Query: gangs london

title: Policing Gangs in London Perceptions of the Process from Key Practitioners
abstract: This study presents a practitioner perspective analysis of how gangs, gang members and their associated risks are perceived and policed within the organisational structure of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Drawing on a large scale survey and in depth interviews with a variety of gang practitioners, it contrasts and critiques specialist, analytical and local police practice in conceptualising, mapping, monitoring and policing within the gang milieu, focusing on police and partnership use and understanding of the primary tool for gang member management, the MPS Gangs Matrix. Findings highlight a perception of the gang at odds with that captured by the static intelligence mechanisms embedded in operational practice and highlight the tensions created by the complex intra organisational structures in terms of remit and understanding. It identifies an emerging tendency to align the gang with organised crime; utilising elements of the interconnected theoretical frameworks of interactionism (specifically the activities of the labellers) contextual constructionism, and institutional theory to consider the aetiology and consequences of these actions in the context of policing policy and practice.

title: Young women on road femininities, race and gangs in London
abstract: This thesis is a qualitative study of young women's involvement with badness in London. It is based on semi structured interviews with young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty five, youth practitioners and criminal justice practitioners. It takes a black feminist approach in order to explore the lives and experiences of those from deprived areas. Such a perspective allows for the inclusion of all respondents regardless of their social class or racial identity, and considers the intersection of class, gender and race. The purpose of this study is to address the considerable gap in knowledge surrounding young women and road culture. It builds on and extends Gunter's (2008; 2009; 2010) work which focuses predominantly on black young men in East London who perform badness as part of road culture's rejection of mainstream norms and values. One of the key findings of my research is that badness cuts across gender lines. Young women can adopt tough personas as a successful survival strategy to gain respect, and sustain their reputations, in similar ways to young men. Rather than 'acting like men' by displaying behaviours associated with hegemonic masculinity however, females are constructing their own bad ass femininity. Not content with existing on the periphery of the action, and in addition to carrying drugs and weapons, they can be involved in robberies and the sale and supply of drugs. Young women are not necessarily second class citizens in these spaces, they are hustlers and leaders of their peers. Another key finding was their capability for violence, with the potential to exhibit more vicious behaviours than their male peers, in order to be known as someone who is a bad and not to be tested.

title: Unregulated Desires: Anomie, the "Rainbow Underclass" and Second generation Alevi Kurdish Gangs in London
abstract: This article offers a case study of the adaptation strategies of a section of second generation young male Alevi Kurds in London and the social conditions which make some of them more prone to join gangs and to reject mainstream institutions in their search for instant material rewards. It is instructive to use Durkheim's analysis of society's integrative and regulative functions and particularly his concept of anomie to understand a situation where the legitimate means in the pursuit of material wealth and comfort are out of balance with the demand, calling into question the legitimacy of the institutions which provide these functions. Those who cannot compete through existing institutions are more likely to seek alternative means to achieve these ends. Durkheim identified youth as more vulnerable to such unregulated desires and I argue that his approach offers valuable insights into the anomic pressures confronting second generation migrant young men in particular.

title: Gangs and Knife Crime in London
abstract: We describe the socio economic characteristics of street gang areas in London, explore gang formation dynamics, and analyse the spatial correlation between gangs and violent crime. Gang areas form in areas with higher unemployment, lower education, and a higher proportion of lone parent families. Social housing is one of the key predictors of gang areas. Areas that are gang territories have higher levels of crime in various crime categories. Both having a gang in an area and proximity to a gang correlate positively with violent crime. We estimate the short term effect of disrupting a gang within a borough as decreasing knife crime on ward level by about 15%

