Policing the Boundaries: Gangs, Identity, and the Social Control of Marginalized Populations in Urban Settings

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Our panel will bring together a transdisciplinary body of scholars to study police and the policed in the United States and abroad. We interrogate the role, practices, and consequences of law enforcement, and broaden the lens beyond crime control to include how police contribute to social inequality. Using a variety of methods including, ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and quantitative survey analyses, this panel seeks to expand the bounds of mainstream policing scholarship by adopting a broad range of theories and methodologies to re-shape the study and administration of law enforcement. Panelists draw from data sources in a wide variety of communities, including: Fresno, Los Angeles, and Sao Paulo. Panelists will explore the widespread use of civil gang injunctions in jurisdictions across the country and their differential impacts on communities of color; interpret gang identity formation and how traditional boundaries separating the “Crips” and “Bloods” cannot account for contradictory and overlapping gang identities in some neighborhoods; and seek to understand the shared identity among marginalized groups that is forged by the experience of living in poor, violent, segregated, and heavily policed environments.

Sub Unit

• Area VIII: Policing / 54: Police, Communities, and Legitimacy

Individual Presentations

• The Patterns and Prevalence of Civil Gang Injunctions in the United States in 2012 - Alyssa M. Heckmann, University of California, Irvine

• Spatializing Gang Identity and Youth Criminalization - Patrick Lopez-Aguado, Santa Clara University; Michael Lawrence Walker, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Shared Experiences: Police, Space and Race in Two Cities - Sebastian Sclofsky, University of Florida

Chair

• Luis Daniel Gascon, University of San Francisco

Discussant

• Luis Daniel Gascon, University of San Francisco