Introduction
This chapter introduces some of the current debates about the existence nature and proliferation of violent youth gangs in the UK. Such debates appear on the face of it to be characterised by polarised positions which; on the one hand focus on the role of the state and the media in understanding and dealing with a largely exaggerated youth gang problem (Hallsworth and Young 2004); while on the other it is argued that unprecedented global economic and social changes over the last few decades have provided the catalyst for the emergence of violent youth gangs involved in the distribution of drugs in both major English cities and smaller county towns (Pitts 2009).
Some criminologists have argued that an exaggerated and unreal picture of youth gangs is being projected by some academics and policy makers, which in turn promotes an authoritarian over reaction to youth violence and young people. Hallsworth and Young (2008), for example argue,
âŚwe contest that the UK is experiencing a gang epidemic. At present there appears to be little evidence to suggest a pervasive and growing gang problem here and, far from helping to clarify the dangerous reality of violent street worldsâ âgang talkâ, as we label this garrulous discourse, runs the risk of misrepresenting what it claims to represent, the reality of violent street worlds. (Crime, Media, and Culture, 4(2), 177)
Ideas about âdeviance amplificationâ by some practitioners and policy makers who engage in âgang talkâ has relevance (Densely and Harding 2018). For example Cressida Dick Commissioner of Metropolitan Police made the emotive charge that Drill videoâs were responsible for the increase in Londonâs knife crime, this was reported as,
YouTube gang videos fuelling crime epidemic in London. (The Times, 5 April 2018, p. 1)
However, Hallsworth and Youngâs (2008) examination of street culture fails to provide an alternative analysis of the aetiology of youth violence in the âviolent street worldsâ they claim to analyse, we are simply informed that the problem is messy, fluid and complex. To others such as Klein (2008) violent youth incidents are viewed as atypical temporary phenomenon, crime being committed by transient groups of adolescents who are said to grow out of this behaviour and then adhere to accepted societal norms and values. This analysis is challenged by the fact that English street gangs appear to be organising and expanding their influence in the class A drugs business (National Crime Agency 2015; Drugwise 2017; Andell and Pitts 2018). Moreover, Klein and the Eurogang approach is sometimes overly informed by statistical empirical research which could be termed naive realist (Matthews 2013) as the observed behaviours of these studies fail to discern the causal powers which sit below the observable experience of gangs. It is to the consideration of causal powers and their impacts that we now turn.
Globalisation, Local Impact and the Neighbourhood
Early work on street gangs has pointed to the impact that global economies have on local street life, the influences of globalisation include the impact of urbanisation, industrialisation and migration and is described by Thrasher (1927) studying gangs in Chicago in the early part of the last century. The concepts of âsocial disorganisationâ and âcultural transmissionâ in Shaw and McKayâs thesis made possible the development of (sub) cultural theories exploring neighbourhood contexts, criminal spaces and processes of economic and ethnic segregation (Bottoms and Wiles 2002; Shaw and McKay 1942).
For Thrasher the interstitial and transient nature of gangs were a ânatural and spontaneous type of organisationâ It is suggested that this was an attempt to rescue the understanding of gangs from psychology into the realms of sociology. However, scholars of race and crime have criticised the social Darwinism of the model of a city espoused by Chicagoans such as Robert Park for its positivistic determinism (Bowling and Phillips 2002). Debates about criminality and urban spaces have always been highly charged resulting in discourses foregrounding issues of race, and social geography (Smith 1986; Hesse et al. 1992; Webster 1997; Sibley 1995; Back 1996). Later work has combined ideas from the Chicago school with contemporary urban political economic theory (Hagedorn 2007).
