The Gang and Beyond: Interpreting Violent Street Worlds

by S. Hallsworth

Overview

This book challenges the widely held conjecture that gangs represent 'the new face of youth crime', repudiating claims which situate the gang at the heart of sexual violence, mass shooting and control of the illegal drugs trade and examining how better we might understand the violence of the street and the organisations that inhabit it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137358080
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Edition description:	2013
Pages:	215
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Simon Hallsworth is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences, University Campus Suffolk, UK. He has written extensively on punishment in modern society, the local politics of crime and community safety and more recently violent street worlds. His research interests include street violence and informal organisations, structural violence and the role of the state, penal change and development. His previous books include Street Robbery (2005) and The New Punitiveness: Issues Themes and Perspectives (2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction Welcome to gangland UK My goodness, how things have changed Themes So what is this all about? Part I: Gangland Claims and Gangland Realities 1. Gangs, Weapons and Violence 2.The Fists and the Fury: My Life in a Sea of Gangs Part II: On Gang Talk and Gang-Talkers 3. Deciphering Gang Talk Defining gang talk Reading gang talk as a language game The seduction of gang talk Unforeseen consequences Conclusion 4. Moral Panic and Industry Emergence From reality to gang-talking fantasy: reflections on the media inventory The journey back: reshaping reality in the image of gang fantasies The industrial logic of 'gang' production Conclusion Part III: Getting Real about Violence 5. Arborealism and Rhizomatics: A Treatise The sedentary and the nomadic Arborealism Rhizomatics Back to the street Reading the street as rhizome Rhizomatic organisation Conclusion 6. Back to the Street Beyond the gang Street imperatives Instability, trauma and street life Conclusion 7. Continuities and Discontinuities in Urban Violence Street violence in the postwar period Continuities Discontinuities: on neoliberalism and its consequences Conclusion How to have a gang problem Koyaanisqutsi

Editorial Reviews

"The 'gang' has become a magical word used to explain away crime, riots, sexual assault, drug dealing and almost every manifestation of violence in our society. Simon Hallsworth's book is a devastating critique: iconoclastic, hard hitting, and amusing. Read it." - Jock Young, John Jay College, City University of New York, USA and author of The Criminological Imagination

"Simon Hallsworth's The Gang and Beyond is precisely the sort of boldly brilliant work that criminology badly needs but seldom sees. Strikingly original in its scholarly perspective and in its narrative orientation, this book constitutes an intellectually audacious confrontation with gangs, gang scholarship, and the assumptions that surround them." - Jeff Ferrell, Texas Christian University, USA

"Provocative and stimulating, this book provides an emphatic critique of the 'common sense' surrounding youth gangs in the UK and elsewhere. From auto-ethnography to moral outrage at gang talk distortions, Simon Hallsworth provides a personal and powerful indictment of the gang industry within academia, including its convergence with rapidly expanding and inappropriate gang suppression efforts, and its failure to fully understand street culture and street violence. Not to be missed." - Rob White, University of Tasmania, Australia

"This book is methodologically creative (e.g. the auto-ethnography), theoretically sophisticated (e.g. the use of Deleuze), and mostly uses good humour to good effect [...] I think it is a must read, it makes an important contribution and I am adding it to my reading list for my students." - Lorcan Byrne, CrimeTalk

"This is a timely book. It is bold, contentious, provocative and provides a much needed commentary on the current state of affairs in relation to our understanding of and responses to gangs in the United Kingdom ... Whether you are a 'gang talker' or a 'gang denier', Hallsworth presents a compelling and in parts, acerbic analysis of urban street gangs." - Hannah Smithson, British Journal of Criminology

From the Publisher