Youth gangs

Youth and Globalization
Call for papers: https://brill.com/fileasset/downloads_products/37558_YOGO_3_2_CfP.pdf
Volume 3 – Issue 2 Gangs and Globalization: Between Resistance and Resilience
Guest Editors: Carles Feixa, carles.feixa@upf.edu and José Sánchez-Garcia, Jose.sanchez@upf.edu, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
Paper’s proposal deadline (abstract and title): December 31st, 2020 The abstract and title should be sent directly to the guest editor: carles.feixa@upf.edu Paper's submission deadline: April 15th, 2021 Amended version's deadline: July 15th, 2021
Articles for publication in Youth and Globalization can be submitted online through
Editorial Manager: please click here.
Publication: November 2021
Call for papers Gangs are described as an episodic phenomenon comparable across diverse geographical sites, with the US gang stereotype often operating as an archetype. Mirroring this trend, academic researchers have increasingly sought to survey the global topography of gangs through positivist methodologies that seek out universal characteristics of gangs in different cultural contexts.
Following Thrasher’s classical definition, a gang is “an interstitial group originally formed spontaneously, and then integrated through conflict” (1927/2013, p. 57). This means that a gang is an informal group of locally rooted peers, in conflict with other peer groups, and sometimes with adult institutions. When delinquency was not considered as a fundamental attribute of youth street sociability, other concepts were used such as peer groups, street groups, subcultures, countercultures, lifestyles… reserving the term gang for street youth groups with members from migrant or ethnic minorities background and no for other youth groups. Because of this, when defining what a gang is, it is mandatory to refer both to the use of the term by informants and native actors -to their ‘emic’ meanings -and to their use by researchers and external actors -to their ‘ethic’ meanings. In addition, the terms and meanings may vary according to the geographical locations and subcultural traditions that we consider.
This call for papers invites to present theoretical, methodological and empirical researches on global gangs, in the continuum of resistance and resilience. Resistance we understand as a (sub)cultural movement that opposes the dominant or hegemonic culture. Resilience we understand as an affective, cognitive, relational and behavioural process that combines effective skills as a response to a situation of risk or adversity. Our perspective aims to recognize youth street groups as forms of youth culture for resisting hegemonic discourses and practices and as social resilience institutions for dealing with and fighting stigmatization. The question to answer is how transnational flows affect gang structures and cultures, and what kind of methods do we need to investigate the phenomenon in a comparative way, including the effects of COVID-19 and lockdown on street gang cultures.
About the Journal Youth and Globalization invites contributions from scholars and advanced researchers that promote dialog in a way that resonates with academics, practitioners, policy-makers, and students as well as the general reader. The journal publishes peer-reviewed articles (8,000-9,000 words), book reviews (up to 1,200 words), and interviews/conversations (not to exceed 2,500 words).

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Spani, M., Shaffer, C. S., & Viljoen, J. L. (2014, June). Mental health needs in gang-involved adolescent offenders. Poster presented at the 75th Annual Convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

Research on the mental health needs of youth offenders rarely focuses on gang-involved populations.  Additionally, the few studies conducted have only considered a small spectrum of mental health needs.  The current study examined the mental health needs of 26 gang-involved and 71 non-gang involved male adolescent offenders (aged 12 to 18) in a large Canadian city.  Gang involvement was determined using youths’ self-reports of gang involvement as well as reports obtained from probation officers.  A broad range of mental health needs were measured using the Personality Assessment Inventory – Adolescent (PAI-A).  Compared to non-gang involved adolescent offenders,  gang-involved youth scored significantly higher on the Antisocial Features and Drug Problems clinical scales, the Aggression treatment consideration scale, as well as the Grandiosity, Self-Harm, Antisocial Behaviours, Stimulus-Seeking, Aggressive Attitudes, and Physical Aggression subscales.

A draft that will probably ease diagnostics and understanding of adhd for it leads to a better systematized regime in the evaluation of blood samples respectively of noradrenergic concentrations. For the outcome shows high significance and reliability it could be used in an early screening on infants.

Gangs and gang violence have plagued America cities for decades.  The challenge has been what to do with this growing problem and how to combat gang violence.  One approach to this problem was to create a comprehensive gang model that focused on a collaborative effort by the community, former gang members, social services agencies, outreach (street) workers, and law enforcement officials to address the gang violence in the neighborhood.  The program was called the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project which focused on a small Mexican-American community on Chicago’s west side where two rival gangs were in constant conflict with one another.  The project produced some mixed, but favorable results, and since then many other cities have implanted the Comprehensive Gang Model to help reduce gang violence in their communities.

