Action Research on Youth Gangs in Indian Country: Profiling the Problem and Seeking Solutions

Project summary for 2000-TY-FX-0033
The California State University, Sacramento, Center for Delinquency and Crime Policy Studies, proposes to undertake a project to study youth gangs across a number of settings in Indian Country including reservations and metropolitan areas. The project will build upon findings from several previous research efforts on this topic; the recent FBI, BIA and San Jose State University Surveys and most importantly the OJJDP-funded Navajo Nation Gang Study. As with the Navajo research, this project will use a model of inquiry incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Data collected through a combination of in-depth survey and ethnographic observation and targeting both gang members and community stakeholders should allow a determination of specific as well as broad based generalized factors and characteristics shaping origins, organization and activities of Native Americans youth involved in gangs on a number of reservations and in selected urban areas. This research effort will also ascertain those solutions that are being tried in the research sites as well as programatic recommendations generated by the community-based respondents.