The outsiders
What can we learn about community support structures from the social dynamics of the gang? Ross Deuchar investigates life on the fringes of society
The explosion of media reports about youth gang culture has painted a bleak picture of the highly territorial nature of the most deprived urban landscapes in Britain and the increasingly violent nature of young people on the streets. The national newspapers have led us to believe that there are at least 300 organised street gangs in Scotland, with 170 in Glasgow alone. Although there have been gangs in Glasgow for more than 100 years, the media has convinced us that gang members are now younger, that they carry more dangerous weapons and that they progress to more serious crime than ever before. A raft of political moves in Britain has focused on addressing these issues, notably New Labour’s Respect Agenda and the Youth Crime Action Plan, which takes an early-intervention approach to tackling youth violence. In Scotland, the release of the Anti-Social Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004 has created new powers and incentives to assist local authorities in dealing with anti-social behaviour.
There are two main problems with this approach. One is that many adults mistakenly jump to the conclusion that all youth gatherings are gangs. The second is that it fails to recognise that belonging to a gang can help give young people a sense of identity. The social dynamics within gangs can provide effective support structures for those who live on the fringes of society. My recent research has set out to examine the relationship between gang culture and the building of social capital in local communities.
Living in the margins
Data for the study was collected in a cross-section of nine voluntary youth organisations or community regeneration agencies and five secondary schools in some of the most socially deprived areas in Glasgow. I interviewed 50 young people, aged between 16 and 18, who were disenfranchised by educational failure, unemployment and poverty and who were part of, or on the margins of, the NEET (not in education, employment or training) group.
The interviews revealed that many young people were experiencing the effects of second- and third-generation unemployment since the collapse of the once-dominant manufacturing industries, such as shipbuilding and heavy engineering. So, although they were distantly aware of the positive developments associated with urban regeneration in some parts of the city, most young people felt that their housing schemes were ravaged by the effects of poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse and violence. They criticised the lack of facilities in their local neighbourhoods; football pitches had been dug up to make room for new housing developments and local parks had been closed to stop young people from hanging around there. Many talked about the high levels of surveillance and police intervention that made them feel victimised and oppressed. Some admitted that they had begun drinking, smoking and taking drugs when they were very young because there was nothing else to do. One young man revealed that he had begun selling drugs at the age of 13. Feelings of exclusion and marginalisation had led 22 of the 50 participants to join gangs to gain a sense of belonging, status and excitement.
Gang membership often came about through a history of previous family involvement, peer pressure and an expectation to conform to narrowly defined but commonly held views of masculinity. Many described the adrenaline rush they experienced from combat, which was stimulated by drink and drugs. Gang membership offered a sense of social support, bonding and identity to many young people, and the gang became a ‘surrogate family’ to those with challenging and dysfunctional home lives. As a result, the gangs created some positive opportunities for dense, durable layers of social capital within the young people’s urban housing schemes.
However, they also created a sense of confinement and a lack of trust. The existence of clearly defined territories limited young people’s social mobility and freedom, which in turn affected their employment prospects and their ability to participate in recreational activities, move house or engage in trustful relationships.
Some young people had managed to leave gang culture behind, with the help of family, friends and local support agencies. Several had become involved in recreational activities, training or employment, and some were able to draw upon their experience to help others. Two young men had started doing voluntary street work for a local youth organisation and had gone on to become trained youth workers, working as part of a multi-agency team delivering anti-territorial gang initiatives. Others had become proactive at seeking help with addiction and anger management issues from local social services. And for some young people, participation in sport provided a means of channelling adolescent rebellion, aggression, competitiveness and masculinity, gradually beginning to replace their proclivity towards gang violence.
In spite of these success stories, many young people still expressed hostility towards adult authority figures such as the police, and the perception of being constantly observed, monitored and stigmatised was a common one. Some talked about being stopped, handcuffed and searched by the police on the way back from recreational activities because they were suspected of being gang members walking in a rival gang’s territory. As their social mobility became restricted, so their sense of trust diminished: some admitted that they would only trust people from their own housing schemes or street. They also felt disempowered: although several had attempted to campaign for local facilities for young people or to talk to local councillors, they felt that nobody had listened to their ideas.
