Abstrakt
Research into gangs has been primarily concentrated in the USA for many years. The important step leading to a more intensive analysis of this phenomenon in Europe has been made by creating a uniform gang definition of Eurogang research group, which has been operationalized and integrated in two waves of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2 and ISRD-3).
The objective of this paper is to introduce methodological issues of the definition and offer possibilities for its revision. Data suggest that each type of definition used in our study may generate a different group of respondents.
Although the multivariate analysis of factors influencing gang membership demonstrates some intersections, delinquency rates among gang members defined using different definitions vary considerably.