This assignment is about gangs, which are now a growing problem in the UK. This is reflected in media coverage and governmental responses to gangs, crime, and violence. According to the Eurogang network’s definition, gangs are any durable street-oriented youth group whose involvement is in illegal activity as part of their group identity.
The article Dying to Belong” presents another definition of a gang. It describes a gang as a relatively stable group of young people who primarily operate on the streets and engage in criminal activity and violence. They identify themselves as a distinct group and lay claim to territory, often with some identifying structural feature. These gangs are often in conflict with other similar groups.
The article also suggests that disadvantaged communities are more likely to have issues that lead young people to join gangs and end up on the streets.
Most of the gang members seem to come from poor family backgrounds. The article suggests that there are key pathways to poverty that cause these young people to join gangs. These pathways can take the form of family breakdown, such as when parents divorce and a single parent tries to raise children alone. In most cases, problems begin to develop when these children feel the need for a male role model and decide to engage with older youth on the streets.
Economic dependency and unemployment are factors that drive young people to join gangs. Education failure also affects them greatly, causing some to give up on education and drop out of school. Others may be excluded from school and turn to the streets to join gangs (Aldridge and Medina 2007). Addiction and personal gratification are among the pathways found in Britain’s most deprived communities that lead to gang involvement.
UK and USA researchers suggest that there is a strong connection between gangs and violence (Communities That Care, 2005; Bennett & Halloway, 2004). According to Muncie (2011), Trasher (1927) and Puffer (1912) believe that a gang is any play group existing alongside the family and neighborhood. Trasher’s idea is that gangs are formed when youth in the same area come together as a playgroup initially but eventually come into conflict with their community, leading to a culture of delinquency.
According to Trasher (1927), gangs provide solace and a sense of belonging and support to disorganized communities. Gang members range in age from 10-year-olds up to 40-year-olds, but the most common age for joining a gang is between 13 and 16 years old. As members mature, membership tends to tail off (Aldridge and Medina, 2007). People join gangs for different reasons, such as protection; however, intra-gang conflict is endemic. In most cases, gang members themselves lack stability of membership.
Gangs have long been associated with crime, but they rarely commit crimes collectively as a gang. Instead, it is usually individual members who commit the crimes. Campbell and Muncer (1989) argue that contrary to what the media says, none of the USA gang culture is reflected in British culture.
In 2007, the media and government attributed killings to the rise of armed organized gangs in the UK and an emerging culture of violence among young people. Based on this vein, it has been suggested that there is a gang epidemic in the UK.
According to Downes (1996), the notion of gangs existing in Britain during the 1960s was a reflection of middle-class efforts to attribute structure and organization to working-class groups that they did not possess. Downes also suggested that while America is associated with gangs, Britain is known for its youth subcultures. In support of this idea, Bill Sanders moved to London and found that US-style street gangs were not present in the city, nor had they ever been (Sanders, 2005 as cited in Muncie 2011).
It has been argued that the UK has a significant number of gangs, which are a new phenomenon resulting from changing social conditions (Pitts 2007). London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are cities with high rates of gang-related crime, accounting for 65% of firearms offences in England and Wales. In the early 2000s, the media highlighted Bradford, Bristol, Leeds and Nottingham as cities with gangs that focused on high-profile firearms murders.
In 1998, Eurogang was established. It is led by the American academic Malcolm Klein and involves American researchers who aim to apply largely quantitative analysis to help European countries deal with their gang problems (Hallsworth and Young, 2008). This is also an attempt by the government to tackle gang problems in the UK. The UK is now expanding its knowledge about gangs, and some studies have documented the prevalence of gang membership and its relationship to offending (Aldridge & Medina, 2006).
The media (Observer, 8 September 2002) claimed that there were as many as 30,000 gang members in England and Wales, clustered within London, Birmingham, and Manchester. The year before, the same newspaper announced that girls lead the pack of gangland violence. The question is: how far is what the media says true about gangs in the UK? From January to September 2007, eight children and teenagers lost their lives in shootings while seventeen others died from stabbing. These crimes included the death of an eleven-year-old boy who was shot; it appeared to be an accident shouting in Liverpool.
When James Bulgar was killed, the telegraph declared that we were now caught in the crossfire of gangland Britain (Muncie, 2011). According to research by Manchester University School of Law, while police respond to gangs as clearly identifiable groups, in reality these gang memberships have no stability or continuity. They are also less criminally active than commonly believed and have less clear leadership (Guardian, 14 July 2008), contrary to what is portrayed in ‘Dying To Belong’.
