REPRESENTING GANGS IN THE NEWS: MEDIA CONSTRUCTIONS OF CRIMINAL GANGS

This research, based on a content analysis of 4,445 newspaper articles, examines the images that emerge from stories of criminal gangs and societys responses to them. Eight recurrent themes were identifed. It was discovered that articles devoted to the coverage of gang crimes were outnumbered by stories dealing with various community responses. Articles reporting the results of scientifc research on gangs constituted the smallest category. The results are discussed in light of their importance in the construction of social problems discourse and the maintenance of symbolic power and social control.     

Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation

Graffiti is a popular topic in the sociological, criminological, and linguistic literature with several book length treatments of various types of graffiti including tagging, gang graffiti, murals, and “bombings”. Yet, political sociologists have paid little attention to the role of graffiti as a form of contentious politics despite the often political nature of graffiti messages. As a result, most of the political research on graffiti is by non‐sociologists. We believe this is an oversight and that both political sociologists and social movement scholars need to seriously consider this form of micro‐level political participation. In this review we (1) demonstrate why some forms of graffiti should be considered a serious form of political participation; (2) compare and contrast graffiti to other forms of resistance including squatting and culture jamming; (3) review research findings on graffiti; and (4) discuss some of the conceptual and methodological challenges for doing graffiti research.     

‘Going viral’ and ‘Going country’: the expressive and instrumental activities of street gangs on social media

Based on social media content analysis and focus groups with young people, the current study explores expressive and instrumental uses of the internet among street gangs. ‘Trap rap’ videos posted on YouTube and orientated around life as a drug dealer are identified as the ultimate cultural artefact for denoting London, UK, gang culture. These videos serve an expressive purpose in terms of reputation building, but also shed light on the instrumental business of gangs – specifically, illicit drugs sales via ‘country lines’. Looking beyond the artefact toward how these videos are created, disseminated, and consumed, reveals the instrumental organisation of gangs and how social rules and behaviours within them are monitored and enforced. The current study thus contributes to gang research from the UK, and the growing body of literature on gang and gang member use of the Internet, with implications for research and practice.     

THE ORGANIZATIONAL CAREER OF GANG STATISTICS: The Politics of Policing Gangs

This article examines the way in which the construction of a "gang" problem and the resulting "gang statistics" in a particular community, referred to as Bigcity, are related to the local political context and the police accommodation of political interests. In particular, the political accountability of the police impacts on police recordkeeping practices and the statistics regarding "gangs" that those records generate. The organizational career of gang statistics, from the citizen's call to the police response and subsequent recordwork, is examined in order to demonstrate how the recordkeeping practices of the police bureaucracy facilitate the social construction of the "gang" problem. Field research data, including calls to the police, ride-along observations, and interviews, illustrate how the politicization of the "gang" problem impacts on police recordkeeping and the social construction of "gang statistics.'Given that the current concern about the nationwide growth of gangs is based on such statistics and that gang suppression efforts call for enhancing and sharing gang databases, the role of police practices in shaping gang statistics is an important issue.     

Youth,Gangs and Society: Micro- and Macrosociological Processes*

The late 1960s saw the emergence of a few “super gangs” whose political and economic activities attracted much attention. More recently, gangs apparently similar to those of the 1950s have become newsworthy again in several major cities. This paper surveys these developments against the background of a variety of macro- and microsociological processes. Research conducted in Chicago and elsewhere during the late 1950s and early 60s suggests that delinquent gangs were rather “innocent” participants in the broad social trends of the times and that most gang members were relatively unaffected by the ideological currents associated with them. The primary effect on gangs was indirect, by changing the perceptions and attitudes of others toward gangs, and their behavior in relation to them. Gang life for most members of most gangs, individually and collectively, appears to have changed little in recent years. The prospects for channeling the energies of gangs into socially constructive programs seem bleak, because of the operation of group processes, and the limited experiences and social abilities of most gang members. Basic structural limitations on opportunities for the poor and the powerless to achieve economic and political power provide the framework within which these processes operate today as in the past.     

Working with Women Associated with Bikie Gangs: Practice Dilemmas

Abstract

Much has been written about bikie gangs, but there is little about the women and children who are part of gang life. The present paper describes domestic violence agency social workers’ ethical practice dilemmas when assisting women who have left bikie gangs to search for a new, safer lifestyle away from the gang culture of drug use and violence, in particular sexual violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ethical processes and issues in resolving such practice dilemmas.     

The culture of gangs in the culture of the school

The complex relation between gangs and the schools in which they are found is explored in this paper. It is argued that gangs can exist quite well within the limits posed by the official school culture. How gangs relate to schools depends in no small way on the type of community from which they emerge. Under some circumstances the schools can soften or make worse the frequency and nature of gang activity that occurs in them.     

