Freakonomics Blog
The post “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs (But Didn’t Know Whom to Ask)” has a great question:
Q: How do you define a gang?A: Great question. There are a few important legal cases where prosecutors tried to prosecute college fraternities as “gangs.” They suggested that the fraternity was an organization that existed to promote criminal behavior, such as the abuse of women and underage drinking. Most judges threw these cases out because they thought that fraternities were not, by definition, “gangs.” But judges rarely gave a logical reason for excluding (typically white) fraternities from the “gang category.”
Indeed, by any valid social scientific definition of a gang — “an established organization whose members come together for solidarity reasons and who engage in delinquent and/or criminal activities” — a fraternity most certainly qualifies. But race, as we know, can be a factor in shaping judicial outcomes.