In his paper “Youth Gangs: An Overview,” James C. Howell notes that one of the risk factors for youth gang membership is “barriers to and lack of social and economic opportunities.” While some people join gangs to impress friends or escape abusive households, others join because they live in poor urban neighborhoods and believe that gang life offers the best avenue for economic stability.

The unemployment rate in inner cities in November 1999 was higher than the national average of 4.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure, as reported by the BLS, is especially high for African American teenagers— their unemployment rate in November 1999 was 28.9 percent, compared to 12.1 percent for whites between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. These jobs that do exist are in the suburbs and thus inaccessible to urban youth because they...