Monia O’BRIEN CASTRO Université de Tours/ICD
In the aftermath of the August 2011 riots, Prime Minister David Cameron declared ‘a concerted, all-out war on gangs and gang culture’ in a speech at a youth centre in Witney, his Oxfordshire constituency. This ‘major criminal disease’, as he referred to the problem of ‘gangs’ then, has been a current concern in Britain for a few years.1 The media have extensively covered stories of so-called ‘postcode’
murders2 with banner headlines. 15-year-old Alex Malumba (aka Tiny Alien, a Black boy who belonged to the Man Dem Crew) in March 2006,3 15-year-old Billy Cox (‘Remer’, a mixed-raced member of the Clap Town Kids) in February 2007,4 18-year-old Henry Bolomby (a Black youth whose gang name was Black H) in January 2008,5 15-year old Sofyen Belamouadden (this victim of a school rivalry was of Moroccan origin and didn’t belong to a gang) in March 2010,6 15-year-old Negus McLean (a Dem African gang member) in April 2011,7 to name a few, have been the victims of ‘the knife and gun crime wave’ hitting London. Even if ‘gangs’
have been around for countless centuries in one form or another—Mods, Teddy Boys, Rockers, etc.—the media and political leaders have suggested that Britain is now plagued by a traditional feature of American culture which had not so far besmirched Britain. More precisely, they have suggested that new forms of crime
1 ‘England Riots: David Cameron Declares War on Gangs’, Daily Telegraph, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8701853/England-riots-David-Cameron-declares-war-on-gangs.html [accessed 3 August 2012].
2 They refer to territorialised gang wars or postcode wars, involving gangs from certain zones, E5 and E9 in East London for instance (‘Teen Shot Dead by “Postcode” Assassins: Police Blame Gang Turf War for Murder of Barman in his 4X4’, Evening Standard, 4 January 2006).
3 ‘The Life and Death of a Gangsta’, Daily Mail, 2006, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-392647/The-life-death-gangsta.html [accessed 5 August 2012].
4 ‘Shot Billy Had a Gun Too’, Sun, 2007, http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/
18522/Shot-Billy-had-a-gun-too.html [accessed 8 August 2012].
5 ‘London’s Gang Wars Claim First Teenage Victim of 2008’, Daily Mail, 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-505627/Londons-gang-wars-claim-teenage-victim-2008.htm [accessed 17 February 2014].
6 ‘Gang Murdered Boy during Rush Hour at Victoria Station’, BBC News, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15310015 [accessed 18 February 2014].
7 Murdermap, http://www.murdermap.co.uk/pages/cases/case.asp?CID=315375561 [accessed 17 February 2014].
have emerged, apparently led by extremely vicious young Black (and minority ethnic)8 males living in inner cities and other deprived urban zones.
Extraordinarily enough, there isn’t much information available in regard to
‘gangs’ in Britain, especially empirical studies, but the lack of consensus on a definition is of paramount importance, and debate around the interpretation of the notion of ‘gang’ is still ongoing as it tends to be a catch-all word. Yet there does seem to be a consensus that there is an alleged natural nexus between ‘gangs’ and race. Back in 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair himself declared that political correctness should be dropped and that one should acknowledge that it is ‘young Black kids doing it’.9 Historian and broadcaster David Starkey also controversially asserted that Black culture was criminogenic on Newsnight in 2011.10 This multidimensional problem (spatial, communal, cultural, individual, ethnical, racial) is far from being insignificant since it raises fundamental questions concerning the functioning and state of society; hence the impact on policy-making regarding security, immigration, segregation/integration/community cohesion. If words are not carefully chosen, one of the weakest sections of society, notably minority communities, who make up a large part of urban populations, may well be stigmatised. The casual labelling of some citizens as criminals is likely to exacerbate some of the causes that are said to precipitate to ‘gang’ involvement, viz exclusion and discrimination, and to logically give way to the expansion of ‘gang’ activities and (violence) collectives.
The central question that will be addressed in this chapter is whether ‘gangs’
are really a lethal feature of British society or merely a contemporary urban legend?
What is more, it will be established whether or not ‘gangs’, as they are commonly termed, are synonymous with minority communities. I shall concentrate on the Blair-Brown period, the period in question being characterised by a burgeoning
‘moral panic’ as far as ‘gangs’ were concerned. Moreover, the ‘gang’ phenomenon is clearly reminiscent of another form of ‘moral panic’ which emerged as the biggest wave of riots hit British cities in the 1980s. This echo is also to be found in the way the two phenomena were handled by the media and government, and in the resulting stigmatisation process. It will thus be pertinent to compare them and draw conclusions regarding the reality of the stigmatisation of rioters in the 1980s and
‘gang-members’, youths ‘living on road’11 nowadays, and the consequences of these labels on the individuals subjected to them.
