CYP Now - Where are all these gangs we hear about?

What are these gangs that everyone is so preoccupied about these days? There was a time when there was some consensus that the UK, with the early exception of Glasgow and the later exception of paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, did not have gangs, at least not by the established American definition of the term.

The term conjures up ideas of romance and terror, although not in equal measure. It suggests something about belonging and exclusivity as well as violence, which is perhaps the reason one of the most celebrated post-war youth work initiatives was called The Stonehouse Gang. The 1960s gangs of the Krays and the Richardsons in London were of a rather different order.

Beyond England's large cities, there is still a view that "gang" is an overused word for what are often no more than nuisance groups of youths resorting to low levels of aggression and violence - or even less. Certainly banging off an air rifle from time to time does not constitute the worst excesses of gang violence and intimidation.

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