What are the primary risk factors for involvement in gangs? How amenable are they to policy programs? Book name: Street Gang Patterns and Policies by Malcolm W. Klein and Cheryl L. Maxson. Chapter 6: Community context

Klein and Maxson cite research (page 214) by Jackson that shows that gang activity is associated with cities that have large populations, high population density, a large proportion of Hispanic residents (gangs are negatively associated with a large percentage of black residents), declines in jobs in sectors such as retail, wholesale, or manufacturing, and declines in population. However, gang activity was not associated with poverty or serious crime in the Jackson study. Further analysis shows that change in the number of wholesale and retail jobs in the population of people ages 15 to 24 was the only variable that was significant in explaining the presence of gangs. This data suggests that economic declines might be more significant in explaining gang activity than poverty, ethnic composition, and overall crime.
A later study by Wells and Weisheit (2001) used NYGS (National Youth Gang Survey) data from 1996 to 1998 and found 16 structural factors that were predictive of gang activity. Many of these factors were similar to those found by Jackson. However, in the later study, economic deprivation was associated with gangs, while a decline in manufacturing and service jobs was not. Similar to Jackson, Wells and Weisheit found that a larger proportion of Hispanics in the city's population was predictive of gang activity, while a larger proportion of blacks was not. Both of these studies found that economic instability, social instability, and ethnic compositions were predictive of gang activity.
According to researchers such as Thornberry (2003), a person's structural disadvantages contribute only indirectly to gang membership. They reduce a person's connection to family and school and expose people to antisocial groups. However, personal factors, such as high levels of stress and early exposure to antisocial environments, have a more immediate effect on whether a person joins a gang.
Klein and Maxson write that structural processes in a community affect the community processes (which refer to the relationships among the community members, social ties that residents have to churches and other organizations, and so on) that affect gang activity in a neighborhood. Social connections allow neighborhoods to exercise control over young people, but economic decline and/or social instability affects the ability of the neighborhood to exercise this control. 
It is difficult, the authors write, for policies to address these factors. Programs that address gang activity require a serious commitment to building a strong social fabric in communities. Programs that reduce gang activity require public resources in order to develop social, vocational, and educational skills in young people and to make the social fabric of neighborhoods stronger. Therefore, these factors are not always amenable to programs.

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