The protective influence of gangs: can schools compensate?

Although gang involvement leads to many negative outcomes, such as incarceration, drug and alcohol use, injury, and death, gangs may also serve a protective influence to those who join them. For this reason, it is important to take a risk and resilience framework to understanding and ultimately preventing gang involvement. Our discussion includes a focus on three critical policy issues regarding schools” ability to implement the interventions necessary to protect youth from gang involvement: resource allocation, zero tolerance policies, and tracking.