Gang Activity on Campus

Incorporating Gang Presence Into Crisis Management (CM) Protocols

What happens when there are deviant people living in residence halls and matriculating on campus? This is a question one of the authors asked herself in 2009 when, while working in a student affairs position, her supervisor presented the staff with a list of names; the list contained students who were believed to be either gang-affiliated or actual gang members. Gang presence on college campuses poses a contemporary issue for campus threat assessment and emergency preparedness. The questions of whether and how to confront this issue raises additional questions surrounding student safety, success, and retention, as well as violence on campus.

Literature Review of Gang Presence at Institutions of Higher Education

A body of research examining the presence of gangs and gang activity on college campuses has developed within the past decade (e.g., Cadwallader, 2010; Cureton & Bellamy, 2007; Smith, 2013). The results of this research suggest that gangs pose a viable threat for institutions of higher education (Alpert et al., 2013; Smith, 2013). Although counterintuitive to what most campus employees believe about their students, there appears to be a subset of matriculating college students across the country who are either gang affiliates or gang members (National Gang Intelligence Center [NGIC], 2013). A gang affiliate is someone who “is knowledgeable about the gang within a specific residential area and is therefore held responsible for that gang’s offensive activities” (Cureton & Bellamy, 2007, p. 32), whereas a gang member is someone who “has been fully initiated into the gang, openly claims gang allegiance, and participates in the crime and violence associated with the gang in order to enhance individual and gang status” (Cureton & Bellamy, 2007, p. 32). According to the NGIC, gang presence in educational spaces is a continuing issue. Although gangs often begin to recruit members as early as primary school (Cureton & Bellamy, 2007; NGIC, 2013), “more gang members are gravitating toward colleges to escape gang life, join college athletic programs, or to acquire advanced skill sets for their gang” (NGIC, 2013, p. 5).

The reasons for a gang member to apply to college include benefits both to the gang and to the individual. As their criminal sophistication continues to evolve, gangs are more in need of highly educated members (NGIC, 2013; Smith, 2013) and thus benefit when college-educated members apply their knowledge and skills to gang activities and business ventures. Even if a gang member attends college away from home, college attendance does not excuse a member from responsibility to the gang (Cureton & Bellamy, 2007). Cureton and Bellamy (2007) interviewed a student gang member who was preparing to drop out of college at the end of his junior year. When asked about the reasons for leaving, the student noted the stress of balancing academic and gang responsibilities, the tension between academic values and street values, and the desire to leave the financial hardship of college life to return to a lifestyle of making quick money through illegal activity. Responsibility to the gang may be different for high-profile students. Rojek, Decker, Alpert, and Hansen’s (2013) participants were student athletes who noted that gang members attending college on an athletic scholarship are allowed a break from gang activity during the academic year. Regardless of student status, research on gang activity has suggested that gang membership is a salient identity and an appealing option for gang-affiliated students. While attending college, the gang continues to provide the benefits of protection and updated information on current events in the life of the gang. After leaving college—either as a graduate or a drop out—gangs have proven to be able to compensate members at much higher rates than any entry-level position would compensate a recent college graduate (Smith, 2013). For the student interviewed by Cureton and Bellamy (2007), “continued affiliation [with the gang while attending college] afforded the confidence that academic failure could be traded for street success” (p. 46).

In 2011, CBS and Sports Illustrated partnered to report on the influence of gangs on students in sports (Keteyian, 2011). The report highlighted college campuses where either students have been victims of on-campus crime perpetrated by gang members, or students have been charged with gang-affiliated criminal involvement. In addition, Rojek et al. (2013) note that student “athlete victims [of gang-related crime] have come from community colleges, small universities, and universities with major sports programs” (p. 457). As gangs pose a viable threat for institutions of higher education, it is important that college campuses (especially those that are located in an area where gangs are known to be present) incorporate gang presence or gang-related violence into their crisis response plans: “Given that gang members are already on many of the college campuses across the country by virtue of academic or athletic recruitment, there is a need to examine gang culture” (Cureton & Bellamy, 2007, p. 46).

Both gang presence in the community surrounding a campus and the admission of gang-affiliated students into the institution can produce challenges. Having presented an overview of the potential challenges posed by these circumstances, we now present the case study narrative, followed by our teaching notes, both of which are intended to help prime educators for the type of emergencies that may result from the presence and/or activities of gang-affiliated students. Although our overview and case study is focused on gang members in higher education, this issue is also pertinent for those educators in the K-12 arena. It is during the primary and secondary school years that young people are first introduced to and inducted into gang membership. Thus, the questions we raise about how to prepare for, intervene with, and support student gang members and affiliates are germane to the work of all educators.

