The article concludes with a breakdown of and critical examination of the presiding theories with a spattering of interjections from lead theorists which support each. The article shows that family and educational environments have a part to play in persuading youths to join a gang but also acknowledge that their free will is still intact. The article also concludes that there are influences present which try successfully or not so successfully to dissuade the youth’s gang involvement “families play a minimal role in young people’s desistance from gang involvement.”
The conclusion also shows that the correlation between a disrupted unstable family background and gang membership is not as obvious as social perception believes it to be “gang
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Classic theories of gangs which originated in the US (Merton, 1938; Cohen, 1955) show the importance of social class and the economy and this was found to be the underlying causes of much of the problems faced by deviant subcultures in the past. Furthermore, theories of the ‘modern gang’ incorporate earlier theories of subculture in order to link lower class and unemployment with the creation of the underclass, which Left Realists argue is the main reason for the development of delinquent subcultures. US explanations of the underclass have been found to be relevant to the contemporary UK situation, however, due to the changing nature of society and culture and its fragmentation, it is difficult to explain what a gang is and how it has formed (Pitts, 2008), and so much of the subcultural explanations are not relevant in contemporary society. The final area of focus discussed in chapter five, identified that youths have been targets of moral panics throughout history. The media seems to exaggerate violent crime in general, thus shaping public perceptions and this is reflected in the reporting of youths involved in gun, knife and gang crime. Although statistics show that there are problems in larger cities such as Manchester and London, there is no evidence to suggest that it is a national problem. However, problems with statistics have also been identified, and due to there being multiple definitions of youth gangs in use, there is difficulty in generalising findings, therefore the true nature of the gang problem cannot be identified. It is clear that statistics are socially constructed due to under reporting of gang related crimes and issues with police recording. Reliable statistics may show that the problem of youth gangs is not as large as the media portrays it to be. With media