Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- Glossary
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: living and working in the social field
- One Introduction
- Two Academic gangland
- Three The game, the stakes, the players: key concepts
- Four House rules, game rules and game strategies
- Five Players, positioning and keeping order
- Six Playing the game: generating and keeping your chips
- Seven Staying in the game – and playing to win
- Eight The game in action: habitus, street capital and territory
- Nine Learning the risks of the game: life in the landscape of risk
- Ten Surviving in the game
- Elven Creating the house advantage: the role of information
- Twelve Playing the queen: gender in the gang
- Thirteen The wheel of fortune: the sanctions repertoire
- Fourteen The street casino
- References
- Appendix A SW9 postcode
- Appendix B Lambeth key crime types
- Appendix C The Duluth Power and Control Wheel
- Appendix D Example of gang evolution and fracturing: organised crime
- Appendix E Approximate gang locations in SW9 (July 2011)
- Appendix F Timeline of known gangs in SW9
- Index
One - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- Glossary
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: living and working in the social field
- One Introduction
- Two Academic gangland
- Three The game, the stakes, the players: key concepts
- Four House rules, game rules and game strategies
- Five Players, positioning and keeping order
- Six Playing the game: generating and keeping your chips
- Seven Staying in the game – and playing to win
- Eight The game in action: habitus, street capital and territory
- Nine Learning the risks of the game: life in the landscape of risk
- Ten Surviving in the game
- Elven Creating the house advantage: the role of information
- Twelve Playing the queen: gender in the gang
- Thirteen The wheel of fortune: the sanctions repertoire
- Fourteen The street casino
- References
- Appendix A SW9 postcode
- Appendix B Lambeth key crime types
- Appendix C The Duluth Power and Control Wheel
- Appendix D Example of gang evolution and fracturing: organised crime
- Appendix E Approximate gang locations in SW9 (July 2011)
- Appendix F Timeline of known gangs in SW9
- Index
Summary
‘Poverty is the worst form of violence.’
Mahatma Gandhi
The social field of the gang in London SW9 is a dangerous arena of social conflict and competition for some young people.
While gang researchers struggle to articulate this domain, or to even acknowledge it, the young men and women within it live a daily reality that remains largely unexplored in the UK. This world is often distanced and remote, and, for many adults, estranged, inexplicable and impenetrable. It is a world where social norms are inverted; where rumour and gossip lead to death and injury; where personal slights become ‘beefs’, then feuds; where family members are fair game for reprisals; where boys are ‘soljas’ and dead at age 15.
For those young people caught up in violent street gangs, this world exists in the London SW9 postcode (see Appendix A). While many residents in SW9 have no contact with gangs, none remains oblivious to them and all are affected. For young people in the social field of the gang, daily life is now governed by fear and an all-pervasive, unabating anxiety. This daily reality of fear and stress lead some to deal with the world as if it is unreal; a place unaccountable to adults and societal norms; a self-biographical world of hyperactivity, excitement and drama, replete with opportunities for distinction; a place to personally transcend and transform. For others, this reality (which generates a blank-staring fatalism) means harsh and rapid violence predicated on a belief that this is all ordained and it will all end soon.
For those of us living outside the social field of the gang, this appraisal is bleak and disturbing; our first response is to reject it as alarmist and inflated. It is, however, an accurate summation of many young people's views on gang life in London SW9.
Worryingly, however, the indications are that in recent years this social field has become even more violent. In the past few years, a range of gang-related incidents, including several murders, have occurred in Lambeth, with several occurring in SW9. Some of these are illustrated in Table 1.1.
In addition, as shown in Appendix B, the borough has experienced an 18% rise in serious youth violence (1 April to 21 November 2010), the highest rise in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) grouping of boroughs with a similar profile.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Street CasinoSurvival in Violent Street Gangs, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2014