This book examines how membership in adolescent street gangs influences human development.

1. A life-course orientation to the study of gang membership; 2. Research procedures: the sample and the data; 3. Characteristics of gang members; 4. The antecedents of gang membership; 5. The origins of gang membership; 6. Gangs as a facilitating context for delinquent behavior; 7. Gangs, guns, and crime; 8. Gangs and other law violating youth groups; 9. Long-term consequences of gang membership; 10. Gangs in life-course perspective.