Youth gangs

Communities everywhere have experienced the negative effects of street gangs. The presence of military-trained gang members (MTGMs) in the community increases the threat of violence to citizens. The problem addressed was the apparently growing presence of military-trained gang members in civilian communities in two southern states. The purpose was to determine the perceived presence of military-trained gang members and examine whether there was a relationship between the perceptions of gang investigators regarding the presence and the size of their jurisdictions, the proximity of their jurisdictions to a military installation, and the extent to which investigators participate in anti-gang activities. The Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve were identified as the largest sources of MTGMs and the Bloods, Crips, and Gangster Disciples were the gangs most represented. Military leaders should acknowledge the increase in gang-related crime and address the problems caused for both military and civilian communities without attempting to quantify the threat level. Military leadership should continuously examine activities of all suspected gang members for active gang affiliation for retention purposes while evaluating any gang affiliation for security clearances. Military Law Enforcement liaison for recruiters should develop effective communication with law enforcement agencies to assist with information sharing.

Township crime is an emerging area of research in South African history and this study attempts to extend its focus beyond the major metropolitan centres to the Mpumalanga town of Ermelo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Drawing upon Truth and Reconciliation Commission interviews and Thabo Israel Pudi's recently published collection of narratives, this study examines the circumstances which led the Anti-Crime Committee to be converted into Inkatha vigilantes: the Black Cats. The ANC's attitude to organised crime, interpreted by activists on the ground, was torn between principled opposition and the pragmatic requirement to access its resources. An initial strategy of assassination and negotiation was discarded by the liberation movement as a result of its very success, as Black Cat defectors and external militants contributed to the escalation in violence.

This article is based on ethnographic work with two ‘‘crews’’ of young graffiti artists in southern Mexico
City. The crews share certain characteristics with gangs or urban tribes, but more with ‘‘communities of
practice’’: they live in the ‘‘figured world’’ of graffiti, a community of practice at the local and global level.
Through participation, including observation and the study of fanzines, group members learn the
language, technical and social skills, and values of this figured world. Their reasons to paint and the
topics they express are varied, but authentic expression is fundamental. Graffiti allows these young
people to establish an interesting interplay of identities in the world of graffiti versus their ordinary lives.

How do poverty, youth and crime relate to the concept of being 'cool'? Jonathan Ilan presents a unique, theoretically informed overview of street culture in various parts of the world – its origins, functions, manifestations and appeal – examining both its bearing on criminal lifestyles and on the cultivation of 'cool.'

Drawing on contemporary research and original examples to evidence new ways of thinking about street culture - from the favelas of Brazil to housing projects in the USA - the text locates street culture within its particular social, cultural and economic contexts. Covering diverse subjects from brutal violence to contemporary fashion it explores the ways in which street culture is intertwined with processes of social exclusion and inclusion.

An in-depth and even-handed guide to understanding the practices, styles and struggles associated with a particular section of the socio-economically disadvantaged, this text stands as an invaluable resource for students and academics across a range of disciplines, including youth studies, urban studies, criminology, sociology, cultural studies and geography.

El tratamiento del fenómeno de las bandas callejeras de origen latinoamericano en España ha sufrido recientemente diversas modificaciones en lo que concierne a la actuación de los órganos de control del delito. El endurecimiento de la regulación jurídica y los cambios en los modelos de actuación policial, junto con el papel cada vez más activo de la fiscalía, han contribuido al aumento de la presión punitiva con respecto a las pandillas. El presente trabajo describe tales cambios en la política criminal para el tratamiento de las bandas callejeras latinoamericanas, así como abre un debate sobre las posibles causas de este giro punitivo.

In this occasional paper taken from a gang conference in Sweden I discuss the different varieties of social constructionism and how they might be applied to the study of gangs. I argue that gang research suffers from a severe lack of critical constructionism which in the age of punishment provides an ideological support to the politics of repression and an industry of gang suppression.

The failures of governance and statehood in Nigeria breed an anarchical or disruptive system in the state and provide a platform for youth violence and justification for disruptive behaviour against the state systems and structures. Contributing to the available research, this study shifts its focus to understand and address the linkage of disruptive behaviour by studying and discussing Human Security through the lens of youth violence in Nigeria. In doing so, this study adopts a mixed method approach of quantitative and qualitative data with Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation to investigate, analyse and discuss the issues herein. From the findings, cultism and ethnic factors were identified as major causes of youth violence among others. Thus, effective institutions, quality education, economic and security regional or geopolitical zones programs is noted as a means to address youth violence in Nigeria.