Gangs,identity, and cultural performance

Although the notion of identity has received substantial attention from sociologists and psychologists, it has not been well developed in the gang literature. Identity accounts for a person's sense of self, which is based on meaningful social interactions and group participation, and becomes a source for publicly performing social roles. Gang membership is one such role that merits significant attention, and existing theories about identity and role performance can help explain variations in criminal behavior among members. This article applies multiple perspectives on social, personal, and collective identity to gangs and gang members. It offers principles to explain how gang identities fuel social performances that mimic, induce, or involve criminal behavior.     

Politics and Youth Gangs: a Follow-up Study*

Scholarly interest in the political relationships of youth gangs recently has revived, following mass media reports of the politicization of some gangs and federal and private funding in support of economic and socially constructive programs in which a few large gangs participated. Unlike earlier gang political activities (which supported entrenched political power) recent reports suggest that youth gangs and their young adult counterparts have become radicalized, alienated from traditional political approaches and ideologies. This paper focuses on the political attitudes and activities, especially with respect to civil rights programs of young men. now aged 21 to 35, who were members of black youth gangs studied initially between 1959 and 1962. Assimilationist organizations and approaches receive higher recognition and support than do protest, black nationalist, and other groups, and violent methods. Variations in response reflect gang and community differences. The crientation to politics reflected in the findings appears more pragmatic than ideological. The potential for effective organization is related to recent reports of militant organization within prisons, a common experience for gang members.     

Ctrl+ALT-RIGHT: reinterpreting our knowledge of white supremacy groups through the lens of street gangs

For the last 30 years, gang scholars have explicitly disregarded white youth who are active in groups with overt or implicit ties to neo-Nazi/skinhead or white power ideologies from street gang research. This article argues that this decision to keep these two groups separate stems from a misinterpretation of the realities of these groups and this decision has had a long-standing impact on how researchers, law enforcement and policymakers understand and interact with youth active in these groups. The coining of the term ‘Alt-Right,’ and the re-emergence of white power youth in the international dialogue, underscores how the lack of systematic research severely limits our knowledge about youth involved in gangs with white power leanings. Based on these concerns, this article challenges the current understanding of both skinheads and their troublesome youth groups/gangs. By orienting the limited research on skinhead gangs within key street gang domains, this article draws attention to disconnects in the literature that have influenced how researchers approach the study of skinhead youth. This study’s conclusions support the purposeful inclusion of skinhead youth in future street gang research.     

African American Street Gangs: A Quest for Identity

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of African American street gangs. It examines the scope of the gang problem, gives a historical review of gangs in America, and examines gang activity and membership for African American youth. Some of the causes for gang formation are delineated, and comprehensive programs for addressing the gang problem are proposed.     

Drawing Boundaries or Drawing Weapons? Neighborhood Master Status as Suppressor of Gang Violence

Criminological scholarship on gangs has documented that attempts to take over territory and drug markets under the control of another gang is a primary motivation of inter-gang violence. However, little is known about situations where competition over territory and drug markets comes from within the territory, or about instances where gang competition does not lead to violence between criminal groups. Drawing on over 140 interviews and over nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in Canada’s oldest social housing project—Regent Park—this article describes and analyzes the changing nature of the neighborhood’s gang landscape as a result of neighborhood redevelopment. In particular, it examines why the emergences of a rival gang within Regent did not incite violence as the literature would expect. The article outlines how the emergence of a new rival gang within a territory previously dominated by established criminal groups did not result in the type of violence, in part because the two groups shared a “master status” of being Regent residents, which served to buffer inter-gang violence. Further, it argues that instead of drawing weapons, the established criminal groups expressed their frustration with the loss of their territorial monopoly to emerging groups by morally distinguishing themselves from the new groups. This article concludes by casting a scholarly spotlight on the means through which boundary work develops between criminal groups, and how cultural contexts affect identities and discourses in physical space.     

Gangs,gangsters, and the impact of settler colonialism on the Latina/o experience

As the largest minority group in the United States, Latinas/os have experienced a long history of discrimination, prejudice, and stigmatization as gang members. A contemporary survey of law enforcement agencies reported that Latinos continue to be the largest proportion of any racial or ethnic group involved in gangs. To describe such a pattern, the framework of settler colonialism will be utilized to describe differential experiences based on race, gender, and how structural inequalities vary by region and time. Latinas/os have been particularly impacted by segregation, second‐class treatment, and policies considered racially neutral. Gangs provide a topical area for examining patterns of racialization and social control. The authors of this article will outline the research literature on gangs and how settler colonialism has impacted the Latina/o population regarding the origination of gangs, reasons for joining, behaviors and activities, and the process for leaving these groups. The authors emphasize decolonization strategies including reducing structural inequalities and thereby reducing gang membership and risky behaviors. Until this can be accomplished, the authors hope for human rights, labor equity, and religious organizing efforts that can form into social movements of collective empowerment and justice.     