Following this paragraph is a case study that asks readers to consider several questions surrounding the topic of preparing for and responding to student gang members. The case study is broken into several sections with instructions to “STOP” every so often and consider a set of debriefing questions regarding the newly presented segment of the unfolding scenario. This format allows readers to pause and think about how they might respond to a situation that involves gangs as they learn more information about the incident. Although the incident begins with a now familiar event, the presentation of a gang list, the remainder of the scenario is imagined. Although it is not intended to mirror the events of any existing true story, it provides a realistic account of how events could unfold, given a gang presence on campus. The case study includes the functional areas and positions that are noted as most likely to be represented on a campus CM team (Shaw, 2012). Resources related to campus CM can be found in the teaching notes for this case study.

Case Study Narrative

Congratulations! You have just become the dean of students at Any Town University (ATU), a large, public, research institution. Although the campus is located in a fairly rural area, it draws many of its students from the urban center of a nearby metropolis. Over the past 10 years, there has become an increasing problem with off-campus violence attributed to gangs. The local and university police have joined forces to monitor the gang activity on campus and recently put together a list of all ATU students who are also active gang members or gang affiliates. In your role as dean of students, you chair ATU’s institutional response team (IRT) that includes representatives from the following offices: university police, counseling, university communications, residence life, and the general counsel. As you are meeting with various departments and campus partners during the first few weeks on the job, you are stunned to be handed the gang list from the chief of campus police during your initial meeting with the IRT. He tells you that you might want to circulate the list through the staff just so they are aware. STOP

It has been few months since your meeting with the police chief, and the threat of gangs has all but left your mind. In the wee hours of the morning, you awake to the sound of your cell phone. The director of residence life shakily tells you that there has been a shooting in Williams Hall, an on-campus residence hall, and three students have been injured. He does not know more than this at the moment, and asks you to come to campus immediately as the media has already started to arrive. STOP

When you arrive at Williams Hall, you see distressed students huddled in groups outside the hall, police cars, and ambulances. You find another member of the IRT, and they tell you that two of the people involved were students and the third was not affiliated with ATU. All three people have died of gunshot wounds, and it looks like the violence was gang related. Michael Smith (your heart sinks because you knew Michael, he was a rising star on the basketball team) and his roommate, James White, were the ATU students killed, and the third person is yet unidentified. The police have determined that there is not an ongoing active shooter threat to the campus community and that the violence was centralized to Michael and James’s room. As you are trying to get your head around what you just learned, a local news station approaches you. STOP

It has been 20 hours since your cell phone rang. You and your colleagues on the IRT have done a good job managing the immediate crisis, but information is surfacing about why this tragic event took place. In the next few hours, you learn that Michael was affiliated with a gang and tried to sever ties when he got his basketball scholarship. They, however, saw an opportunity to expand into ATU and pressured Michael to begin selling drugs to students in his residence hall. A rival gang got wind of it and sent an initiate (later identified as Justin “Slim” Avery) to stop Michael. Things turned violent, and Justin shot Michael and James. Michael was able to reach his gun and shoot Justin before he died. The families of Michael and James are on their way to campus. Michael’s girlfriend has also come forward and needs help coping. STOP

James’s parents are lost in grief and horrified to learn that their son was rooming with a known gang member, resulting in his death. They plan to sue the university. What do you do now?

Teaching Notes

This case was written to be used in courses within higher education and student affairs leadership programs and in professional development settings with campus administrators. When presented as a form of professional development, this case can be used specifically with IRT members or with all employees in a student affairs division. Although IRT members are the people called in to manage major emergencies, other student affairs administrators—usually entry-level professionals—are the ones on the front-line of support for students. In the case study, the director of residence life delivers the news of a campus shooting. However, a director of residence life on most campuses would learn that there was a shooting in a residential facility because of the actions taken by the student staff and/or entry-level administrators who work and live within that particular building. Furthermore, when one of us received a list of gang-affiliated students at work, it was in an entry-level position.

When presenting this case, we recommend that participants be encouraged to consider the implications of gang presence on current CM policies and practices, including how existing crisis response protocols can be extended to respond to emergent threats. We have administered this case study 3 times to groups of student affairs administrators and graduate students, in both classroom and professional development settings. Therefore, before presenting topics to address when presenting the case, we present notes on formatting the case study experience.