En este trabajo nos proponemos discutir la relación entre desigualdad y violencia para el caso de Venezuela. Si bien una vasta literatura ha establecido una estrecha vinculación entre ambas variables, en el caso venezolano, donde durante los últimos años los indicadores sociales han mejorado sustancialmente a la par de que se disparan las tasas de homicidios, esta asociación parece discutible. A partir de nuestro trabajo de campo en dos barrios caraqueños con alto grado de violencia armada y en una cárcel del centro del país, sugerimos que las políticas sociales focalizadas, aunque han mejorado las condiciones de vida de los grupos sociales desventajados, han contribuido también con la aparición de nuevas brechas sociales dentro de las clases populares, diferenciando entre sectores que han logrado mejores posiciones y otros que se quedan relegados. Además, aun contando con mayores ingresos y circulación de dinero, persistirían asimetrías importantes en relación con otros capitales, como las relaciones sociales o los capitales culturales y políticos. Estas nuevas desigualdades, refractarias a las políticas de inclusión y a las formas de medición de la distancia social, permitirían no sólo explicar la violencia intraclase que ha crecido en estos años, sino dar cuenta de nuevas formas de organización  social y nuevos clivajes que afectan a las clases populares.

The purpose of this article is to propose a community structural
intervention for low-income families who present to therapy with
the concern of an adolescent at risk for gang involvement. Families
are affected by multiple interacting systems. In congruence with
systems theory, changing a part of the system will essentially affect
the interrelated parts of the system. The proposed intervention
utilizes structural family therapy and community family therapy
as a model to impact change at the family system, its interrelated
systems, and the system at which the family is embedded.

The notion that Academic Criminology is to a large extent divorced from the practical fields that the subject informs, is not a new concept. Moreover, Criminology graduates seem to be falling into the trap of becoming bogged down in a cycle of reproducing book knowledge, without being able to interpret and use information in practice. This may lead to students entering the competitive labour market without the innovative and creative skills required to meet the challenges in the workplace. For the Department of Criminology at the University of the Free State (UFS), Community Service Learning (CSL) provides the ideal vehicle to reconcile theory on juvenile delinquency with the practical application thereof. Students in their fourth year of study visit the Bloemfontein Secure Care Centre, one of two juvenile detention centres in the Free State Province. Students engage in weekly visits to the Centre in order to present an adapted version of the 'Take a Lead in Life' Programme (a therapeutic programme designed to address problem areas that incarcerated youths encounter) to youths who have had brushes with the law. This on-site practical engagement enables the students to adapt the programme in response to the specific needs of the group they encounter. A process of experiential learning offers students the opportunity to attain a deeper level of learning regarding the phenomenon of juvenile misbehaviour and juvenile crime, whilst also emphasising the rehabilitation and therapeutic aims of the Centre. The integration of juvenile delinquency theory in the service activity, the design of the programme, the difficulties encountered during the pilot phase of the project, as well as the value of practical work for the parties involved (the University, the Department of Criminology, the students, the facilitators, the service partners and the target population) will be discussed. Personal critical reflections on the process by facilitators of the programme will also be included in this article.

An exploration of how families in disadvantaged communities manage parent-child relationships.

Recent government policies in relation to child welfare, juvenile justice and area regeneration emphasise the importance of effective parenting.

Parent-focused interventions primarily affect families living in disadvantaged communities, but there has been relatively little research into the challenges of bringing up children in these environments. This report explores how families in these communities manage parent-child relationships during the middle childhood.

In 2004, an unlikely combination of rural insurgent groups and urban gangs fought over the fate of President Aristide and brought Haiti to the brink of civil war. Ten years on, the country is still plagued by instances of armed violence. While most policy experts and practitioners seem to agree that over the last decade, violence transformed from a political into a criminal phenomenon, scholars remain divided over the question of whether Haiti's urban armed groups should be framed as a political movement or as hardened criminals. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and overt observation conducted during six months of fieldwork in Haiti in 2013, this article argues that it is crucial to refocus the analysis on the functions gangs fulfil on behalf of their politico-criminal sponsors. In contrast to the proclaimed internal shift from political to criminal motivation, this approach suggests that the constantly changing priorities of political entrepreneurs and organised crime groups shape the nature of the violent service offered by urban armed groups. The findings of this article mirror comparable dynamics in other countries in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa and have crucial implications for international agencies working in the urban environment and dealing with urban armed groups.