Rio’s New Social Order: How Religion Signals Disengagement from Prison Gangs

Brazilian prisons are governed by two prevailing forces—gangs like the Comando Vermelho and inmate-led Pentecostal prison churches. The current study uncovers how one of these governance institutions (the church) facilitates disengagement from the other (the gang). Based on ethnographic research inside two Rio de Janeiro prisons, we find the rituals and taboos of the church—including baptism, daily worship service, sharing resources, loving and literally embracing other members, including outcast sex offenders—enable ex-gang members to demonstrate the sincerity of their disengagement from gangs. We make sense of these findings using signaling theory, which has been applied both to the study of gangs and crime desistance and to the study of religious commitment. Some implications for “gang redemption” policy and programming are discussed.     

Passing on gang culture in the theatre of the streets: ‘They’ll grow out of it,then our age will grow into it and then we’ll grow out of it’

ABSTRACT

Gang members and membership are oft displayed as fixed and stable entities that are only understood in the context of the gang. This paper purports that membership is a role learned through the process of street socialisation and that gangs should be understood as fluid entities situated within the larger context of street culture. Through member’s perspectives, it reveals the main cultural transmitters which facilitated membership in Glasgow, Scotland as street socialisation, territorial othering and storytelling. In discussing the role of these transmitters, the journey into gang membership in Glasgow is told. Exploring the transmitters of membership allowed the meaning making process that members engaged in to emerge which allows gang membership to be understood as a meaningful social activity.     

European Youth Gang Policy in Comparative Context

The past decade has seen increased reports of street gangs across a range of contexts. In Europe, anxieties over street‐based youth has led to the development of gang‐specific policies across a range of jurisdictions, most notably the UK. Following a similar pattern of policy mobility in criminal justice, many of these policies have origins in the US system. In this review of international gang policy developments, we critically examine a number of these policies in a comparative context ‐ including gang policing units and intelligence databases ‐ and interrogate their efficacy. Drawing on cogent examples from the UK, we argue for caution in adopting US gang intervention tactics due to the lack of empirical evidence relating to their applicability or efficacy, and the corresponding potential for discrimination toward the most marginalised and socially excluded children and young people in society.     

From Nowhere: Space,Race, and Time in How Young Minority Men Understand Encounters with Gangs

Research on gangs within minority communities often focuses on gang crime and violence, and gang organization. Few studies examine the non-gang member side of the equation, especially in how potential victims make sense of gang encounters. This paper reveals how young Black and Latino men interpret gang encounters, interpretations that differ because of the following: one’s ethnicity, a gang’s ethnicity, the state of interethnic gang conflict, and a space’s ethnic makeup. It will also examine the intersection of time, specifically as to how shifting neighborhood demographics change the perceptions of these young minority men. This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in both Compton and South Central.     

Substance Abuse Among Puerto Rican and Dominican Gang Members in a Small City Setting

SUMMARY

Joining a gang increases an adolescent's risk for substance abuse. To better understand the contextual development of drug use behavior, this retrospective ethnographic study describes a sample of 76 young small-city mainland Puerto-Rican and Dominican males who joined gangs when they were younger. Data is presented and discussed on the drug abuse behavior including their drug using progression and the context in which such use occurs. The young average age of onset 11.2 (sd = 2.6) combined with the rapid progression to more dangerous drugs, which generally occurs within six years, demonstrates the elevated risk associated with small city gang membership. Differences in the patterns of drug use were also found between the English and Spanish speaking groups. The authors discuss the implications of the study findings on the development of interventions. Recommendations address future research possibilities on drug abuse within Latino gangs.     

Morality and Patriarchal White Sovereignty

This article offers a reading of three separate stories of gang rapes that have been prominent in the Australian media since 2000. The men involved – an Indigenous leader, young Sydney men identified as Muslim and several ostensibly un-raced professional footballers, have been positioned through different legal outcomes, media representations and through a prominently deployed discourse of morality. The article locates the gang rape stories in mutual inter-relationship with the expression of racism in Australia and the performance of ‘patriarchal white sovereignty’ by the Australian state in the 2000s in the global climate since 11 September 2001. It argues that the politics of race and whiteness, and the protocols for their speaking, have been central in the telling of the rape stories. These stories of gang rape have also created differently racialized positions for women including some remarkably respectful mainstream representations of the women raped by non-white men. The article concludes that these stories perform a gendered and raced moral justification for the racist and colonialist policies of the Australian state, both within national borders and beyond, that characterized the national government led by Prime Minister John Howard (1996–2007).