Policy & Practice: Briefing - Membership of gangs under scrutiny

- Is it not a little dubious as to whether "gangs" is a useful term? This major study acknowledges the unhelpful persistence of the original stereotype derived from the US of the organised gang, with all the paraphernalia of hierarchy, signs, colours and rituals of membership. This was always of marginal relevance to the UK, but there's a risk that the term lends a glamour that will create or exacerbate problems. The literature review that kicks off this report shows no consensus anywhere about what constitutes a gang.

- So what kind of gangs do we have? Over 200 pages we get a complex picture but the long and short of it is that while most youth offending is "group related", the notion of the structured organisation is relevant only to adult criminal gangs. Of course, if you ask young people about the nature of their groups you'll get a variety of responses. They know there's kudos in being perceived as a gang member, but they also draw a distinction between their own groups and the criminal gangs of their elders, which they see as more violent. They also struggled with the conflicting notions of protection and status offered by gangs and the sense that it could make them more vulnerable. Obviously there is some graduation from "group offending" into criminal gang networks.