Drill rap, a subgenre of hip-hop intimately connected to Chicago street life and brought into the nation’s musical mainstream by Chicago rapper Chief Keef, sounds and means differently than traditional forms of hip-hop. Unlike most hip hop, drill is outwardly unconcerned with mobility.  This project explores drill’s departure from hip-hop’s traditional aesthetics and messaging, considering what about Chicago gave rise to this departure, the extent to which the departure categorizes the subgenre, and what the departure says about the counter-public of young people that create and consume drill rap in the city. This project is highly interdisciplinary: the contextualization of the departure relies on history and urban studies; the consideration of the extent of the departure incorporates content analysis and literary studies; the discussion of the significance of drill turns to cultural studies and political science. My research suggests that a sense of hyper-containment underlies drill’s non-engagement with mobility, or what I deem the subgenre’s inward turn. This hyper-containment, I determine, resulted from the fallout of the demolition of the city’s high-rise housing projects (part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation) and the gang fragmentation that followed the prosecution of many of Chicago’s gang leaders in the 1990s. I then conclude that this hyper-containment should inform policy in Chicago, particularly policy that relates to young people on the city’s South and West sides, and call for further research into drill, what I believe to be a tremendously significant yet under-researched cultural form.

Youth gangs proliferate in Guatemala and across the Americas; targeted by social cleansing campaigns and singularly conceived by society as violent aggressors, their purpose is ill-understood. Theirs is a society that has devised answers to social, economic and political exclusion endured on the outside. This research looks at the social, economic and political existence that awaits youth exiting the gang and shares the experience of an NGO working with ex-gang members. What is offered to the ex-gang member by the state, practitioners and donors?

After nearly a hundred years of debate and analysis, the gang concept remains hotly contested within the social sciences. Once thought to be an exclusively American phenomenon, the study of gangs has become increasingly global over the last several decades. Countries from every world region have observed the emergence of gangs and gang-like groups. In some of these places, gangs resemble their American counterparts while in others they not only engage in  petty crime and drug trafficking but targeted assassinations, corruption of public officials, and racketeering as well. These activities make them less like the delinquent youth groups they were once conceived as and more akin to organized crime. In less stable and violent contexts still, gangs have even been incorporated into ethnic militias, rebel groups, and paramilitaries or have taken on a more vigilante ethos by combating violence and providing some semblance of order. The remarkable proliferation of the gang form over the last several decades and the incredible variation in the phenomenon across the globe requires a reassessment of the gang concept.
In the limited literature which focuses on the study of gangs cross-nationally, there have been several conceptualizations proposed. Some scholars have attempted to separate smaller street gangs from a variety of other related phenomena: prison gangs, drug gangs, and organized crime. They have done so by crafting a more restrictive concept. However, while separating street gangs from other criminal groups may make sense in the American or European context, it applies less well to other parts of the globe where such organizational forms have become thoroughly integrated thus blurring these traditional conceptual boundaries. On the other hand, some scholars have advocated for a conceptual framework which captures the transformative nature of gangs and encompasses any and all types of gangs and gang-like groups. Such an evolutionary framework fails, however, to distinguish between gangs and a huge variety of criminal and political non-state armed groups which share little in terms of their origins, motivations, or activities. The best conceptualization, this author argues, is a minimal one that incorporates gangs and many gang-like groups but avoids conceptual stretching to include virtually all non-state armed groups. Ultimately, contemporary scholars of gangs within any national context must be increasingly attentive to the global dimensions of the gang organizational form and the various overlapping and multi-faceted relationships they maintain with a variety of other  non-state armed groups.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the temporary disbandment of a gang unit on collecting gang intelligence and arresting gang members in one of the Los Angeles Police Department's Community Policing Areas. Design/methodology/approach – An interrupted time series methodology (ARIMA) is utilised to examine 1,429 field interview cards and 1,174 arrests of gang members that occurred from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2011 within one police division. Findings – Results indicated that the dismantling of the gang unit negatively impacted the collection of intelligence on gang members by officers, regardless of whether the officers were officially serving in the gang unit. Suppression efforts by gang unit officers also resulted in a sustained decline. Originality/value – Given that many urban centres have specialised gang units, this study demonstrates how organisational turnover or disbandment of a gang unit negatively impacts a department's ability to deal with local gang issues. Furthermore, these finding suggest that police organisations should consider such ramifications on intelligence-based policing activities. In many cities, the creation and utilisation of specialised gang units improves a police department's overall understanding of and response to localised gang problems. These units assist in a range of gang-related police activities including, but not limited to, intelligence gathering, strategizing solutions to gang problems, supporting criminal investigations, and working with the prosecutor's office. Specialised gang units were designed for these tasks under the belief that targeted training and information warehousing would provide more effective and efficient gathering and dissemination of gang intelligence (Huff and McBride, 1993). While specialised gang units became normalised in many police jurisdictions as a response to gang problems, there remains a lack of quantitative research on the impact of these units, particularly on performance outcomes such as intelligence gathering or arrests. The majority of research focuses qualitatively on the form and function of different gang units across jurisdictions

