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 members yet participate in street-based activities of male gangs and engage in risk, behaviors. These females comprise a larger proportion associated with mate gangs in inner-city neighborhoods than actual female gang members. Using a quilitative 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, regardless of their relationship to the, gang, participation in these activities resulted in different degrees of negative outcomes Tire study concludes that problems associated with these females twist go beyond being viewed as individual problems but rather seen within the social, cultural, and economic conditions of their environment.