BACKGROUND Youth gangs are identified internationally with increased rates of delinquency and violent crime (Howell, 1997; Klein, 2002; White, 2002), including trafficking in arms, drugs and (increasingly) humans (Organisation of American States [OAS], 2007). Gang members are disproportionately involved with serious and violent offences compared to non-gang delinquent youth (Howell, 1998). This suggests that something about gang membership encourages violence over and above the correlation between having delinquent friends and a previous delinquent history (Battin, Hill, Abbott, Catalano, & Hawkins, 1998)..