This book develops a comparative study on violence in Jamaica, El Salvador, and Belize based on a theoretical approach, extensive field research, and in-depth empirical research. It combines the Caribbean and Central America into a single comparative research that explores the historical (from the conquista onwards) as well as contemporary causes of violence in these societies. The volume focuses on forms of violence such as gang violence, police violence, every day forms of violence, vigilantism, and organized crime. The analysis provides a theoretical perspective that bridges political economy as well as cultural approaches in violence research. As such, it will be of interest to readers studying development, violence, political, Central American, and Caribbean studies.

In this paper, I perform close readings of several of the narratives included in the "This American Life" podcast episode "Harper High School" in order to continue the project of rethinking sovereignty outside of the framework of the state as it is lived and practiced in everyday life. Drawing on Bonnie Honig’s reformulation of sovereignty as a modality of power that is not possessed by a singular authority but instead embodied in the collective activity of a people, I use these narratives to assist in theorizing a politics that seeks not emancipation but rather the enactment of futures that are more egalitarian. Such a politics is best conceived as a struggle against forms of violence enacted at specific sites rather than as expressions of resistance against unified forms of domination. To undertake this analysis, I begin by briefly outlining Honig’s line of inquiry, after which I turn to the specific narratives documented by "This American Life," reading them not merely as the chronicles of life in Englewood but as theoretically fecund exemplars of collective and individual sovereignty. Finally, I conclude by exploring what the reading of such narratives as instances of sovereignty can reveal for us regarding politics more generally. Conceiving of the characters in these narratives as sovereign actors seeking to survive rather than as either helpless sufferers (those who experience violence) or criminals (those who act violently) helps to illuminate the complex political dynamics that sustain poverty and produce violence in locales such as Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

A review on a book that offers more than a necessary contribution to the elucidation of the continuing and extreme issues of poverty, exclusion and social violence operating in the Latin American subcontinent, demonstrated here through an analysis of this violence in one country which rarely receives attention. The book offers a clear urgent call for all Latin American scholars to attend to the difficulty of this ongoing question.

Among the major cities in Canada, Winnipeg consistently leads in gang-related violence and homicides. In an effort to address the issue of gangs in Winnipeg, the Gang Action Interagency Network (GAIN) in collaboration with the University of Manitoba, with funding provided by the Department of Justice Canada (Youth Justice Fund – Guns, Gangs, and Drugs) conducted research for the purpose of informing future gang-exit initiatives in Winnipeg.
The following report is the result of this research. With the goal of developing tangible and actionable steps towards addressing the gang issue in Winnipeg, GAIN’s research was focused on learning from three specific areas: Stakeholder Consultation, Youth Consultation and Existing Evidence. Interviews with key community stakeholders included experts from youth service agencies, corrections, law enforcement, social workers, parole officers and former gang members. Youth consultations included youth who participate in violence prevention programs offered by various community agencies. Youth are often overlooked as keepers of knowledge, and these consultations were valuable in hearing key insights from the very youth who are affected by gangs on a daily basis. A review of existing gang
strategies and programs from throughout North America was then conducted to identify successful components, which might be useful when adapted to a Winnipeg context, and to identify measurable indicators.
The results of the research indicate a need to address young people’s ability to fulfill their own basic needs whether physical or social. Within the research, 3 specific areas of focus were identified. The theme of Identity and Belonging was prevalent in the research as participants identified a need for mentorship, cultural reclamation, and community efficacy. Healing was another focal area which emerged within the research as participants shared about the need for greater access to addictions and mental health care. Participants also spoke about the need for restorative justice and greater support for families in crisis.
Finally, participants spoke about the need for Expanded Programming. Although many great programs already exist in Winnipeg, many participants identified the long waiting lists to get into programs and lack of 24hr programming that could provide safe spaces when many young people are at their most vulnerable point and need it most. Participants also spoke about the need for more opportunities with regards to employment and skills/job training. Evidence of components of existing programs and strategies clearly mirrored the needs that were identified in our consultations.
This report highlights the need for further action by our governments to work with the member agencies of GAIN to help our youth avoid gang involvement through the development of initiatives that will help fulfill our youths needs of Identity and Belonging, Healing and Expanded Programming.

