This is a book about survival. How boys and young men survive violence, as well as how they survive through using violence. For the men whose life stories are included in this book, violence has punctuated their stories of childhood and adolescence. Initially they experienced it around them – perpetrated by their fathers or mothers’ male partner. They felt the aching powerlessness of living with violence at home. However, as they grew older their role in relation to violence shifted. They learned to harness it themselves in school, among peers, before becoming embroiled in life onroad and involved with gangs. Experiences of violence in these contexts were not straightforward. At different moments they talked about victimization, exploitation, about their own perpetration. Of using violence as self-harm and protection, punctuated by seeing their close friends harmed and killed at close quarters. Violence was a visceral presence around them; some were abused and exploited, some abused and exploited others.

The complexity and proximity of the victim and perpetrator positions in relation to violence is a contentious crux with which to grapple. Stereotypes about both victims and perpetrators are mired in intersecting assumptions related to gender, race, class, age (among others). As Crenshaw (1991) noted, dual experiences of sexism and racism can render some victim/ survivors invisible. Foregrounding both a gender, race, and class analysis has been central to this study – not least because there is substantial evidence that the young people most likely to be identified as in ‘gangs’ are poor, Black boys (Glynn, 2014; Amnesty International, 2018; Williams and Clarke, 2018). As Anthony Neal (2013, p 5) noted, the ‘Black male body is often thought to be a criminal body and/or a body in need of policing and containment.’ The men who took part in this study had all experienced marginalization for multiple reasons; however, many such reasons can be linked back to the impact of living in a White supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks, 1997).