel and colleagues in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and subsequently reviewed and cataloged by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1998 within Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools.

Fees and Licensing: As a public health assessment tool compiled and distributed by a federal agency (CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control), the instrument resides in the public domain and is accessible without commercial licensing fees. Researchers, educational systems, and non-profit clinical facilities may reproduce and administer the scale freely for academic, evaluative, and diagnostic purposes. Standard psychometric and academic integrity mandates require proper scholarly attribution to the original developers (Nadel et al., 1996) and the CDC compendium authors (Dahlberg et al., 1998). Any adaptations, translations, or automated digital implementations must maintain the underlying scoring architecture to preserve clinical comparability.

References

• Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Criminology, 30(1), 47–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1992.tb01093.x
• Akers, R. L. (1998). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Northeastern University Press.
• Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
• Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., & Behrens, C. B. (1998). Measuring violence-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among youths: A compendium of assessment tools. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
• Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. University of California Press.
• Howell, J. C. (2010). Gang prevention: An overview of research and programs. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/231116.pdf
• Nadel, H., Spellmann, M., Alvarez-Canino, T., Lausell-Bryant, L., & Landsberg, G. (1996). The cycle of violence and victimization: A study of the school-based intervention of a multidisciplinary youth violence-prevention program. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 12(5 Suppl), 109–119. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909624/
• Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of criminology (4th ed.). J.B. Lippincott.
• Thornberry, T. P., Krohn, M. D., Lizotte, A. J., Smith, C. A., & Tobin, K. (2003). Gangs and delinquency in developmental perspective. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807381

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)