A report from the Youth Justice Board (2007) suggests that young people between the ages of 10 and 17 are more likely to be involved in serious violence as part of a gang. However, the same report also warns against mislabeling youth groups as gangs, which could glamorize them and encourage young people to engage in more serious criminal behavior. The report also notes that most young people who carry knives claim it is for protection and have never used them.
There was also a suggestion that young men who are in offending groups recognize that claiming to be a gang gives them a certain status. However, they later discover that those claims were empty boasts and there was a clear difference between their group of affiliation and actual gang membership. Real gangs transgress certain norms, particularly with regard to their deliberate use of unacceptable levels of violence, which distinguishes them from other groups. (Youth Justice Board, 2007)
Between 1997 and 2006, there was a concern about knife crime. The number of young people convicted of carrying knives rose from 482 to 1265 during this time, but the statistics on knife-related crimes remain unknown. However, a survey conducted by the Metropolitan police in 2007 showed that knife crime dropped by 15.7 percent from 12,122 to 10,220 incidents (Guardian, May 12th, 2008). It is believed that carrying knives is driven by a concern for self-protection or status. As a result, the government enacted new laws making it illegal to sell imitation guns or knives or air rifles to anyone under the age of eighteen.
In 2008, £5 million was allocated to target knife hotspots and the use of electronic metal detectors was introduced. The police were also granted new powers to stop and search. The Prime Minister urged that there should be a presumption to prosecute any individual over 16 years old caught carrying a knife or anyone caught carrying a knife without good reason (BBC NEWS, 7 July 2008). This is an attempt by the government to deter young people from carrying weapons.
According to BBC news on February 13, 2009, London and Strathclyde police have each identified 170 gangs. In the London Borough of Waltham Forest alone, it is estimated that 600-700 young people are directly involved in gangs with an additional 8,100 people affected by them (J. Pitts, Youth Gangs in Waltham Forest, 2007). Merseyside police reported that around 60 percent of shootings in Manchester and Liverpool are gang-related (Home Office Crime Reduction Series Paper 13, 2002).
The Metropolitan Police Authority reported on May 29, 2008 that at least half of the 27 murders of young people in London were gang-related. However, there is a problem with conflicting figures. The Home Office Tackling Gangs Action Programme identified fewer gangs than the Metropolitan Police did. The MPS found 171 gangs operating in London, while the Home Office estimated only 356 gang members in London. This would mean that there are only two people per gang which does not meet the Home Office’s definition of a gang.
If the Home Office had a universal definition of a gang, it would be helpful if everyone agreed on what constitutes a gang. The media often has misconceptions about gangs, as they tend to associate them heavily with black males and crimes involving guns and knives. As a result, these individuals are often subjected to stop and search procedures. However, the truth is that gangs are made up of individuals from various ethnicities and are based in different communities. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a common definition of what constitutes a gang.
The Home Office refers to them as delinquent youth groups rather than gangs, according to Aldridge and Medina. However, this definition of gangs is not used by those who are involved in tackling them. This makes it difficult to produce a national assessment of gang membership and activities since there is no clear definition of what constitutes a gang for those who are tackling them. As a result, the true scale and nature of the gang culture and activity in the UK is very limited (Dying to Belong). It will not be easy to paint an accurate picture of the gang problem in the UK.
The government has started to address the ongoing problem of gang and youth violence in the UK, although they have not done enough over the years. The August 2011 riots exposed how prevalent gang culture is in the country, with one in five of those arrested during the riots being known gang members. It has also been discovered that gangs are responsible for 22% of all serious violence in London.
Currently, the government has established agencies to closely research and examine the extent of gang problems in the UK. Strategies for combating these issues have been implemented, such as the Metropolitan Services’ investment in monitoring gang activity in London. So far, 171 gangs have been identified. In September 2007, the Home Office established a subgroup called Tackling Gangs Action Programme to address gang-related issues in the UK.
Since August 2011, after the riots, a group of senior ministers led by the home secretary has been engaged in a range of projects to stop youth violence. The government has put welfare reforms in place to give young people who are at risk of being in gangs an opportunity to access work and overcome employment barriers. Additionally, they will be presented with good educational opportunities which will increase their chances of further study.
The government also wants all mainstream agencies that young people are involved with, such as jobcentres, schools and hospitals, to be involved in preventing future violence.
The government has proposed providing support to areas at risk of gangs or youth violence by improving their mainstream services. (Source: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/knife-gungang-youth-violence)
Bibliography:
- Antrobus, S. (2009). Dying to Belong.
- Muncie, J. (2011). Youth and Crime, 3rd ed.
- Newburn, T. (2007). Criminology.
- www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/knife-gungang-youth-violence
- Young, T.M., Fitzgerald, S., Hallsworth and L.Joseph (2007). Guns ,Gangs and Weapons: Youth Justice Board.