Glasgow has long experienced the issue of gang-related violence, especially in the east end of the city, an area of high social deprivation and related problems. Faced with apparent failure to deal with the problems of violence, in 2008, the police in Glasgow, in partnership with other statutory agencies, engaged in a process of policy transfer of the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (US CIRV). They formed a multi-agency strategy, the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (Glasgow CIRV), in order to tackle violence by targeting gangs and gang members both collectively and individually, in an attempt to encourage them to change their lifestyle. Glasgow CIRV operated for a period of three years (June 2008-July 2011), with some success in reducing violence and weapon carrying offences, however, in contrast to US CIRV, which is still in operation, it failed to achieve long-term sustainability.
This research is an in-depth case study of the policy transfer between US CIRV and Glasgow CIRV and was initially guided by the question; ‘to what extent could the apparent long-term failure of Glasgow CIRV be explained by the policy transfer process?’ The model of policy transfer developed by Dolowitz and Marsh (1996 and 2000) was used to provide the theoretical and empirical framework to analyse the processes, mechanisms, and outcomes of the transfer of CIRV from Cincinnati to Glasgow. The transfer process was found to be a direct copy of the US CIRV project by Glasgow CIRV at the outset, however; it quickly became apparent that this process changed to one of emulation, due to differences, including the local context and legal constraints.
The model of policy transfer proved to be a useful analytical tool with which to frame the empirical approach used in this case study. However, the model was found to have some limitations in terms of understanding the outcome of the policy transfer process. These limitations, which include its descriptive, linear, and finite framework, do not allow for the conceptualisation of one of the main findings of this research, an instance of ‘back-flow of policy transfer’, which requires a more cyclical approach; nor for the critical theorisation of what happens after a policy has been transferred, where the model stops, but the process may continue.
This thesis therefore, extends existing knowledge in the field of criminal justice policy transfer by  proposing an extension to the model beyond its linear and finite scope, by showing that transfer can be cyclical in nature and not be restricted to ‘one-way traffic’, identifying what it does not encapsulate, and reinforcing the significance of the local contexts, which cannot fail to have an impact on such transfer processes.

This article intends to challenge the dominant assumptions that undermine the potential application of peacebuilding frameworks beyond formal postwar contexts. It analyses the gangs' truce that recently took place in El Salvador as a privileged laboratory to rethink hegemonic under-standings and practices of peacebuilding by specifically addressing the importance of overcoming dichotomised categories such 'war and peace' , 'criminal and political' , and 'success and failure'. It is claimed that while the truce fostered a discourse pointing towards an ongoing peace process and enlarged the public debate on the failings of postwar policies and on the structural roots of violence, it was also decisively undermined by the inability to surmount the dichotomy that juxtaposes the criminal and the political domains. It is argued that a peacebuilding framework, inspired by a set of critical perspectives on war and peace and on the nature of 'the political' , may thus be of crucial importance for the future of policies aimed at curbing violence in El Salvador and elsewhere.

This exploratory study compares the differences between 43 Mexican American gang members and 43 Mexican American adolescents who are not members of a gang on several demographic, educational, familial, cultural, and psychological variables. Differences were analyzed using t tests and chi-square analyses. Discussion focuses on implications for counseling.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the form of young male socialisation referred to as birzha, in its relation to public space in Georgia. Birzha defines a group of young men who meet regularly in urban open spaces in Tbilisi’s neighbourhoods. Partly considered as the initial step of a criminal career, belonging to birzha is a mark of identification with one’s local group. The contested nature of public space is illustrated by the conflicting relation between birzha’s bottom-up use of public space and top-down projects of urban renovation sought by Saakashvili’s government.
Drawing upon literary and media sources, and analysing fieldwork data collected in 2008-2009 and 2014, this study explores how the announced (re)construction of public space under Saakashvili resulted in institutional interventions from above which curtailed public space’s accessibility.
The present analysis points out contradictions in Saakashvili’s government’s political narrative on public space. In the institutional focus on a future of order, transparency, and democracy, birzha is an insistent reminder of an informal and corrupted past. Banned from futuristic projections of the public space, in the present birzha is annihilated by state repression, enforced in opaque zones out of public sight.
Focusing on a largely overlooked phenomenon in social science research, the paper highlights the ways in which conflicting approaches to public space affect the relation between political institutions and citizens. Delving into ambivalent public/private divides in post-socialist societies, the study of Georgian birzha offers an original angle for investigating the contestation of urban public space in relation to political legitimacy and transparency.

« Bandes de jeunes et institutions », intervention dans le cadre du cours d’Anthropologie dispensé par Anne Mélice (Docteure en Anthropologie et Maître assistante) aux étudiants de 3ème année de l’Ecole Supérieure d’Action Sociale (Haute Ecole Libre Mosane), Liège, 16-17 octobre 2014.

"On Saturday evening (one week after the Zimmerman verdict was announced)  my husband and I sat down and realized that it was time to have the "talk" with our two sons. They are 12 and 10 years old and though they are familiar with the events that happened during the Civil Rights Movement, we don't think they are as well versed about current racial issues as they need to be. In some households, the talk is about sex, abstinence, protection, pregnancy, and making good decisions. In our household, the talk is about race relations, the perceived criminality of black men and boys, gang and drug violence, and the unwritten crime of walking while black.