Inoculation theory boasts a dynamic history since McGuire first introduced it in the early 1960s. The last decade, in particular, has been a period of explosive growth for inoculation. Research has offered a more nuanced understanding of how inoculation confers resistance, exploring precise workings of inoculation’s core concepts of threat and coun-terarguing in conjunction with concepts drawn from other theoretical domains, including issue involvement, attitude accessibility, self-efficacy, and affect. Research is also extending practical applications of inoculation, examining new uses in marketing, public relations, politics, and adolescent health campaigns. The purpose of this chapter is to review the classic work on inoculation theory, examine recent developments that inform the workings of inoculation and its applications, and suggest directions for future research. The chapter also suggests extending the application of inoculation into the areas of childhood obesity, body image, gang activity, consumer protection, and employee satisfaction, among others.

Environmental activist and ardent advocate for children’s rights and well-being, Jamaican laureate of the 2008 Jamaican National Literature awards, Diana McCaulay, published her critically acclaimed debut novel Dog-Heart in 2010. This paper will first focus on the legacy of colonial racism in Jamaica, before addressing the main characters’ quest for identity in a crime-ridden society.

In 2007, the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, or CIRV, was initiated by the Cincinnati Police Department to tackle the rising problem of gang-member related homicides (Engel et al., 2008). CIRV was an evidence-based, focused deterrence strategy developed from the Boston Operation Ceasefire approach to prevent serious gun and gang-related violence (see Braga et al., 1999, 2001; Kennedy, 1996, 1997). This model captured the interest of law enforcement authorities in Glasgow, Scotland, who sought to adopt it as a model to address its persistent gang violence problem (see Davies, 2007, 2013; Kintrea et al., 2010; Patrick, 1973).

The concept of gangs has existed since the dawn of early Roman society (circa 753BC), where youths formed unique social groups in conflict with generally accepted societal norms. The concept 'youth gang', however, only originated in Europe during the 14 th and 15 th centuries with the phenomenon of vagabonds. Throughout the ages, history shows that whenever societies are undergoing large scale socio-political and economic turmoil, there is usually an upsurge in the number of displaced youth seeking alternative means of survival, especially in a surrogate group context. Despite this vulnerability, there is a dearth of research pertaining to the crime and victimisation patterns associated with gang formation within the Free State region of the South Africa. Gang-related activities in the province are rife, and gangs, such as the Dickies, Dogs of War (DOW), Triple 6 (666), Born to Kill (BTK), International Junior Portuguese (IJP) and Natural Born Killers (NBK), are running rampant. These groups tend to conform to the commonly held beliefs of street gangs found in the literature, however in certain circumstances also include elements of the occult and African witchcraft. Since little is known about this new type of gang formation, this study provides an explorative account of these groups, primarily informed by a documentary analysis of the South African Police Service reports on gangs.

Chinatown gangs of the U.S. have a varied and sensationalized history within the American discourse. From sinister portrayals as the Chinese ‘Yellow Peril,’ to hyper-violent refugees from Southeast Asia, Chinatown gangs have been popularly featured in literature, television, film, and newsprint for more than half a century. Reflective of demographics in Chinatowns across the country, Chinatown gangs appear to continually grow in their diversity beyond Southern Chinese immigrants, also including those that are U.S.-born, from Taiwan, and from Southeast Asia. Robust understandings of the gangs continue to be elusive and what is known often focuses on longstanding Southern Chinese communities in San Francisco and New York. Studies and documentation of Chinatown gangs vary, from small youth street ‘crews’ to transnational crime syndicates with origins in the revolutionary Triad organizations during the Qing Dynasty.

The recent rise in teen gangs got a huge amount of attention from the people from every walk of life. These teen gangs are primarily formed as peer groups which later get involved in a variety of crimes. There are at least 50-60 gangs active in the capital. The members are mostly aged between 14 and 19 years. They are involved in a wide range of crimes such as mugging, eve-teasing, drug dealing and abuse, even murder. Newspapers have published these news, providing a horrific image of these gangs. On one side these news equipped us with information, on the other hand it somehow demonized these teens. The titles of news articles such as “Deadly Teen Gangs”, “Menace of Teen Gangs'' etc. indicate how dangerous they are. Amidst all, there is a majority of teenagers who are not gang members. In our concern of teen gangs, we do not pay much attention to their non-gang counterparts. They face various problems in one way or other, due the labeling by the media, on a daily basis. This study attempted to uncover the problems these non-gang teenagers face and what are the factors that make them susceptible to these problems in the view of Howard Becker’s labeling theory. From the experiences of the respondents, I sought to determine if the problems they face is a result of media representation, in any way. Qualitative approach was used to conduct the study. The study was conducted on 28 teenagers aged between 16 and 19 from various areas of Dhaka. Respondents were interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire. From the interviews, the researcher found that residential areas, gender and class had an influence on their experiences. Some experienced some serious problems than others. However, every problem they faced showed us how news media can shape our behaviors. It is also clear that it is high time we paid some attention to the non-gang teen agers and the problems they face.

