Baird, A. (2018). Becoming the ‘baddest’: Masculine trajectories of gang violence in Medellín. Journal of Latin American Studies, 50(1), 183-210.
The article discusses why young men join gangs and argues that the primary reason is the desire to emulate their male identities. The author claims that young men seek various signifiers of manhood, both material and symbolic. In other words, youths consider joining a gang as a way of entering a space of so-called “male success.” The article suggests that young men join a gang and use violent methods to defend the interests of their gang. The author discusses everything mentioned above in the setting of social reproduction, analyzing that process for gangs in Colombia.
Baird, A. (2021). “Man a Kill a Man for Nutin”: Gang transnationalism, masculinities, and violence in Belize City. Men and masculinities, 24(3), 411-431.
The author of the article explains the actuality of their research by the fact that, although Belize City has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, gangs there are not investigated enough. Using empirical data, the paper’s author explores the transnationalism of the Blood and Crip gangs from the United States to Belize City. The author defines “gang transnationalism,” the primary term of the paper, as “transnational masculinity that makes cultural connections between local settings of urban exclusion.” Aside from that, the article contributes to the global theoretical discussion on gang masculinity.
Bhatt, G., & Tweed, R. (2018). University and community acting together to address youth violence and gang involvement. Canadian Psychology, 59(2), 151.
The article emphasizes the impact that activities of criminal gangs and youth violence can have on society. The authors claim that their work on this issue has involved collaborative research, training workshops, dissemination of the current knowledge through the popular media and academic sources, and meetings with several policymakers. Everything described above is a method of analyzing academic ways of investigating social problems associated with gang activities. The article’s authors also try to reflect on the ideological and practical grounds related to the issue. The authors want their research to become a part of the solution to a critical social problem.
Bubolz, B. F., & Lee, S. (2019). Putting in work: The application of identity theory to gang violence and commitment. Deviant Behavior, 40(6), 690-702.
As claimed by the authors, the purpose of this research is to examine how identity mechanisms contribute to violence facilitating among gang members. The authors of the article use life-history interviews with former gang members and people involved in gang activities. The authors apply the identity theory to investigate the association between violence and commitment to gang identity based on the gathered data. The results of the study show that the association described above is complicated. The authors believe that there is an “identity threshold,” which defines whether violence is required or not to achieve positively reflected appraisals.
Deuchar, R. (2018). Gang members ‘doing masculinity’. In Gangs and Spirituality (pp. 19-37). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
This chapter of the book written by Ross Deuchar explores specific insights existing in the current literature. The insights under discussion concern gangs, masculinity, and crime. In addition, the author examines the evidence that prevails on religion and spirituality, considering it a potential resource for turning points of nurture and the changes in identity and behavior. The book chapter provides an overview of the international research identifying links between gang culture, violent and offensive behavior, and social constructions of masculinity.
Figuera, R. (2020). “Doh Go Dey”: Crime in conversations with gang members in Trinidad. Caribbean Quarterly, 66(2), 258-280.
The article discusses criminal elements related to gang culture from the viewpoint of cultural criminology, which, according to the authors, accentuates criminal actions as expressive human activities. The study analyzes discourse and conversation and uses that analysis to investigate agency, the “socioculturally mediated capacity” among gang members. The study’s author uses the terms and set of cultural criminology to provide an approach required to understand conversational specificities, language use, and experiences of six players who are former members of an extensive community gang network. For these purposes, the author of the article also analyzes interviews with gang members from other studies.
Lauger, T. R., Densley, J. A., & Moule, R. K. (2020). Social media, strain, and technologically facilitated gang violence. The Palgrave handbook of international cybercrime and cyberdeviance, 1375-1395.
The article discusses how gang members use the Internet and social media since it is a matter of growing interest in society. According to the research, the gangs use the Internet to threaten peers, develop criminal identities, and recruit new members. The authors note a gap in knowledge regarding the contribution of online content to the conflicts between gangs and violence production. In addition, the authors claim that few existing models (empirical and conceptual) can explain the links between Internet use and gang violence. This study aims to apply the general strain theory to the online content produced or used by gang members to explore how it facilitates violent behavior.
McLean, R. (2018). An evolving gang model in contemporary Scotland. Deviant Behavior, 39(3), 309-321.
