Gangs, Weapons and Violence

Abstract

Recent years have seen the urban street gang establish itself in the eyes of many as the UK’s premier public enemy. In this guise, as we have seen, the gang has been blamed for a wave of weapons-related violence that has left scores of young men dead. The urban street gang has become, apparently, a kingpin in the illegal drugs trade; it is responsible for the recent outbreak of dangerous dogs that now apparently terrorise communities; gang members, it has been claimed, systematically abuse women, and were, most recently, responsible for the wave of urban disorder that devastated cities across England in August 2011. Indeed, so dangerous has the gang now become, it has been identified by the government of ‘breaking Britain’ as destroying the very foundations of community life as we know it.