Qualitative Psychology, Vol 9(3), Oct 2022, 251-272; doi:10.1037/qup0000188
Qualitative research that attempts to gain a holistic understanding of the factors related to gang involvement, including the role of psychological processes, is sparse. This study examined the case of H.Y., a 28-year-old, Black British male, previously affiliated to a reputable gang in the United Kingdom. A case study research design was employed based on a theoretical, unified model of gang involvement that enabled examination of the various factors associated with criminality, membership, and desistence pathways. Based on the model’s concepts, qualitative analytic techniques, such as pattern matching, were used to explore and identify possible causal links between factors to examine how the model applied to H.Y.’s pathway to gang involvement. The findings illustrated how H.Y. was not merely “mad and bad” as he described himself, but that over the course of a decade, individual characteristics, such as untreated mental health difficulties, poor emotion regulation, and sociocognitive processes; social factors, such as marginalization, school exclusion, and poor family bonds; and environmental factors, including exposure to delinquency, poverty, and violence, preceded stable gang membership. Persistent exposure to delinquency and violence also played a role in H.Y.’s gang joining and persistent offending. Implications regarding prevention and intervention efforts to tackle the effects of gang involvement, especially with regards to the mental ill health and emotional well-being of gang members, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)