Puerto Rican Gangs: A Historical Overview

This article presents the problem of gangs on the island of Puerto Rico from a historical, economical, and political perspective. Some Puerto Rican historians are convinced that the gang problem in Puerto Rico is due to the political ambiguity and human rights violations of prison inmates (F. Picò, 1998).     

Conversion Hysteria in a Pre-Adolescent Girl

Abstract

This paper is a case presentation of a 10-year-old girl with classic conversion hysteria symptomatology. Psychological test material as well as the ten session treatment is presented. The original Breuer/Freud conceptualization of hysteria and its linkage with trauma is considered. Current theories of trauma with the usual presenting symptoms of dissociation, abandonment fears, and repetition are also considered.     

创造性与环境因素关系的社会心理学理论

本文介绍了关于创造性研究的社会心理学理论,分析了它们对于环境因素影响创造性行为产生的观点,强调了环境因素与创造性行为关系的动机中介作用的思想,在理论分析的基础上提出探索环境影响因素的结构与动机中介的机制是进一步研究创造性行为的方向。     

Antipodal Tattooing: Muslim Youth in Chinese Gangs

The relationship between Muslims and body art has not been a subject of academic inquiry. This is strange since tattooing has become more prevalent in many urban cosmopolitan cities. This article examines the tattooing practices of Muslim men in Singapore. These practices are sociologically interesting because they involve Malay men who are predominantly Muslims, tattooing themselves as part of their membership in gangs that are mostly Chinese-dominated. This article presents the concept of “antipodal tattooing,” which can be instructive in understanding the relationships between tattooing and identity formation as expressions of the fragile and fragmented character of minority youth identities in urban life.     

Boys Who Join Gangs: A Prospective Study of Predictors of First Gang Entry

In a representative sample of boys who were in the 7th grade of an urban public school system at the start of a 6-year longitudinal study, more African American boys (23.8%) than non-Hispanic White boys (3.9%) had entered an antisocial gang by age 19. There were too few White gang members to study, but among African American boys, first gang entry was predicted prospectively by both baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors and increasing levels of CD behaviors prior to gang entry. This suggests that gang entry may be a further developmental step for some boys who are already on a trajectory of worsening antisocial behavior. Having friends prior to gang entry who engaged in aggressive delinquency increased the risk of gang entry further, but only during early adolescence. Family income and parental supervision also independently predicted gang entry, but the direction of their influences depended on the youth's age.     

A Systemic Analysis of the Dynamics and Organization of Urban Street Gangs

Street gangs function as ongoing, open social systems in relation to their surrounding sociocultural context. Fundamentally, gangs are comparable to some family systems. In fact, most gangs do consider themselves to be “families.” The same concepts used to describe family systems may also be applied to street gangs. Street gangs usually exhibit a highly complex organization, structure, process, and functionality. All of these aspects intertwine within and around the gang to form a web of interconnectedness and continuity. To better understand street gangs and provide effective intervention plans, they must be viewed from this systematic and holistic perspective.     

Situated Action: A Symbolic Interpretation

The congeries of theoretical views collectively referred to as “situated action” (SA) claim that humans and their interactions with the world cannot be understood using symbol-system models and methodology, but only by observing them within real-world contexts or building nonsymbolic models of them. SA claims also that rapid, real-time interaction with a dynamically changing environment is not amenable to symbolic interpretation of the sort espoused by the cognitive science of recent decades. Planning and representation, central to symbolic theories, are claimed to be irrelevant in everyday human activity. We will contest these claims, as well as their proponents' characterizations of the symbol-system viewpoint. We will show that a number of existing symbolic systems perform well in temporally demanding tasks embedded in complex environments, whereas the systems usually regarded as exemplifying SA are thoroughly symbolic (and representational), and, to the extent that they are limited in these respects, have doubtful prospects for extension to complex tasks. As our title suggests, we propose that the goals set forth by the proponents of SA can be attained only within the framework of symbolic systems. The main body of empirical evidence supporting our view resides in the numerous symbol systems constructed in the past 35 years that have successfully simulated broad areas of human cognition.     

Using Three Reporters to Identify Pre-Adolescent Peer Victims through Latent Profile Analysis

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The goals of the current study were to use a three-reporter methodology and multi-level Latent Profile Analysis: (a) to determine the victim...     

Maturity Levels for Outlaw Groups: The Case of Criminal Street Gangs

The maturity of street gangs varies among groups as well as among countries where gangs are present. In this article, a four stage model for maturity is introduced to help define the threat represented by outlaw groups. Maturity models can serve several important purposes. First, a contingent approach to law enforcement implies that the police and other government agencies can apply appropriate measures. Second, law enforcement can distinguish approaches for fighting non-mature gangs versus mature gangs. Third, the evolution of gangs over time provides insights into the mechanisms that make gangs threatening to society.     

Criminal Crews,Codes, and Contexts: Differences and Similarities across the Code of the Street,Convict Code,Street Gangs,and Prison Gangs

We use 16 characterizations of crews, codes, and contexts to determine if offender subcultures (code of the street, convict code, street and prison gangs) converge, complement, or are independent of one another. We find extensive overlap across offender subcultures with “belief” subcultures in street and prison settings mirroring the “group” subcultures in those respective settings. Findings generate a call for comparative research on the convergences and divergences across subcultures on the street and in prisons with a specific emphasis on the impact that importation, deprivation, and exportation have on policy and programming importation for both the street and prison settings.     

Interpretation without hermeneutics: A plea against ecumenism

I have been much helped by Axel Bühler writings on hermeneutics (in particular by his unpublished Conference sull'ermeneutica) and would like to thank him and Donald Davidson for comments.     

A Comparison Between Mexican American Youth Who Are in Gangs and Those Who Are Not

This exploratory study compares the differences between 43 Mexican American gang members and 43 Mexican American adolescents who are not members of a gang on several demographic, educational, familial, cultural, and psychological variables. Differences were analyzed using t tests and chi‐square analyses. Discussion focuses on implications for counseling. Este estudio de exploración compara las diferencias entre 43 Mexicoamericanos pertenecientes a alguna pandilla y 43 adolescentes Mexicoamericanos que no son miembros de una pandilla según distintas variables demográficas, educativas, familiares, culturales y psicológicas. Las diferencias se analizaron usando pruebas t y análisis de ji‐cuadrado. La discusión se centra en las implicaciones para la consejería.     

A Religious Interpretation of Emergence: Creativity as God

Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism from the conception of God, thus overcoming one of the major reasons for the implausibility of God-talk in today's world—here viewed as a highly dynamic reality (not an essentially stable structure), with God regarded as the ongoing creativity in this world. This mystery of creativity—God—manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world—issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us.