ABSTRACT
Much of the research that has been conducted around ‘gangs’ and ‘gang cultures’ has taken place in the USA. The first significant academic research into gangs was conducted by Frederic Thrasher (1927) in 1920s Chicago. He saw gangs as resulting from boys’ attempts to provide meaning, structure and excitement to their chaotic but often mundane lives. By the 1950s, however, discussion of gangs was much more likely to be associated with delinquent behaviour. Albert Cohen (1955) famously theorized that delinquent subcultures develop in workingclass areas wherever young people are denied the status available in middle-class society. Young people then adjust to their circumstances by constructing alternative social norms and values in their peer groups. Subcultural theories of the gang have flourished in the USA and elsewhere, but the gang ‘problem’ itself has ebbed and flowed. This has highlighted the tendency for gangs to emerge in times of economic stress where legitimate opportunities for social and economic advancement are severely curtailed.
