Local gangs and residents’ perceptions of unsupervised teen groups: Implications for the incivilities thesis and neighborhood effects

The current work responds to calls for more conceptual clarity in disorder and incivility models, and for closer ties between gang and neighborhood effects research. Focusing on the perceived incivility that is pivotal to the dynamics of several theories in community criminology—unsupervised teen groups—and adopting Messick’s (1995) unified perspective on construct validation, the current work examines ecological and psychological impacts of street gang set spaces on these perceptions.