Cyber violence: What do we know and where do we go from here?

This paper reviews the existing literature on the relationship between social media and violence, including prevalence rates, typologies, and the overlap between cyber and in-person violence. This review explores the individual-level correlates and risk factors associated with cyber violence, the group processes involved in cyber violence, and the macro-level context of online aggression. The paper concludes with a framework for reconciling conflicting levels of explanation and presents an agenda for future research that adopts a selection, facilitation, or enhancement framework for thinking about the causal or contingent role of social media in violent offending. Remaining empirical questions and new directions for future research are discussed

An introduction to gangs and serious youth violence in the United Kingdom

This article introduces the special issue on UK gangs and youth violence. Written to coincide with the launch of the National Centre for Gang Research at the University of West London, this collection adds the voices of academics who have spent years researching serious violence to a conversation dominated by policymakers and media commentators. The authors examine trends in youth violence and offer a brief history of UK gang research before previewing the contribution of the seven empirical articles dealing with police gang databases, knife crime, county lines drug dealing, contextual safeguarding, offender mental health, gang disengagement and criminal desistance

Gang Violence and Social Media

The increasing permeation of social media into people’s daily lives is playing an important role in (re)shaping attitudes and behaviours (Annisette & Lafreniere, 2016; Greenfield, 2014). Whilst online activity has huge potential to enhance the quantity and quality of communication between people across the world, it is also raising some serious challenges. This chapter focuses on one of these challenges in particular, namely, the links between gang-related activity in the virtual world and gang-related violence in the real world

Putting the 'street' in gang:place and space in the organisation of Scotland's drug selling gangs

Street gangs, by definition, enjoy a special relationship with the street. Prior research shows that some communities are synonymous with gangs and that turf holds a combination of expressive and instrumental value for gang members. As gangs evolve over time and through different levels of organization, however, gangs’ relationship with the street changes. This shifting street dynamic is underexplored in prior research, thus, drawing on qualitative data from Scotland and Bourdieu’s theory of social field, the current study presents three cases of gangs at different stages of evolution and examines how levels of gang organization affect spatial relationships. As gangs accumulate sufficient street capital to evolve, we find territory is defined less physically and more relationally, with implications for gang research and practice

If crime is not the problem, crime fighting is no solution: policing gang violence in the age of abolition

Purpose: In their 1999 classic, Crime is Not the Problem, Zimring and Hawkins changed the way criminologists thought about crime and violence simply by forcing us to distinguish between them. In so doing, they advanced an agenda for a more effective response to the real “crime” problem in America – violence. In this short commentary, the authors apply this logic to gang research and responses. The authors argue police fall short in responding to “gangs” because researchers and policymakers have defined them in terms of criminal behaviour writ large, not the problem that really needs policing – the precise social and spatial dynamics of gang violence. The purpose of this paper is to stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice and provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police. Design/methodology/approach: A review of the extant literature. Findings: The authors stand on the shoulders of others who have stated violence trumps gangs when it comes to policy and practice, to provide a conceptual review of the literature that captures mainstream and critical perspectives on gangs, in North American and European contexts, and offers both sides some common ground to start from as they contemplate “policing” gangs with or without police. Originality/value: The paper is a conceptual piece looking at policing gang violence versus gang crime. The paper aims to restart the debate around the role of crime in gangs and gangs in crime. This debate centres around whether gangs should be understood as primarily criminal groups, whether “the gang” is to blame for the crime and violence of its members and what feature of collective crime and violence designate “gangness”. We use that debate to reflect past and current police practices towards gangs

Gang glocalization: How the global mediascape creates and shapes local gang realities

This article introduces the concept of ‘gang glocalization’ to capture the processes by which global media myths and conventions create and shape local gang realities. The different stages of gang glocalization, and the motives to engage in this process, are examined by comparison of two empirical cases – Congolese gangs in Brussels and Afro-Caribbean gangs in London. This multi-sited ethnography finds that youth use fiction and imagination in order to create individual and collective gang identities. Police and political action against gangs is then informed by the same fiction and imagination, resulting in new gang realities based not on what is real. We find that mythmaking is an essential aspect of gangs – without the myth there is no gang – and that imagination is at the core of some of its most harmful activities, namely spectacular symbolic violence. This is an update on Thrasher’s (1927) old themes. The driving forces behind gang glocalization are emotions and desires tied to lived experiences of social and cultural exclusion. Implications for research and practice follow

An altered state? Emergent changes to illicit drug markets and distribution networks in Scotland

Background: Many efforts have been undertaken to construct an overview of various aspects of illicit drug distribution in the United Kingdom. Yet given that national, regional, and local differences can be profound, this has proven difficult, to the extent that Scotland has been largely excluded from the conversation. In addition, the level of supply being examined, the drug type, and the actors involved only add to confusion and vast differences between some findings. Method: The current study aims to provide a holistic account, as best as possible considering variations of illegal drug supply in illicit networks, by focusing in on a particular geographical context (Scotland) and addressing drug supply at all levels. It is informed by in-depth interviews with 42 offenders involved in drug distribution from retail to wholesale/middle market to importation levels. Results: Findings indicate Scotland's importation and distribution is evolving owing to increasingly adaptive risk mitigation by importers and distributors, and market diversification of both product and demand. While a hierarchical model still dominates the market, commuting or 'county lines' and increasing demand for drugs such as cannabis, but also anabolic steroids and psychoactive substances, means that home growing, online purchasing, and street-level dealership is common. Conclusion: The findings have the capacity to further inform law enforcement and wider practitioners about the diverse and evolving nature of drug distribution in Scotland (with a particular focus on the west of the country), so that they may become more effective in improving the safety and wellbeing of people, places and communities

Working County Lines: Child Criminal Exploitation and Illicit Drug Dealing in Glasgow and Merseyside

This article explores recent developments within the U.K. drug market: that is, the commuting of gang members from major cities to small rural urban areas for the purpose of enhancing their profit from drug distribution. Such practice has come to be known as working “County Lines.” We present findings drawn from qualitative research with practitioners working to address serious and organized crime and participants involved in street gangs and illicit drug supply in both Glasgow and Merseyside, United Kingdom. We find evidence of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) in County Lines activity, often as a result of debt bondage; but also, cases of young people working the lines of their own volition to obtain financial and status rewards. In conclusion, we put forward a series of recommendations which are aimed at informing police strategy, practitioner intervention, and wider governmental policy to effectively address this growing, and highly problematic, phenomenon