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David Pyrooz, assistant professor of sociology at CU Boulder, has won the 2016 Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology.

The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of criminology by someone who has received his or her graduate degree within five years.

By earning the highest honor a junior scholar can receive in the discipline, Pyrooz joins a distinguished list of researchers who are 鈥渁mong the most accomplished in the field of criminology.鈥�

Pyrooz is 鈥渉onored and humbled鈥� by the award, 鈥渆specially because the past winners cast an awfully long shadow.鈥�

Delbert Elliott, director of the Positive Youth Development Program at the Institute of Behavioral Science, as well as founding director of the institute鈥檚 Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence and distinguished professor emeritus of sociology, said Pyrooz himself casts a pretty good shadow.

Pyrooz is a 鈥渧ery sharp, talented young criminologist,鈥� Elliott stated. 鈥淕etting this award was a major deal. This is a very competitive award for young scholars.鈥�

Further, Pyrooz is making 鈥渧ery significant contributions鈥� to the study of criminal gang culture, and is 鈥渙ne of the very few who鈥檚 looking at what happens when you get out of a gang,鈥� Elliott said.

Pyrooz graduated with his doctorate in criminology and criminal justice from Arizona State University in 2012. He joined CU Boulder鈥檚 faculty last year.

Pyrooz鈥檚 publication record buttresses Elliott鈥檚 assessment. In a study published in 2014, Pyrooz and Gary Sweeten of Arizona State University found that gang membership among youths between 5 and 17 totaled as many as 1 million in 2010 nationally.

Although that number is undoubtedly much larger than official law-enforcement statistics estimate, it represents only about 2 percent of the country鈥檚 youth population, Pyrooz and Sweeten noted.

At the same time, the researchers found that anti-gang interventions aimed at teen-agers can arrive too late, given that 1 percent of all American kids identified as gang members by age 10.

Additionally, Pyrooz and Sweeten showed that gang membership is more diverse than popularly believed. While many youthful gang members are poor African American or Latino males, 鈥渢here is a large portion of females, whites and youth from two-parent and non-poverty families also participating in gangs,鈥� the authors wrote.

In addition, the researchers discovered a 36-percent turnover rate among youthful gang members, undercutting the view that gang members rarely quit their affiliations.

In earlier work, Pyrooz and other researchers concluded that gangs did not use the internet to commit sophisticated cybercrimes such as phishing, identity theft or hacking.

Instead, gang members tend to engage in other illegal, but less-intricate, behavior, such as selling drugs, coordinating violence, compromising social-network sites to steal and rob, illegally downloading media, and uploading deviant videos.

While gang members might, at times, use the internet for illegal activity, they do not typically use it for recruitment, the researchers found. That study was co-authored by Pyrooz, Scott Decker at Sam Houston State University and Richard Moule of Arizona State University.

In another study with Decker and Moule, Pyrooz determined that gang members are twice as likely to become both victims of crime and criminal offenders than non-gang members, as single acts of violence often lead to retribution between gangs as a whole. The research team offered a studied explanation.

鈥淚t is not that gangs aren鈥檛 comprised of impulsive youth who live high-risk lifestyles, but that gangs are equipped with a collection of group processes and 鈥榤anpower鈥� that better facilitate trading places as victim and offender,鈥� Pyrooz stated in 2013.

To address such systemic issues, Pyrooz and his colleagues suggested that law-enforcement interventions focus on entire gang activity and their dynamics, and not just on individual offenders and victims.

Pyrooz will accept the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award during the American Society of Criminology鈥檚 annual meeting in November.

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