Economist: schooling helps avoid gangs

Performance in school is key in avoidance of gang membership, a University of Chicago economist said last night at Alden Hall.

Steven Levitt presented the findings of a study done on adolescents living in a single Chicago housing project. In 1989, Columbia University ethnologist Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh began a two-year period where he lived in the high rise, going as far as being arrested with other residents.

At the end of his stay, he took a crude sampling of 118 black males aged 16 to 26. Last year, Levitt and Venkatesh re-interviewed 90 of the young men, with unforeseen circumstances preventing them from interviewing the entire pool again.

‘Eleven of the kids died,’ Levitt said. ‘Four refused to participate, and thirteen could not be found.’

Levitt based his findings on a gang member versus non-gang member economic analysis. Comparing factors such as education, matriarchal drug use, presence of fathers in the home, physical strength, social adaptability and number of siblings, Levitt found the major factors in whether or not a person was active in a gang were parental use of drugs and performance in school.

‘In ninth grade at a Chicago Public School, the average grade point average of a non-gang member was 2.2,’ Levitt said. ‘The average GPA of a gang member was 1.6. … 30 percent of gang members had mothers who used cocaine, while only 10 percent of non-gang mothers used.’

Levitt saw a tendency for gang members to have one more siblings than non-members, be 25 percent less likely to graduate from high school, be stronger physically and at least as socially adaptable as their counterparts.

Cocaine use was at its height in 1991 and with the average annual income of a household in this high rise at $6,700, it was by no means ideal conditions in which a young male should grow up, he said. Despite these factors, only 29 of the 90 males interviewed in 2000 were gang members.

One possible explanation may be that non-gang members made close to $3,000 more annually than gang members. The researchers found most of these non-gang members work at O’Hare Airport, making roughly $21,000 a year legally, but adding another $2,500 annually by selling drugs to co-workers. More than a third of the $21,000 the average gang members earns comes from drug sales alone.

The study questioned the economic viability of being in a gang especially when most of those in the gang are lower-level muscle and pushers not making much money. Of the 29 persons in the gang 10 years later, only one had progressed up into middle management while the rest were still in low level employment. The study also showed those involved in the gang are twice as likely to get shot, are increasingly involved in a higher number of violent crimes and are incarcerated at a much higher rate.

Levitt hypothesized members join gangs because they feel the protection is necessary and good to have in prison or in high school where there are many rival gangs.

The study also found more evidence of the importance of education in fighting profit-based gangs. The wage earning ability of those interviewed in the survey was affected at a much higher rate than the national average.

‘The United States average for every year of education is an 8 percent raise in wage,’ Levitt said. ‘Looking at these kids, it is a 20 percent raise in wages.’