Arguably at this moment in time our best ideas about the underlying causal forces which precipitate gangs involve social structures and culture which have both push and pull factors that act upon individuals with bounded agency. The pushes of social exclusionary factors such as institutional racism and unemployment act in consort with the pull factors of advertising necessitated by an excessive culture of consumerism. These impart strong causal tendencies on some individuals in relatively deprived neighbourhoods.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF 2017) report that that wealthy elites tend to accumulate political influence as well as resources. They suggest that economic inequality in the UK is at dangerously high levels, with the richest 1% of the population owning more wealth than the poorest 50% put together. Households in the bottom 10% of the population have on average a net income of ÂŁ9277, while the top 10% have net incomes over nine times that (ÂŁ83,897). Most people who have power and resources also possess a sense of entitlement to what they think they require to live a good life, and they can use their existing assets to ensure they get itâgood schools and healthcare, decent homes, rewarding and secure employment. Other than the comfortably well off, any such confidence is either fragile, or absent. Social justice is difficult to achieve when that feeling of security is so unevenly distributed (NEF 2017). With feelings of insecurity disproportionately affecting 10% of households in the poorest neighbourhoods it is unsurprising that some young men feel social inclusion and economic opportunity can be obtained through gang involvement (Whittaker et al. 2017).
Gangs are ethnically different in different geographic areas due to the impact of history and geography and often consist of mixed groups, however, it is useful to consider the disproportionate impact of economically induced feelings of insecurity in our poorest neighbourhoods.
In a recent study in Birmingham for the Barrow Cadbury Trust, Fenton et al. (2010) suggest that the correlations between ethnicity and deprivation are too powerful to be accidental. However, they also argue that there is no single explanation of why this might be so. They further suggest,
The poverty rates amongst ethnic minority populations are higher than those of white Britons. The highest rates of poverty can be found amongst Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African populations. Regardless of which measures of poverty and deprivation are used, such as lack of material goods, duration of poverty or income insecurity, minority ethnic populations have a higher risk of living in povertyâŚWithin those constrained choices, people will go where housing is made available to them, either by the state, the market or by informal or family contacts, and where they believe they will be happiest with the neighbourhoodâs facilities and social environment. (Why Do Neighbourhoods Stay Poor? p. 40)
Jock Young (1999) explains that for relatively deprived populations aspirations are derived from inclusion in mainstream consumerist culture but the means of achieving these aspirations are attenuated by social exclusion, thus engendering an acute sense of status frustration. In the formation of gangster identity, Young (op. cit.) terms this a search for âRespect and Rewardâ. Young (2004) points us towards social exclusion and the importance of a sense of being someone. He observes:
⌠the acute relative deprivation forged out of exclusion from the mainstream is compounded with a daily threat to identity: a disrespect, a sense of being a loser, of being nothing, of humiliation. (Gangs in the Global City, p. 79)
Winton (2014) explaining Youngâs analysis of social exclusion and crime summates,
This, in turn, it is argued, leads to the formation of exaggerated identities of resistance, formed not through vertical oppositions (with the rich) but, rather, through the amplification of horizontal divisions based on gender, ethnicity, territory, etc. (Environment and Urbanization, 26(2), 407, October 2014)
Identities of resistance can be acutely demonstrated through membership of street gangs (Castells 1997; Hagedorn 2007). Hagedorn (op. cit.) argues that one of the characteristics of late modern life is the proliferation of armed young men involved in irregular economies. He points to the failures of the legitimate economy as a causal force which predicates the formation and sustainability of street gangs.
The development of street gangs and their involvement in the drugs business are reported as having pernicious and harmful consequences for vulnerable communities (Andell and Pitts 2017) and have a negative impact on the potential economic development and regeneration of the neighbourhoods in which they are located (Lupton et al. 2013). Therefore it is imperative that solutions are found which address the structural and cultural drivers of gang identity.
International research reviewed by Hagedorn (2008) suggests that gangs are becoming a permanent fixture in an increasingly urbanised world. He argues that the existence of armed gangs of young men are becoming the norm rather than the exception and he makes three main points diverging from traditional criminology: gangs are becoming a permanent presence in socially excluded poor neighbourhoods; gangs are a result of globalized economies and can be found in the spaces where this system of distribution of resources has failed; gangs are different in different places but often reflect a common context of oppression.
Within this discourse the concepts of âterritorialismâ, âneighbourhoodsâ, and âethnoscapesâ contribute to the diversity of how urban spaces become identified and personified along ethnic and cultural lines (Campbell 1993; Massey 1998). Colin Webster (1997) provides a detailed exploration of inter-racial and intra-racial harassment and vic...