In keeping abreast of current gang phenomena, this study seeks to comparatively examine structural processes and characteristics of gangs in chronic gang city, San Antonio, and an emerging gang city that would be more likely to have "hybrid" gangs, Orlando. Hybrid gangs have been identified as having organizational processes that differ from traditional gangs; thus, this work will examine these processes that consist of a range of non-traditional phenomena, including cooperation between gangs, members switching gang affiliations, as well as gang initiations, and members leaving gangs. Additional characteristics uniquely associated with hybrid gangs consist of the notable presence of white, middle-class, and female gang members. Evidence suggests that the hybrid gang is more of a socially constructed moral panic than a reality. A limited number of recent studies have indicated that some gangs may better fit into a social network framework rather than a solid organizational analysis. Whe

A safe (free from gang activity) and disciplined school environment conducive to learning is mandated by federal legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act. Research has concentrated on reasons for gang activity in the school and the community as well as leadership in general but there is a void in the literature as it relates to the type of leadership in schools that is successful in limiting gang activity in schools that are less gang-impacted than the community from which they draw. Research questions include: (1) what do principals say about how they lead in gang-impacted schools that have fewer gang-related incidents than the community from which they draw their population and (2) what is the connection between principal leadership style and the presence of relatively fewer gang-related incidents in schools than in the community from which they draw their population? This phenomenological study answered the question of how principals lead in gang-impacted schools with a more favorable environment than the communities they serve through interviews, observations and document analysis. The final product is the portraits and stories of principals' relationships with gang-impacted schools and the central concept of leadership in these types of schools. According to the three participants interviewed in this study, both transactional and transformational leadership attributes are necessary to lead a gang-impacted school that has fewer gang-related incidents than the community from which it draws. The underlying conclusion in this research study is that leaders who display more transformational leadership than transactional leadership attributes are more successful in gang-impacted schools. As a result of this study, principals who are placed in schools identified as being gang-impacted will be better equipped to identify and practice leadership behaviors that have worked for other school leaders. In addition, school districts will be better able to identify and provide staff development to and for potential leaders as it relates to leadership. / Ed. D.

Yes / This chapter focuses on the forms of legality and illegality produced by, and within, prison systems in Latin America where prison populations have risen five-fold, leading to a serious structural crisis in the criminal justice system. The chapter develops the concept of “prisoner capture”, a double-sided phenomenon of illegality in the state’s practices of detention, on the one hand, and informal, or parallel, governance exercised by those that it detained, on the other. State authorities held tens of thousands of people in extended and legally unjustifiable pretrial detention, and frequently denied convicted prisoners their legal rights, including timely release. This officially sanctioned form of kidnapping created such overcrowding and under-investment in prisons that national, constitutional, and international minimum norms on detention standards were routinely, systematically and grossly violated. These multiple illegalities on the part of the state in turn encouraged the emergence of prisoner self-defence and self-governance organizations. This resulted in “prisoner capture” of a different kind, when inmates took over the day-to-day ordering of prison life. In turn, this produced a parallel normative and pseudo-legal world in which inmates adjudicated on and disciplined other inmates in the absence of state officials within the prison walls. The chapter further examines what the study of Latin American prisons and penal practices can add to the field of socio-legal studies in the region and the implications of this phenomenon of prison capture for the dominant socio-legal literature on prisons and imprisonment.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong kong, 1990.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148) Also available in print.

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