Gang Evolution

Abstract

When Prime Minister David Cameron (2011) launched his ‘concerted, all out war on gangs’ after the riots he described the enemy combatants in the following emotive terms: ‘Territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent, they are mostly composed of young boys … [who] earn money through crime, particularly drugs, and are bound together by an imposed loyalty to an authoritarian gang leader.’ Critics (see Hallsworth and Brotherton, 2011) argue that Cameron evoked a stereotype of the American ‘criminologists gang’ (Katz and Jackson-Jacobs, 2004). I have no doubt that he did. The irony, the next two chapters argue, is that Cameron was right. Not about the organization of gangs in the riots, but about the organization of gangs per se. This is gang life, but not as the British traditionally know it. Gang life has evolved. Here I shall demonstrate how, with emphasis on the natural progression of gangs from recreational neighborhood groups to delinquent collectives to full-scale criminal enterprises to providers of extra-legal governance.