'Chillin', Being Dogged and Getting Buzzed': Alcohol in the lives of female gang members

Abstract

This paper explores drinking by girl gang members. Sociologists and criminologists have tended to concentrate on both male gang members and their involvement in drug dealing. This pre-occupation has tended to overshadow not only the role of female gang members but also the importance of drinking within youth gangs. In spite of a growing interest in female drinking, ethnographic and qualitative research on female drinking is still much less developed than that devoted to male drinking. In analyzing the culture of drinking in the lives of girl gang members, we uncover the extent to which alcohol plays a central part in their everyday lives. Data for this paper are drawn from the results of an on-going study of street gangs in the San Francisco Bay area, in which 97 female gang members were interviewed using both a quantitative and qualitative interview schedule.