According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90 percent in others. Statistics as such have the proclivity to create stereotypical facades of members involved in these social sets. Throughout the novel ‘The Outsiders’ written by S.E Hinton who was an adolescent herself at the time, enters around the main protagonist, Ponyboy, discovering that being engaged in a social group or a gang does not define your actions, personality and opinions.

In the opening and mid stages the novel, Ponyboy outlines the contrasts between the two main social sets, the socials and the greasers. He expresses the greasers as people who are identified as hoodlums, and the poor community in the East side of Oklahoma, however he encounters various predicaments which alter his matter of perspective towards ones identity. Pony boy shows his apprehension of the suppositions the community has for greasers, which includes their grim appearance, rivalry and distaste for the socials, their actions and approach to situations, which is mostly theft and crime: “Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while.” Greasers are also assumed to be uneducated, school dropouts and individuals who lack principal. Despite belonging to this social set, Ponyboy considers himself different from others around him. He