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Thinking Seriously About Gangs pp 23–52Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The UK Gangs Thesis Debate: Towards a Critical Realism of Gangs

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Abstract

The chapter explores the UK Gangs Thesis debate between Pitts and Hallsworth in terms of ontology, epistemology and methodology in order to propose a more nuanced treatise in thinking about gangs, that of critical-realism. The chapter further analyses the use of Bordieu in analysing gangs (Pitts 2011; Harding 2014) and argues that this type of analysis can be likened to a prelude to a response to reduce gang related harms if Habermas’s normative theory of communicative action is considered. The chapter highlights Habermas’s ideas of the “moral sphere” which is orientated towards socially just out-comes and evaluates Pitts’ application of habitus as a framework for social change and harm reduction from gangs. The chapter concludes that the problem with current thinking about gangs is that it is partial. If we are to address the serious issue of gang related violence and its detrimental effects on relatively deprived communities we need to develop an approach, which analyses both the meaningful actions of young people who offend in groups as well as providing a critique to the reactions to them in order to develop harm reduction strategies and practices.

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  1. University of Suffolk, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK

    Paul Andell

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Andell, P. (2019). The UK Gangs Thesis Debate: Towards a Critical Realism of Gangs. In: Thinking Seriously About Gangs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12891-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12891-3_2

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