ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the circumstances in which gang violence actually occurs and gang identities are established. Beginning with the sociological understandings of situations, it explains how situations provide the norms for directing behavior and grounding for an understanding of social values. These values, in turn, justify and generate forms of gang violence. The chapter also examines how identities developed in gang situations and how the gang is attractive in that it provides the situations where youths can demonstrate valued attributes of identity. It presents the data by observing situations of gang-involved crime and going over police reports. Erving Goffman, a sociologist speaks of situational proprieties, norms that regulate communication in situations. Goffman differentiates situational proprieties from other types of norms and moral codes, including codes of honor, law, and ethics. Goffman offers an elaborate and compelling concept of character bounded to fateful situations.