This paper is a narrow exploration of so-called “young street gangs,” YSGs for short, considered youth outfits with territoriality and masculinity issues in Scotland. The article’s author uses qualitative interviews with gang members involved in organized crime, especially illegal supply of drugs. Based on the research results, the article provides evidence that YSGs can retain their evolving capabilities. For the purposes of the study, the author also presents a model of an evolving gang divided into three key stages, namely recreational, criminal, and syndicate.
Moran, K. (2021). Interviewing gang members: A note on research design. In Routledge International Handbook of Critical Gang Studies (pp. 122-137). Routledge.
This work is a chapter of the book written by Kevin Moran exploring the research design of interviewing gang members. The author outlines how the method of qualitative interviewing can be used for studying gang life. The author claims that such a method has a significant methodological advantage compared to other techniques since the repeated questioning allows determining the logic of actions. The work suggests that qualitative interviews on the topic address several significant elements of gang life, including the centrality of emotions and the role of class dispositions.
Patton, D. U., Pyrooz, D., Decker, S., Frey, W. R., & Leonard, P. (2019). When twitter fingers turn to trigger fingers: A qualitative study of social media-related gang violence. International journal of bullying prevention, 1(3), 205-217.
The authors build their research on the suggestion that social media and the Internet can exacerbate gang tension that leads to violence. The article investigates how an online conflict translates to an offline conflict that often involves offensive and violent actions and behavior. In other words, the study examines how the Internet can mediate gang violence. Specifically, the authors investigate the sociolinguistic patterns of two famous gangs of Chicago from multiple perspectives using a vignette methodology and qualitative interviews. Additionally, the authors claim that their study has significant implications for gang violence prevention.
Roks, R. A., & Densley, J. A. (2020). From breakers to bikers: The evolution of the Dutch crips ‘gang’. Deviant Behavior, 41(4), 525-542.
This paper is in-depth research of gang evolution based on ethnographic fieldwork and the analysis of the corresponding secondary sources. The authors chart the history and developmental process of a specific gang, namely Dutch Crips, from its origins in the 1980s to its rebirth in the 2000s. The article examines the gang’s identity, organization, branding, and the nature of its criminal actions at each stage of its evolution. The study’s authors highlight the gang’s self-reinvention to meet its needs in each separated period and make the group attractive for future generations.
Ross, J. I. (2018). Reframing urban street culture: Towards a dynamic and heuristic process model. City, Culture and Society, 15, 7-13.
The author of the article reviews the concepts of urban street culture, claiming that little research has defined that term. The paper argues that street culture and its concepts are not limited by street crime and gang behavior. In other words, the article suggests that there is much more to the urban street culture, namely urban studies, anthropology, and geography. The paper’s author applies a dynamic process model consisting of five components to understand the street culture. A better understanding of the urban street culture at large might significantly contribute to understanding gang culture particularly.
Scott, D., & Bennett, S. (2021). Endorsing the Street Code: The impact of neighborhood gang activity on incarcerated youth. Journal of Youth Studies, 1-21.
The authors build their research based on the previously demonstrated association between the street code and gang violence among inmates. The authors use data from a sample of 306 adolescent males to assess neighborhood gang activity’s impact on incarcerated youths. According to the results, youths affiliated with a gang and youths who report high conflict rates within their communities are much more likely to endorse street code than their counterparts.
Van Hellemont, E., & Densley, J. A. (2019). Gang glocalization: How the global mediascape creates and shapes local gang realities. Crime, media, culture, 15(1), 169-189.
The article discusses the concept of gang glocalization to explore how global media uses myths and social conventions to shape the realities of local gangs. For the purposes of this study, the authors analyze two specific cases, namely Congolese gangs of Brussels and Afro-Caribbean gangs of London. The authors of the article suggest that police and political actions taken against gangs contribute to the corresponding fiction and imagination, subsequently creating inappropriate images of the gang realities. Additionally, the authors claim that mythmaking is a crucial aspect of gang culture since a gang cannot exist without a myth.
Wallace, W. C. (2020). Gangs, gang dynamics, and gender: Exploring gangs in Trinidad and Tobago. In The Routledge Handbook on Africana Criminologies (pp. 187-204). Routledge.
This work is a chapter in the criminology book written by Wendell C. Wallace exploring gangs, gang dynamics, and gender specificities and issues in the setting of gangs in Trinidad and Tobago. The author claims that gang dynamics is a significant element of understanding gang activities and involvement in the territory. In addition, the author discusses how gang dynamics are associated with the labor market and how gangs fight over commercial contracts, creating corrupt schemes to extort money from legitimate businesses.