Gangs

Gangs

Gangs today are a worldwide phenomenon and, moreover, not unique to contemporary societies. Youth gangs have existed in Western and Eastern societies for centuries, and in the United States, gangs in urban centers existed before the 19th century. More recently, researchers have studied gangs in Amsterdam, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, the People's Republic of China, Peru, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and Tanzania. In many instances, gangs use the symbols, style of dress, and behavior of American gangs because these features are transmitted through movies, books, videos, and magazines. Indeed, today's urbanized and globalized world is producing gangs faster than ever before in a variety of shapes and forms, and contemporary gangs play a significant role in many kinds of violence.

Curry and Decker (2003) indicate that gangs in the United States developed during four distinct periods. The first stage occurred as a consequence of immigration and industrialization in the latter part of the 19th century, when groups of recent immigrants-primarily Irish and Italian-engaged in petty property crimes. In the 1920s, a second wave of gangs emerged in cities, again composed of recent immigrants, but they had symbols of membership and were more actively involved in crime than the gangs of the first period. In the 1960s, another generation of gangs developed that contained a significant number of racial minorities. The availability of automobiles and guns gave these gangs the ability to fight other gangs in neighborhoods across a city. As a consequence, more gang members served time in prison and the prison itself became a source for the perpetuation of gangs. Once released, these individuals brought gang ideology and practices with them and recruited young new members. This creation of intergenerational gangs in the 1990s is the fourth generation of gangs.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of gangs from several vantage points. First, it describes how gangs are defined and the social conditions for their emergence and persistence. Second, it considers how social scientists study gangs by describing some of the classic and contemporary studies of gangs. Third, the chapter will analyze some of the contemporary issues associated with gang activity: female gangs, prison gangs, and drug trafficking. A fourth focus is to examine gangs in a global context, especially in terms of the reasons for the proliferation and growth of gangs in the world today. A fifth focus examines future directions for social science research. Finally, while the word gang can refer to many different kinds of groups, such as organized crime groups (gangsters) and hate groups (the Klan), most social scientists use the word to refer to youth gangs, also called street gangs. These gangs are comprised of adolescents and young adults. Therefore, this chapter will primarily focus on youth/street gangs.