ABSTRACT
Society has a fetishisation about gangs; how they operate and how they control what many American and European gang scholars call local “ghettos”, primarily impoverished racialised neighbourhoods. Despite the interest and focus of violence policies directed at curbing the growth of gangs, very little is actually known about their activities or their behaviours. Globally, what is known derives primarily from a few large data surveys (see the National Youth Gang Survey in the United States and the Eurogang Project in Europe). What is understood is that gangs do have tremendous influence in specific neighbourhoods, communities, and contexts; however, what a gang is in one community may not be considered a gang in another community. It is because of this ambiguity that even the term “gang” is highly contested by gang scholars. Despite this, policies are created within carceral systems to control the very real and potential threat of gang violence. In their seminal work on prison gangs in two Texas prisons, Decker and Pyrooz (2020) challenge and critique the idea of the level of control that gangs have in regulating prison spaces and violence. This chapter examines the issues related to definitions of street gangs internationally and nationally to highlight the ways in which the term, and gangs themselves, fill a specific social void of controlling street and, specifically, prison spaces. In doing this, we look to situate the importance of prison officials to define what constitutes a prison gang and how gangs are used to reshape prison policy, specifically in relation to violence. The chapter helps to situate the idea of violence within prisons and the roles that the gang plays in prison violence and its social structure.