Abject citizens
Stanley Cohen was the first to coin the term ‘moral panic’ in his book Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972). He talked about the way in which a “group of persons … becomes defined as a threat to societal values and interests”. The recent tendency to demonise and victimise young people in urban neighbourhoods is one example of this. The resulting increase in anti-social behaviour policies has accelerated a culture of non-participation by young people, with adult restrictions on the use of public space leading to a serious lack of suitable youth facilities. On top of this, the inter-connecting and cumulative forms of deprivation that are so common in Glasgow’s urban communities have led many young people to feel stigmatised and marginalised.
Gang membership can lead to what Andrea Sharkey and Rob Shields have termed ‘abject citizenship’, whereby young people strive to create a sense of belonging through intense in-group ties. Where they experience deficits in social capital because of dysfunctional family lives, school disaffection, unemployment and exclusion from urban space, they sometimes join gangs as an alternative means of gaining such social capital. While gang membership offers them some feelings of social inclusion, it also heightens the risk of violence and produces a sense of confinement. Thus, it seems that the current social and political obsession with reinventing community values through the punitive exclusion and demonisation of urban youth has led only to increased factionalism, hostility and fear.
So how do we recognise the positive aspects of youth culture and gangs, while seeking to generate alternative forms of social capital among young people? Rather than taking a punitive approach, we need to consider the value of social and educational initiatives in re-engaging marginalised youth. The Scottish government’s ‘More Choices, More Chances’ initiative is targeted at young people who suffer from social deprivation and low educational motivation. As part of this agenda, the government has recognised that youth work can help give vulnerable young people a voice and have a positive influence in their communities.
Taking a multi-agency approach to youth mentoring could enable young people to move beyond territoriality and to escape from the threat of gang culture in Glasgow. One example of this approach is Family Action in Rogerfield and Easterhouse (FARE), a registered charity that aims to enhance young people’s lives through the provision of social and educational services. Their projects often begin with youth workers making contact with young people and encouraging them to participate in a range of new diversionary initiatives centred on physical and recreational activity. Anti-gang awareness workshops enable young people to explore the consequences of gang involvement and the range of alternative choices available to them. Interviews are subsequently arranged for the young people with various partners, including community regeneration and employment agencies.
Another example is the Kicks ‘n’ Tricks street football project, run by the Glasgow Southwest Regeneration Agency (GSWRA) in partnership with Strathclyde Police, Glasgow Culture and Sport, Rangers FC and Cardonald College. Youth workers act in partnership with police intelligence analysts, who identify hotspots where there have been recorded incidents of crime. This information helps the team make decisions about which areas of the city to target, and young people are encouraged to participate in small-sided games as an alternative to drinking, drug taking or crime. Youth leaders and coaches subsequently encourage young people to engage in further recreational pursuits, as well as opening up opportunities for training and employment.
Rejoining the fold
These initiatives enable young people to influence their communities positively and establish a recognised place in society. They provide them with a deeper sense of social support and a propensity to engage in recreational activities and develop focused personal and career aspirations. This increases young people’s social capital, enabling them to build trustful relationships, to gain increased confidence in institutions and to create opportunities to engage with wider social networks. It can only be hoped that we see further financial investment by the Scottish government into youth work initiatives of this kind, so that more young people in Glasgow can find positive alternatives to territoriality and gang activity. Demonising young people while also decrying the depletion of community values is counterproductive. Instead, we need to help young people feel part of their communities in order to reach their full potential as active rather than abject citizens.
Ross Deuchar is a senior lecturer in education and social science at the University of Strathclyde and his new book, Gangs, Marginalised Youth and Social Capital, is published on 30 September by Trentham Books.
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The RSA's project on Connected Communities aims to bring people together to create successful social networks. View their blog, Citizenpower.
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