We then decided that we would share our thoughts about having the "talk" with the world.

Youth and violence is a pervasive phenomenon that conjures up various images. The two most common images that come to mind when thinking about this notion are those of children involved in armed conflicts i.e. child soldiers, and of groups of children engaging belligerently in illegal activities in urban locations i.e. youth in gangs. Whilst both groups represent distinctive facets of the phenomenon of youth and violence, the question which this report addresses is whether there are any parallels which can be drawn between the two.

Objectives.  Apply a “turning points” framework for understanding the developmental impacts of gang membership.  Explore the proximal impact of gang membership on offending, victimization, and other attitudinal and experiential outcomes that have been theorized to mediate the relationship between gang membership and offending. Methods.  Data are from the Offending Crime and Justice Survey, a rotating panel representative of young people in England and Wales that measured gang membership using the Eurogang definition. The effects of gang membership were tested using a propensity score analysis approach. Results. Gang onset has an impact on offending, antisocial behavior, drug use, commitment to deviant peers, and neutralization techniques.  Gang membership increases the probability of unwanted police contact, even adjusting for offending through a “double robust” procedure. Conclusions. Despite differences in social context, history of gangs and level of violence, we encounter more similarities than differences regarding consequences of gang membership. The impact on unwanted police contact deserves further research and policy attention.

Despite a growing concern about gangs in Britain, academic research that focuses on gangs remains scarce. Drawing on data from the ESRC-funded ethnographic research YOGEC (Youth Gangs in an English City) project, this paper explores the negotiation of space and place by young people living in inner-city areas affected by gangs. Using a combination of fieldwork observations and focus group and interview data, this paper charts the experiences of non-gang-involved young people living in known gang areas. These ...

Ending Gang and Youth Violence: A Cross Governmental Report including further evidence and good practice case studies (EGYV) (HM Government, 2011) describes the Coalition's attempts to develop a coordinated policy strategy to reduce gang related and more general youth violence. The report extends to 84 pages, 23 headline measures, and refers to over 60 reputedly relevant initiatives. Amidst some refreshingly honest admissions (‘We understand that you can't arrest your way out of the problem’), significant emphases are placed on locally coordinated multi-agency action, and on an articulated strategy of family level prevention, individual intervention and police suppression. While the report evidences much good-will, good practice and hard work, at least three core problems relating to expertise, evidence and moral vision critically undermine its strategic coherence; and we contend that the measures flowing from it will, at best, produce weak evidence of no overall effect, and at worst, prove counter-productive.

This article reflects on the lives of a group of young men on Ireland’s socio-economic periphery, focusing on how exclusion shapes their cultural orientation and orders their spatial practices. Whilst populist imaginaries and certain academic understandings of young, disadvantaged, urban males tend to cast them in the role of claiming and violently defending territories, their relationships to space may be considerably more transient and fluid. Within the late-modern ‘liquid city’ exclusion has cast the young men researched here into migratory practices, where they must negotiate relationships with potentially hostile peers in various parts of the urban environment. Adopting street cultural norms of rugged masculinity, crimino-entrepreneurialism and the recourse to violence can result in the accumulation of ‘street social capital’. This can allow disadvantaged young people to secure a sense of existential security, pleasurable experiences, disposable income and a culturally mediated notion of dignity, despite their spatial and socio-economic exclusion.

Abstract Current evidence on girls and gangs in the UK is considerably hampered by a set of methodological issues. The first of these stems from the difficulties associ-ated with defining what constitutes a 'gang' or being a 'gang member.' A second set of issues arise from the ...

There were roughly one million gang members in the United States at the end of 2008. The 2009 U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) Gang Activity Threat Assessment documented a twofold increase in felonies since the 2006 report. The percentage of gang crimes involving military persons was only .41% of the total number of felony investigations. Over 10% of gang members in civilian communities have military training. The most common gang-related crimes involved drug trafficking, with 33% of the reported felonies that year (CID). Gang-related aggravated assaults, housebreaking and larceny cases, attempted homicides, and sexual assault investigations were also reported (CID).
For access to the full article, contact The Journal of Gang Research, the Official Publication of the National Gang Crime Research Center. Journal of Gang Research Subscription Department National Gang Crime Research Center P.O. Box 990 Peotone, IL 60468-0990Or http://www.ngcrc.com/ngcrc/page2.htmKeywords: gang activity in the us military, street gangs in the military, percent of military personnel have gang association, gangs in the military"