THE CASCADING EFFECTS OF ADOLESCENT GANG INVOLVEMENT ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE ∗ MARVIN D. KROHN Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law University of Florida JEFFREY T. WARD Department of Criminal Justice University of Texas at San Antonio TERENCE P. THORNBERRY Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland ALAN J. LIZOTTE REBEKAH CHU School of Criminal Justice University at Albany, State University of New York KEYWORDS: gangs, life-course criminology, precocious transitions, adult roles and statuses The short-run deleterious effects of gang involvement during adolescence have been well researched. However, surprisingly little empirical attention has been devoted to understanding how gang involvement in adolescence influences life chances and criminal * Support for the Rochester Youth Development Study has been provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH63386), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (86-JN-CX-0007, 96-MU-FX-0014, 2004-MU- FX-0062), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA005512), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U49CE001295), and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9123299, SES-9123299). Work on this project also was aided by grants to the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the University at Albany from NICHD (P30-HD32041) and NSF (SBR-9512290). Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the funding agencies. Direct corre- spondence to Marvin D. Krohn, Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, P.O. Box 117330, Gainesville, FL 32611-7330 (e-mail: mkrohn@ufl.edu). C  2011 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2011.00250.x CRIMINOLOGY Volume 49 Number 4 2011 991