title: Bred and Meet: Gangs and God in East London
abstract: Religion has a time honoured role in consummating the status of both the newcomer and the departed, and providing succour to those facing persecution. In networks wherein notions of respect and honesty are stressed but are best defined by notions of fate, violence and death, it is perhaps unsurprising that appeals of various kinds are often directed to a higher power. In what follows analysis focuses on the role of religion in Serious Youth Violence (SYV)/gang interventions in contemporary East London. Specifically, we examine the work of Pentecostal Christian charity, Teaching Against Gangs (TAG) and the ways in which its founder, Sheldon Thomas, draws on the repertoires of Christianity alongside what might be considered Realist Criminology in imploring young men to turn their backs on the Road/gang life. Those "On the Road" operate within an underground economy pervaded by notions of "respect" "trespass" and "business" enforceable by both threatened and actual violence. The "Road Man" can vary in age from mid teens to mid 20s. The Elders in such gatherings are assumed to be involved in more consequential and lucrative criminal enterprises than the Youngers. The former are also presumed capable of more grievous forms of violence. Jail time and serious wounding typify life "On the Road" As a consequence some people have made it their life's work to offer an alternative way of living. Here the extant literature on religion and organised crime is surveyed, before the methods employed in the research and the settings in which TAG interventions were staged are considered. The strategies and realities of the interventions themselves are then detailed. The chapter ends with a consideration of the utility of religious values and rituals in the work of TAG and its attempts to prevent SYV/gang violence.

title: DEBORAH T. LEVENSON: Adios Nino: The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013.
abstract: DEBORAH T. LEVENSON:  The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death. Durham and London:

title: Mediation and gangs a study of violence reduction in the Metropolitan Police area in London
abstract: Gang violence in London is an increasing problem that has gained momentum in the last two decades. Finding workable solutions to reduce gang violence or interventions in the current economic climate is a constant challenge for practitioners. This study examines the use of mediation as a tactic for reducing gang violence. Through data analysis, outcomes of this intervention are explored. The initial research conducted shows that there is a significant correlation between reductions in violent reoffending between those referred for mediation and those not referred. Further analysis of 17 semi structured interviews conducted in the UK suggests that individuals do not have to engage in the mediation process for it to have an effect. Very often, the fact that an individual has been referred will be sufficient to deter continued violent offending. This research suggests that the implications for practice requires a unified co ordinated response to violence that includes the proactive provision of joined up activity from the authorities, such as education, housing, health, social services and employment agencies. Their services need to be adequately funded, properly resourced and intelligently delivered in order to provide the necessary support required to end the cycle of gang related violence and offending generally.

title: 'A London Plague that must be swept away' Hooligans and Street Fighting Gangs, c. 1882 1912
abstract: As Geoffrey Pearson memorably noted in 1983, 'The word hooligan made an abrupt entrance into common English usage, as a term to describe gangs of rowdy youths, during the hot summer of 1898.'2 Nevertheless, the behaviour that would preoccupy the press and public in 1898 was far from novel. Descriptions of youth gang fighting in the metropolis had been circulating from the early 1880s. Moreover, street based youth gang conflicts had already been identified as a significant problem in three key English cities from the 1870s, and the fights between gangs of youths that can be found in London from the 1880s were remarkably similar to those that had troubled Manchester and Salford, Birmingham and Liverpool since a decade or so earlier.3 The extent to which such conflicts represented new forms of youthful delinquency and/or street violence is debatable: there are significant continuities with the older models of street disorder as well as with the descriptions of 'organised gangs' of ruffians that would follow in the early twentieth century.4 In this chapter the intention is not to simply revisit the hooligan 'panic' but rather to place it within a longer trajectory of concerns about street violence and disorder. Thus late Victorian and Edwardian depictions of young men (and in some cases women) 'holding the street' what Pearson describes as a 'violent ritual of territorial supremacy' echo the crowds of hustling thieves and pickpockets who 'pushed' 'pulled' 'jostled' 'surrounded' and 'hustled' the crowds and pedestrians of the earlier nineteenth century

title: Jennifer Hazen and Dennis Rodgers 2014: Global Gangs: Street Violence Across the World. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press

title: Thrasher, Frederic M. (2006) The Gang. A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. In: Pierce, Beirne (Hrsg. The Chicago School of Criminology (1914 1945) Volume III. London, New York: Routledge.