The Racialisation of Gangs

In the policy, a paragraph entitled ‘Ethnicity’ is placed at the very end of ‘Section 1: The life stories that lead to violence’. In extract 5 below, taken from this

paragraph, the policy constructs a relationship between ethnicity and gangs.

Extract 5

From: Section 1: The Life Stories That Lead to Murder. Page. 19.

Ethnicity is an important factor in contextualising gang involvement. For example, some ethnic minorities are overrepresented in areas of multiple deprivation, the same areas where gangs are disproportionately concentrated. Racial discrimination (real or perceived) can also form part of the reasons young people give for gang involvement.

In extract 5 the policy constructs ethnicity as an important factor in

“contextualising gang involvement”. Young black men living in deprived areas face a triple force of unemployment, segregation and marginalisation (Clement, 2010) and as such the policy’s assertion that “ethnic minorities are

overrepresented in areas of multiple deprivation” reflects the literature and lived experiences. However, the word “overrepresented” implies that there is an acceptable level of ‘representation’ of ethnic minorities in deprivation, but

currently it has gone ‘over’ this. In this way, racial inequality is constructed as taken-for-granted and unavoidable, as if it is natural for ethnic minorities to be represented in deprived areas to some degree. Equally, the policy notes ethnic minorities living in deprivation are in “the same areas where gangs are

disproportionatelyconcentrated”. The two clauses “some ethnic minorities are overrepresented in areas of multiple deprivation” and “the same areas where gangs are disproportionately concentrated” appear conceptually separate, as if multiple deprivation and gang existence just ‘happen’ to be in the same area. There is no contextualised explanation linking deprivation, discrimination and gang involvement. Moreover, the phrase “disproportionately concentrated” suggests that the existence of gangs is ‘disproportionate’ and therefore ‘unreasonable’ in relation to the disadvantage that young people face, thus further undermining a possible connection between “multiple deprivation” and gangs.

Secondly, the extract suggests that the discrimination experienced by young people may only be “perceived”, thus undermining personal accounts of racism while maintaining racial inequality through its denunciation as ‘not real’.

Secondly, racial discrimination is described as a reason “young people give for gang involvement”. Constructed as an account young people only ‘give’ for joining gangs, removes its legitimacy as an actual reason. The word ‘give’ mediates racial discrimination as only ‘reported’ to be a reason by young people, as opposed to being a real reason as to why they join gangs. In this way, the sentence would read differently if constructed as such: “racial discrimination can form part of the reasons young people join gangs”.

3.1.4.2 The Racialised Other

As well as reference to ethnicity, the policy emphasises the importance of a working relationship between the UK Border Agency and the London

metropolitan police. The extracts below are examples of ways in which gang membership and immigration are constructed as being related.

Extract 6

From: Executive Summary. Page 9.

Punishment and enforcement to suppress the violence of those refusing to exit violent lifestyles. We will: extend the work that the UK Border Agency undertakes with the police using immigration powers to deport dangerous gang members who are not UK citizens.

Extract 7

From: Section 2: Early Adulthood. Page 45.

Operation Bite is a pioneering joint initiative between the MPS and the UK Border Agency (UKBA), targeted at the highest harm gang members. Its aim is to bring the maximum possible joint police and immigration enforcement to bear as quickly as possible against this dangerous group.

Extract 6 recounts one of the strategies the government intends to use against those “refusing to exit violent lifestyles.” In this way, gang members are

constructed as active agents who ‘choose’ to engage in criminal activity and are stubborn for “refusing to leave.” However, such a construction obscures

discourses of ‘survival’ and the subjective experience of having ‘no other option’ also associated with a young person’s decision to engage in criminality (Ruble & Turner, 2000). Furthermore, while strongly encouraging young people to exit gangs, the policy makes little reference as to the environment into which gang members might be ‘exiting’. In a decreasing labour market, and increasingly unequal society (Cottrell-Boyce, 2013), constructing gang membership as an ‘active choice’ displaces the focus on social barriers.

The second half of extract 6 and extract 7 construct an apparent relationship between immigration and gang membership. Throughout the policy, every single time that it refers to ‘immigrant gang members’ the prefix “dangerous” is added, i.e. “dangerous gang members” in extract 6 and “dangerous group” in extract 7. In extract 7, the policy adds that these gang members are “the highest

harm” and thus emphasises this ‘fear-some’ foreigner against which society must be protected. Thus, race is discursively linked to a ‘dangerous other’ and reconstructs ethnic minorities as folk devils, which enables social control and regulation directed towards them (Williams, 2015). Furthermore, explicitly stating that such “dangerous gang members” are “not UK citizens” in extract 6, resources discourses of ‘nationhood’ by categorising UK citizens as one. Despite a multiplicity of identities and citizenship claims within the UK (Lewis, 2005), the confluence of immigrants as folk devils, set against the UK citizen, provides a discursive site in which the articulation of ‘them’ and ‘us’ becomes possible. Thus, being constructed as dangerous and threatening renders

sensible the aim to “bring the maximum possible…enforcement” and “as quickly as possible”. The use of extreme case formulations (“maximum” and “as quickly as possible”) (Pomerantz, 1986) serves to highlight the immediate threat this ‘dangerous other’ imposes, further legitimising an urgent enactment of power through suppressive tactics.

Ultimately, through conflating ethnicity, immigration and ‘dangerous’ gangs, while undermining gang membership’s relationship to racial discrimination and exclusion, the policy discursively constructs race as a signifier for social decline. Such ‘othering’ processes facilitates the maintenance of structural inequality, devalues black and ethnic minority voices and legitimises continued regimes of power implemented against them.

3.2 Talk Analysis: Constructions of Identity And Experiences of Young