Gangs, Masculinity and Social, Emotional and Spiritual Journeys: Transatlantic Insights from Los Angeles, Copenhagen and Glasgow

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Gangs, Violence and Desistance

Abstract

This paper will begin by focusing specifically on Los Angeles, the city that gave America the modern street gang. It will consider the way in which issues of race, segregation and discrimination have combined to create communities that have spawned street gang formation (Vigil, 2008; Alonso, 2014; Weide, 2015). Insights from participant observation of a large gang intervention rehabilitation and re-entry programme in the city of Los Angeles will be shared, illustrating the ways in which social, emotional and spiritual engagement stimulated personal and communal reflection and led to new opportunities for emotion-coping, personal well-being, support and fulfilment (Parkes and Bilby, 2010; Baker, 2011). Comparative empirical insights emerging from reintegration and re-entry programmes for young male gang members in northern Europe - specifically Copenhagen (Denmark) and Glasgow (Scotland) – will also be shared. In so doing, the paper will draw important insights about the need, on the one hand, to take account of the differential meanings associated with gangs in particular social and cultural contexts (Fraser, 2013; Deuchar 2015), while also ensuring that operating frameworks in different social and cultural settings can become informed by transatlantic comparative insights into how best to enable criminal desistance among disadvantaged young men.

Authors

• Ross John Deuchar, University of the West of Scotland

• Robert Donald Weide, California State University, Los Angeles