Gang Girls Research Paper

The issue of Gangs has received considerable critical attention and is a re-occurring topic on the news in the UK. This essay will critically discuss the notions around ‘gang girls’. Over the years there has been a vast amount of media attention around gangs and post code wars. However a majority of the gangs portrayed by the media over the years, have been male gendered. Leaving the question open: Are there only male gendered gangs on the local streets? Before addressing the issue of ‘gang girls’ we must define the terminology ‘gangs’. According to the UK ‘Policing and Crime Act 2009’ a gang must consist of a minimum of three people, the gang either uses a name, emblem or colour to identify the group ‘gang’ and is an associated with a particular

Girls are now getting high social media attention for this. However, some could argue that girls have always been associated with gangs in some way or another it just has not been highly publicised. In agreement with this the Black Widows and the Slick Chicks, are evidence which highlights female involved in gangs in the previous decades. The Black Widows and Slick Chicks were female gangs, which were set up to support male zoot-suiters in the 1940s (Franzese, et.al, 2006). In the 1940’s there were a vast amount of female gangs who are associated with all male gangs and joined in with the violent and in some cases criminal activities. The Molls are a female gang who are all white Roman Catholics, like many female gangs there were associated with the gang, the Hoods (Franzese, et.al, 2006). ‘The Molls were thirteen to sixteen years old, and were involved with truancy, theft, non-martial sex, vandalism and assault (Franzese, et.al, 2006, p96). As well as having all white gangs, according to Franzese there was an African American female gang called the Queens and their male alliance was to the Kings (2006). These are a few of the many examples which shows that girl/females have always been associated with gangs. Back in the 1940’s ‘The reasons for gang membership were basically social, including desires for popularity and excitement’ (Franzese, et.al,