The impact of curfews and electronic monitoring on the social strains, support and capital experienced by youth gang members and offenders in the west of Scotland
| Published date | 01 April 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895811425540 |
| Author | Ross Deuchar |
| Date | 01 April 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
12(2) 113 –128
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895811425540
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The impact of curfews and
electronic monitoring on the
social strains, support and
capital experienced by youth
gang members and offenders
in the west of Scotland
Ross Deuchar
University of the West of Scotland, UK
Abstract
Concerns about youth gang violence and offending have occurred in developed societies across
the globe, and a plethora of youth justice sanctions have arisen in response to this. This article
is focused upon an empirical study of 20 young men from socially deprived areas of the west of
Scotland, whose involvement in individualized offending emerged from their earlier participation
in gang violence. The article explores the impact of curfews and electronic monitoring on the
social strains, support and capital experienced by the young men and their families. The findings
indicate that the sanctions had some limited success in reducing anti-social capital in the young
offenders’ lives, particularly when they were complemented by mechanisms for rehabilitation and
care. However, when used in isolation the sanctions often failed to build pro-social capital and, in
some cases, functioned as an additional social strain conducive to further criminal offending. The
article ends with some suggested implications for future youth justice policy decisions, and calls
for wider research into the impact of criminal justice sanctions on young offenders and families.
Keywords
curfews, offending, social capital, strain, youth
Introduction: Urban Youth Violence and Gang Culture
Over the last 20 years, there has been an increasing tendency in the UK, Europe and
the wider world to associate the concern about young people’s apparent social
Corresponding author:
Ross Deuchar, University of the West of Scotland, School of Education, Faculty of Education, Health and
Social Sciences, Ayr Campus, Ayr, KA8 0SX, UK
Email: ross.deuchar@uws.ac.uk
425540CRJXXX10.1177/1748895811425540DeucharCriminology & Criminal Justice
Article
114 Criminology & Criminal Justice 12(2)
disengagement with a growth in the presence of urban youth gangs (Barker, 2005;
Bjork, 2008; Deuchar, 2009; Kelly, 2003). Prior to the 1990s, the phenomenon of the
urban street gang was traditionally seen as uniquely American in nature (Hallsworth
and Young, 2008) but, in recent years, a proliferation of gang membership across the
world has become widely assumed (Bullock and Tilley, 2002; Decker et al., 1998; St
Cyr and Decker, 2003).
Research in the USA has consistently illustrated that being a member of a gang tends
to be associated with engaging in violence and crime centred around territorial behaviour
and involvement in the drug trade (Jankowski, 1991; Klein, 1995; Thrasher, 1927;
Whyte, 1943; Yablonsky, 1966). In Britain, there has been a recent explosion of media
reports documenting the territorial and violent nature of the country’s most deprived
urban communities, and reports suggest that there has been an increase in possession of
weapons among young males (Bennett and Holloway, 2004; Deuchar, 2009). In Scotland,
the national newspapers have led us to believe that there is a gang epidemic, with at least
300 organized street gangs and anything between 130–170 in Glasgow (Scotland’s larg-
est city) (Deuchar, 2009).
But, the word ‘gang’ is often used loosely within the contemporary context of insecurity
and concern about youth disorder (McNeill, 2009). Further, Hallsworth and Young (2008:
182) cite the outcomes from the 2004 British Crime Survey that reveal that the majority of
violent crimes are perpetrated by individuals as opposed to gangs; they argue that journal-
istic devices are often at play in constructing a ‘gang myth’. Hence, Hallsworth and Young
(2008: 191) call for a wider understanding of the phenomenon of urban violence that goes
beyond the ‘gang gaze’, and takes account of the wider social factors that stimulate it.
Anderson’s (1999) pioneering ethnographic study into urban street life in Philadelphia,
USA, highlights that the inclination to violence emerges from the circumstances of life
among the ghetto poor, characterized by unemployment, the dominance of the drug trade
and general feelings of alienation and marginalization. The most profound casualties
adopt a ‘code of the street’, which amounts to ‘a set of informal rules governing interper-
sonal public behaviour, particularly violence’ (Anderson, 1999: 33). However, in addi-
tion to the need for asserting reputations for aggression and violence as a means of
gaining individualized social recognition and respect (Barry, 2006), young offenders
seek out ‘running buddies’ or ‘homies’ – those who can be depended on to watch their
back ‘in a jam’ (Anderson, 1999: 73).
It is this model of individualistic offending linked to the need for protection and sup-
port via the ‘family’ that young, marginalized people find on the streets that provides the
context for the research in this article. We acknowledge the contested nature of the term
‘gang’ and the problems that can arise from associating urban youth violence exclusively
with gang culture. However, we also recognize that a minority of young people are drawn
to the ‘code of the street’ from a young age as a result of a myriad of social phenomena,
and often rely upon the social support they find on the streets of urban neighbourhoods
as a means of accessing opportunities for offending and enhancing their sense of status
and social recognition.
Accordingly, we draw upon an operational definition of the word ‘gang’ within a
Scottish context, based upon accumulated insights gathered from the author’s own
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