YOUTH GANGS IN UK

How the rise of the youth gangs in recent years has had an impact on the Asian community in the UK



How the rise of the youth gangs in recent years has impact on the Asian community in the UK

Introduction

National Youth Gang Surveys show distinguishing features of the least and most problematic areas in which gangs are active. In the first category of communities, the least populous areas—cities, towns, and rural counties with populations of less than 50,000—youth gangs tend to be much smaller, with very few members, and the youth gang problem may dissipate as quickly as it develops. This observation applies especially to small cities or towns with less than 25,000 population and to rural counties (Howell and Egley, 2005). A variable gang problem is observed much more often in less-populated areas (under 50,000 population) than in larger, more populous areas. Nearly half of the communities in these areas experienced a variable gang problem over the six-year period from 1996 to 2001 (Egley, Howell, and Major, 2004), and only 4% of the rural counties and 10% of the small cities and towns (under 25,000 population) reported a gang problem in six consecutive years (Howell and Egley, 2005). This figure increases to 32% for cities in the 25,000-49,999 population range (Egley et al., 2004).

The small towns and rural areas (under 25,000 population) that inconsistently report gang problems typically have only 3 gangs with approximately 50 members (versus 6 gangs and 100 members when consistently reporting gang problems) (Howell and Egley, 2005). Gangs that first emerged in these areas in the 1990s—or later—had several distinguishing features. They tend to have a much larger proportion of middle-class teens, mixed-gender gangs, more females, and more white youths. The members of these recently emerging gangs are far less likely than gang members in the early onset jurisdictions (prior to the 1990s) to be involved in violent crimes (i.e., homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and use of firearms) as well as property crimes and drug trafficking (Howell, Egley, and Gleason, 2002).

The dominant view of youth gangs in Britain was established during the 60 and 70s. Downes, in his influential, The Delinquent Solution, argued that delinquent groups in the East End of London lacked structured cohesion, institutional permanence and a group commitment to delinquency similar to that described by contemporary American criminologists such as Cloward, Ohlin and Yablonsky. In this sense, he concluded that at most, in his research site, there were street-corner groups or 'small cliques whose members committed illegal acts sometimes collectively, sometimes in pairs, sometimes individually, in some cases regularly, in others only rarely' and for which delinquent engagement was not more central than 'sexual prowess' (Downes, 1966: 199). These groups did not either 'obtrude, let alone dominate an area'. Despite the fact, his work was grounded in a particular area of London and Downes' own work suggest that 'gangs' with leaders and territorial disputes had historically been present in the East End, his research was interpreted ...