Masculinity in the Margins: Race, Gang Violence, and the Code of the Street

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for a really excellent and engaging paper. I only have minor suggestions, and I am perfectly fine with this being published as is. However, if there are revisions, I would suggest giving yourself more space for your own qualitative data. The overview of the literature is very comprehensive and thorough - and thank you for that! - but it comes at the cost of your own findings receiving less space, so perhaps that could be shortened. I was also wondering if some of the more recent work by Adam Baird (especially on Belize and Trinidad and Tobago) could be of interest here as well, especially his concept of "masculine vulnerability" and why some young men are drawn to gangs while others with a similar demographic background are not.   

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

While the subject matter of the analysis is not strictly original, as the global overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in crime and penal statistics has been a persistent area of ​​research in criminology, the approach the researcher adopts is.
The structure of the article is correct and well-organized.
The literature review is quite comprehensive. The author reviews the main authors and theories with the ability to appropriately extrapolate them to the object of study, endowing the text with great explanatory potential. Reference authors are not lacking, and the bibliography consulted includes not only classic authors but also the most recent contributions developed on the subject in question. The review of the literature and doctrinal contributions is very complete and solid. The hypothesis raised regarding differential selection by the criminal justice system and the identification of systemic biases such as discriminatory judicial practices, biased law enforcement, and racial profiling that disproportionately result in the arrest, conviction, and incarceration of minorities is well supported and fits with the conclusions drawn from the analysis and the research.
The presentation and language used are clear, concise, and direct, facilitating understanding of the content.
In our opinion, the weakest aspect of this study is its methodology. Considering the complexity of the proposed research and considering that the author successfully navigated the difficulties of fieldwork and the requirement to empirically verify the information and data obtained, the fact that the participants were identified through the researcher's informal and personal networks, as well as through referrals from a key informant, raises concerns about the representativeness of the resulting study and the introduction of bias into the research. Added to this circumstance, as the author of the research argues, is the fact that, given the ethical restrictions surrounding interviews with active gang members and Singapore's strict laws on gang-related activities, the narratives were collected primarily from ex-gang members, which may mean that the information used is not sufficiently up-to-date. This is also compounded by the fact that verbatim transcriptions of the interviews were excluded as a strategy to make the interviewee feel comfortable and thus obtain "the richest, most extensive, and authentic data of all." This strategy is risky in methodological terms, but sufficiently proven with regard to active gang members or active members of criminal organizations. We fail to understand, or at least believe that a better justification is needed, why this criterion was applied to the entire sample and why no distinction was made between active offenders and ex-gang members (especially if their crimes may have expired) or with respect to the members of law enforcement agencies interviewed. Since methodological quality is one of the inherent difficulties in this type of research, perhaps applying two different interview models according to the profile and situation of each of the sample members (which is acceptable given the 22 individuals) would give the results and conclusions greater weight in terms of research and academic solvency and avoid their partial relativization, despite the fact that the theoretical construct, as indicated, compensates for this possible source of weakness.
The formula of resorting to the "one-party testimonial consent" method has proven original, in which a brief record of the participant's consent was documented along with an explanation of why conventional consent procedures were not feasible to comply with the ethical requirements of the research, while also overcoming the reluctance of interviewees to sign formal consent forms due to concerns that such documentation could later be used against them by law enforcement. Finally, we consider that the work would gain in quality, interest and would reinforce its contribution to the information on the subject under study, if the author could introduce comparisons of the results obtained with the results of similar current research on gangs and youth bands active in other parts of the world (maras in Central America, for example), to study whether there are comparable "criminogenic universals", in such a way that, if necessary and with the appropriate reservations, explanatory comparisons could be established or a strategy extrapolated.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf