Risk Behaviors Among Young Mexican American Gang-Associated Females: Sexual Relations, Partying, Substance Use, and Crime

This research focuses on young Mexican American girls who are not formal gang mem-bers yet participate in street-based activities of male gangs and engage in risk behaviors. These females comprise a larger proportion associated with male gangs in inner-city neighborhoods than actual female gang members. Using a qualitative design, the article presents a typology of Mexican American females that reveals a hierarchy based on exposure to four risk-related activities: sexual relations, partying, substance use, and crime. Findings illustrate how outcomes associated with these activities vary according to the girl’s relationship to the male gang and status within the community. Also, regard-less of their relationship to the gang, participation in these activities resulted in different degrees of negative outcomes. The study concludes that problems associated with these females must go beyond being viewed as individual problems but rather seen within the social, cultural, and economic conditions of their environment. There has been a proliferation of studies on male youth gangs over the past decade but few on how male gangs adversely influence the behavior of other nongang adolescents, especially females (Block & Block, 1993; Fagan, 1993; Klein & Maxson, 1987; Moore, 1991). Most studies on females associ-ated with male gangs have focused exclusively on female gang members. These studies have overlooked the largest group of young females associated with gang members who participate in the street-based activities of mal