The Digital Street
My research investigates how gangs perform identity, conflict, and status in online spaces—and how those performances reflect and reshape street dynamics. Rather than asking whether social media causes offline violence, I examine how digital platforms mirror and magnify the identities, rivalries, and hierarchies that already exist on the ground.
Drawing on deep cultural knowledge of gang language and social codes, I created one of the most comprehensive datasets on gangs and social media to date. Using digital trace data from a public Chicago Latino gang Facebook page, the dataset includes over 140,000 posts, comments, likes, and replies—providing a rare window into how gang interactions unfold in real time on the digital street.
This work has produced several key findings. Online conflicts among gang members are not random—they are highly structured, shaped by the type of post and the existing social ties between participants. Violence does not flow one way: while some online disputes escalate, most remain online, and offline tensions often spill into digital spaces after the fact. The digital street, the crew, and the corner are intertwined.
My research also examines how gender shapes gang dynamics in digital spaces. Women and girls are often marginalized or dismissed online, and claims to gang affiliation are frequently questioned based on gender, geography, and perceived authenticity. In related work, I explore how slurs and emasculating language are deployed as tools of humiliation and status regulation.
Taken together, this body of work helps reframe the role of social media in gang life—from a platform for provocation to a space where identity, risk, and recognition are performed in new ways. My goal is to bridge criminology, sociology, and digital studies to inform both theory and real-world approaches to violence prevention, public safety, and online harm reduction.
Published work
Leverso, John, and Yuan Hsiao. (2021) “Gangbangin On The [Face]Book: Understanding Online Interactions of Chicago Latina/o Gangs.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.
Hsaio Yuan, John Leverso (Equal contribution and listed alphabetically), and Andrew Papachristos. (Forthcoming) “The Corner, the Crew, and the Digital Street: Multiplex networks of gang online-offline conflict dynamics.” American Sociological Review.
Leverso, John, Youness Diouane and George Mohler. (2025) “Measuring Online-Offline Spillover of Gang Violence Using Bivariate Hawkes Processes.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
Leverso, John, James A. Densley and Lindsey Insco.* (2024) “Keeping it real: A signaling theory perspective on authentic claims of gang membership made on social media.” Theoretical Criminology.
Leverso, John, Kate K. O'Neill, Alex Knorre and George Mohler. (2025) “The limits of digital liberation: The social locations of gang-affiliated girls and women in the digital streets.” Journal of Criminal Justice 96: 102344.
Worthen, Meredith G. F., John Leverso, Chris Hess and Gracie Hedgpeth.* (2025) “Dude, You’re a Bitch! Gang Members’ Internet Banging Masculinity via Bitch Discourse.” Deviant Behavior.