ABSTRACT
One of the key debates in criminal policy in France concerns juvenile repeat offenders and the formation of small groups, or what are referred to as ‘gangs’ in the sense that they are organised juvenile groups involved in crime. It is commonly held that there is an active ‘core’ of juvenile delinquents who hold power in certain neighbourhoods and schools. There is a widespread belief that a small group of pupils holds sway in schools, organising extortion and violence in liaison with people outside the schools (Debarbieux 2001). These opinions involve a certain number of assumptions in the feld, and are even seen as being theoretically evident (Roché 2001; Wolfgang et al. 1972), a position which we will analyse in closer detail. This chapter will therefore challenge this representation, both in quantitative terms (do these groups always represent the same proportion of individuals?) and in terms of its social construction, looking in particular at the role of schools in this construction process. Indeed, far from considering these ‘gangs’ as external factors that have an impact on schools, we consider the schools as a part of the context that enables the emergence of these groups through an ‘antischool’, identity-building process in reaction, in particular, to the exclusion from school that primarily young, ethnic minorities experience. The ethnicised construction of gangs could, in this case, be linked with ‘ethnicisation’ of the school space.
