Youth gangs (week 10)

Question 1

Are all youth gangs/groups threatening and committed to delinquent behaviour?

Australian context

Answer 1

• Young people who hang out together in groups or gangs are diverse and that not all young people who hang out together are gang members or engaged in delinquent behaviour, most are harmless.
• Young people hang out together usually in public space for different reasons and in different ways.
• For most it is simply a way of passing time, catching up with friends and generally socialising – and not a space for committing delinquent acts.
• For a minority it may well be a place to commit delinquencies, peddle drugs or plan gang bangs, pay-backs or other violent related crimes.
• However, in the Australian context there is little evidence of organised criminal youth gangs engaged in serious violent behaviour

Question 2

Characteristics of youth gangs

Answer 2

• common interests
• common in appearance or ethnicity
• the need for social belonging

Question 3

Why do young people hang out in loose knit groups and form gangs?

Answer 3

• Gangs provide young people with a sense of belonging, security and social inclusion
• Gang membership does not cause delinquency but it can be a risk factor.
• Social over-reactions to gang behaviour can at times escalate delinquent behaviour by pushing gang members to the margins and policing their behaviour in such a way as to criminalise their petty delinquencies.

Question 4

Why are gangs/groups of young people perceived as threatening?

Answer 4

• Media representation of youth have a powerful impact on the way the criminal justice system and the public view young people
• Reporting about youth tends to focus on depictions of young people as dangerous, on drugs, trouble makers and basically ‘bad’
• This type of reporting typically exacerbates the numbers and nature of these groups
• There is usually an implication that these events are pre-planned, although in reality this is not usually the case
• Undue media attentions, social overreaction and over-policing, can place pressure on group members to live up to a particular public image by behaving in ways that correspond with the labels- usually in the form of ‘dangerous’ or ‘tough’ gang behaviour
• This creates moral panics which in turn exacerbates the effect of labelling by creating ‘secondary deviance’ or future offending