8 BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) or BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) describe people of non-White descent. (Institute of Race Relations, http://www.irr.org.uk/research/
statistics/definitions [accessed 18 February 2014].)
9 Read young Black kids wreaking ‘severe disorder’ with guns and knives on the streets.
(‘Blair Blames Spate of Murders on Black Culture’, Guardian, 2007, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race [accessed 18 February 2014].)
10 ‘Was David Starkey Being Racist on Newsnight Last Night?’, Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2011, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100100845/was-david-starkey-being-racist-on-newsnight-last-night [accessed 6 June 2014].
11 ‘Road culture’ is a Black-influenced youth culture played out on the streets and on housing estates, that is ‘on road’, where young people hang around in their spare time, ‘catching jokes’
with their friends. Those who enter low-level drug-dealing, crime, violence, are said to ‘live on road’. (Ian JOSEPH & Anthony GUNTER, Gangs Revisited: What’s a Gang and What’s
On the genesis of the notion
In order to address these issues, one first needs to determine what the term
‘gangs’ expressly refers to. Gangs have been the object of research throughout the world, but the key data regarding the topic started to emerge in 20th-century North America, more specifically thanks to the studies carried out in urban areas by the Chicago School. In the late 1920s, sociologist Thrasher published one of the earliest analyses of the gang phenomenon. He averred that gangs, or ‘play groups’ as he saw them, tended to be produced by deprived neighbourhoods, and provided teenagers with a supportive social structure, with roles and duties within the community, for them to step into adulthood. Youth male identity was the central issue but gangs were also associated with minority communities and cultural conflict in mixed-raced urban areas.12 The idea of the gang as the gathering of individuals around deviant values came about in the 1950s-1960s with Cohen’s13 or Cloward and Ohlin’s14 analyses: according to ‘strain theory’, the gap between cultural goals and the means marginalised young men had (or rather did not have) to achieve success and recognition led to criminality. Thus, for Yablonsky, the gang offered an alternative family structure nurturing crime, and conflicting with traditional family and community norms.15 Cloward and Ohlin also established that bona fide criminal gangs emerged in ‘organised slums’ (which had close connections with politicians and the police), and violent ‘street gangs’ emerged in ‘disorganised slums’ (which could only reach status through violence).16 Pitts recently reconsidered this distinction through the lens of race and argued that White immigrants were to be found in the former, and Blacks and Hispanics in the latter.17 Oscar Lewis’ ‘culture of poverty’ was the theory put forward to explain that the phenomenon that prevailed amongst what he described as an underclass (Lewis argued that that subculture affects the deeply impoverished living in developing countries, as they are unable to escape from their condition).18
From the 1980s onwards, ‘street gangs’ have been depicted as criminal (drug) ventures belonging to the underclass alternative economy and associated with prison gang cultures. Race, as opposed to specific tattoos or clothes for instance, in fact has appeared to be a central characteristic shared by both victims and perpetrators of gang violence. Today, the proliferation of gang studies has increasingly blurred the boundaries between the various styles of gangs, and the term itself has become a mere synonym for violence.19 In addition, Katz and Jackson-Jacobs posit that gang
Race Got to Do with It? Politics and Policy into Practice, London: Runnymede Perspectives, November 2011, p. 5.)
12 Frederic THRASHER, The Gang, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1927.
13 Albert COHEN, Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang, Glencoe: Free Press, 1955.
14 Richard CLOWARD & Lloyd OHLIN, Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs, Glencoe: Free Press, 1960.
15 Lewis YABLONSKY, The Violent Gang, New York: Macmillan, 1962.
16 Richard CLOWARD & Lloyd OHLIN, op. cit.
17 John PITTS, Reluctant Gangsters: The Changing Face of Youth Crime, Devon: Willan, 2008, p. 41.
18 Oscar LEWIS, La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty, New York:
Random House, 1966.
19 Claire ALEXANDER, (Re)thinking ‘Gangs’, London: Runnymede, 2008, p. 10.
researchers have increasingly concentrated on Black youth culture and crime, thus
‘staining the group as a whole with an image of deviance’ on grounds of race and culture.20 In the 2000s, commentators such as Katz and Jackson-Jacobs, Howell or Klein define the American gang as pure myth conveyed by the media, for it is actually impossible to give a profile, as they vary in terms of gender, race, organisation, specialisation and location.21 To quote Katz and Jackson-Jacobs, ‘the central myth is that the gang exists’.22 In fact, gangs allegedly strive to create their own myth themselves: the ‘Big Gang Theory’ argues that gang membership enables members to threaten and impress society.23