“Streets of menace”: Constructing and deconstructing youth “gangs” in two Australian cities

This paper explores the symbolic and instrumental impacts associated with labelling particular groups of young people as perpetrators of organised “gang” activity. Using case studies from two Australian cities, we point primarily to the constitutive and damaging nature of much media and public discourse about youth gang crime and show how young offenders’ disadvantage and disenfranchisement is rendered largely invisible or immaterial to understanding the causes and solutions to such problems. In an era of “fake news”, social media “echo chambers”, civil conflict, mass international migration/forced diasporas, as well as the reassertion of strong sovereign borders, we ask: how might one de-escalate the “monstering” of young people whose identity (and presence and place in society) is known primarily, if not exclusively, through the “noise” and visibility of their offending?

“boys of God”: the experience of re-socialization of adolescents and young people in conflict with the law in the Santa Filomena community

This research aims to analyze the resocialization process of the second generation of adolescents and young people from the Meninos de Deus project and the contributions of socio-affective relationships in the resignification of individual trajectory in the context of violence in the Santa Filomena community. The study is necessary to understand the importance of strengthening the resocialization processes in an open space, which has the triad of public authorities, civil society and the community as the executing nucleus of socio-educational measures. The Meninos de Deus group was born in 2007 and was born from a pact, among youths in conflict with the law, based on the premise of mutual care, commitment to life and in the re-socializing walk with the community. In this group, the feeling of belonging is opposed to the feeling that young people and adolescents in conflict with the law had with the youth gang or the criminal faction they belonged. The methodology to be used is ethnography, where we will use field research, characterized as an integration of data obtained in the field and by bibliographic reading.

From the street to the village: The transfer of NZ youth gang culture to Sāmoa

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From the street to the village: The transfer of NZ youth gang culture to Sāmoa

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Nad zalew bym sobie pojechał

Malgorzata Michel, PhD at Jagiellonian University works at the Institute of Education. Her research focuses mainly on local prevention and rehabilitation systems, studying activity of the „street children” afiliating with youth gang activity and deviant hooligan groups in the context of urban studies. The presented text is the outcome of taking part in Mikolaj Grynberg’s workshops focusing on writing about city memory and personal stories in years 2019-2020. Malgorzata Michel combines being a qualitative researcher set in ethnomethodology and writing skills achieved on later mentioned workshops. Her text is an outcome of a process starting with and interview with a teenage hooligan, ex street gang member. Finally, the author showcases a way to present qualitative data in form of a reportage.

REGIONAL ASPECTS OF COUNTERING THE DISTRIBUTION OF CRIMINAL SUBCULTURE IN THE YOUTH ENVIRONMENT

The article analyzes the regional specific features of counteracting the negative influence of the representatives of criminal environment on young people. The research subject is the regional specifics of the development and genesis of criminal subculture, and the measures taken in the prevention of destructive phenomena in the adolescent environ-ment. We have used a dialectical approach to the study of social phenomena, which makes it possible to analyze them in their historical development, as well as comparative law, special criminological, documentary, sociological and other research methods within the framework of this approach. As part of study, we have analyzed the conclusions and pro-posals of scientists and researchers in related fields on similar issues, including the phe-nomenon of youth gang, which took place in Ulan-Ude (1960s — late 1980s).

The Meaning of Javanese Adolescents' Involvement in Youth Gangs During the Discoveries of Youth Identity: A Phenomenological Study

Yogyakarta is a part of Javanese society. Javanese culture, which always enforces moral values, has a practical implication toward adolescents' views about their self-identity. Yogyakarta adolescents are well known to have positive self-identity, good behavior, and tend to become successful persons in their youth. In the past years, a phenomenon of youth gangs that often conduct irresponsible acts such as brawls, stabbing terror, and even murder has emerged. The question of the research is how adolescent members of a youth gang give meaning to their involvement in a youth gang. To answer the question, we used a phenomenological research method. We employed a modified Colaizzi method as defined by Moustakas (1994) to analyze the data. The participants of the research are adolescents with criteria as follows: coming from the Javanese family, living in Yogyakarta, a high school student, a member of a youth gang, had been involved in law violation. The research results show that Javanese adolescents, members of a youth gang, value their involvement in the gang as a means of showing their self-existence because the gang is the only place that provides wiggle room to express themselves, adolescents failed to construct values about self-existence, and also they lacked appreciation from their closest people and their environment.

Women in the Making of Place, Social Networks and Surviving the Gang Streets

Young women in Manenberg are often identified by their exposure to violence in the community within which they live. They are perceived as grieving mothers, daughters and victims. However, women in Manenberg are also visible as strategists to contesting violence and who are resilient to violent activity. Ungar defines resilience as a defence mechanism (dependent on context and cultural factors) that youth use to cope with adversity, and in this case, everyday gang violence. Current research in Manenberg falls short of revealing the experiences of gang violence by young women as complex and multifaceted. This study demonstrates women as more than victims of youth gang violence (as often portrayed in the media). This paper examines young women, their social networks and resilience to gang violence through the lens of their responses to dominant discourses of youth gang violence in the streets of Manenberg. Through “intimate” discussions, the formations of networks highlight multiple overlaps in the making of young women; their resilience, their homes and lives in the streets of Manenberg. Our discussions transcend normative gendered perspectives and produce knowledge from their interactions as a useful lens for informing how young women negotiate around the activities of gang violence in their everyday lives. The paper reveals meaning-making of gang violence, as well as interfaces and disruptions of social networks among young women in Manenberg.