Keywords: Media Representation, labelling of teens, teen gang culture, non-gang youth.

Central American gangs are responsible for brutal acts of violence, abuse of women and forced displacement of thousands. Governments must go beyond punitive measures and address the social and economic roots of gang culture, tackle extortion schemes and invest in communities.

*Please note this is not a report authored by myself, but a collaborative paper by many individuals from the International Crisis Group.

Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes form part of standard post-conflict peacebuilding tools regularly applied in the context of UN peacekeeping operations. Yet, the limitations of such templates become evident when peacebuilders are confronted with unconventional settings, such as the urban environment. So far, there is a scarcity of research on UN-led DDR efforts in cities, even though the proliferation of urban armed groups is projected to pose an intractable challenge for decades to come. Based on six months of fieldwork in Port-au-Prince, this article presents new empirical evidence on innovative DDR programming in Haiti, the only country where a United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) tried to implement a traditional DDR programme for gang members. As this attempt proved to be a failure, the mission subsequently changed its approach to a more community-focused armed violence reduction and prevention programme which aims to disincentivize at-risk sections of the population from joining gangs. Even though the current community violence reduction approach is better adapted to the unconventional conflict environment in Haiti and is seen by many practitioners today as a role model, it shares a number of limitations with traditional DDR programmes and is not a panacea for urban peacebuilding.

PROBLEM: Many adolescents and some young adults are involved in gangs, both on a national and international basis; and there has been an increase in individuals involved in gangs in the past decade or so.
METHOD: A literature review examined studies related to the surrounding risk factors associated with gang membership.
FINDINGS: The majority of research is US based. However, the global fundamental characteristics of youth gangs have remained relatively stable post 2000 categorised into five ecological domains: individual, peer, family, school and community.
CONCLUSION: With the increase of gangs across the UK over the years, more research is needed in order to address the risk factors that derive individuals to join gangs, in order to put the correct prevention procedures and intervention programmes in place.

Intense gang warfare continues to plague El Salvador, undeterred by successive governments’ heavy-handed and militarised repression policies. More investment in holistic violence prevention strategies and economic alternatives to criminal violence are necessary if the country's chronic insecurity crisis is to be alleviated.

* Although I was the main contributor to the report and the one responsible for the writing and the field research, the final piece was a collaborative effort of a wider team of Crisis Group of staff members and consultants. The quantitative research was undertaken by US-based Economist Maria Micaela Sviatschi.

Martial arts groups in Timor-Leste have a nationwide reach and have offered a resource of physical and social engagement for youth and adults for several decades. Yet, their involvement in crime, politics, and violent clashes, and their notorious reputation as troublemakers posing a threat to security and peace, have caused the government to permanently ban three major groups. Based on intensive fieldwork and qualitative interviews with members and leaders of illegalized groups, this analysis explains why the young democracy’s decision is not contributing to building peace. The three main findings from the interviews are that root causes of violence are not addressed by the ban, criminalization draws more people into illegality, and the positive aspects of these groups, which could potentially contribute to peace, are neglected.

The Cumberland Lodge Report, Understanding and Policing Gangs, explores the attraction to gangs, to improve public understanding and inform approaches to policing them more effectively.

It draws on the wisdom and experience of a cross-sector delegation of police officers, academics and researchers, non-governmental organisations, policymakers and practitioners, who attended a three-day conference at Cumberland Lodge in June 2019.

The key themes and best-practice recommendations that emerged from our independent research and roundtable conference were reviewed and refined at an expert consultation involving diverse conference representatives and further specialists in the field, in October 2019.

Street gangs in Singapore are commonly known as secret societies. The irony behind this term is that these secret societies have not only been contributing to the making of modern Singapore for more than a century, they have often carried out their dealings in the public sphere. These overt operations of the underworld are possible, in part, due to the symbiotic relationship forged between the Chinese triads and the police which have continued till today. Through examining the notion of protected sites, this article explores how the postcolonial state has taken on a similar pragmatic approach as that practised by its colonial predecessor in the management of the criminal underworld.