Research indicating the statistics of gang culture and crime within the prison system of the United Kingdom has been almost non-existent, with the Home Office releasing no figures to date of the number of gang crime incidents within prison. However, one study for the Home Office found that up to 6% of 10-19-year-olds belonged to a gang in England and Wales (De Castella and McClatchey, 2011). Although, the definition of a gang found on the streets of your neighbourhood and the definition of a gang within a detention centre can differ. Whereas Klein and Maxson (2006) define the street gang as a durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity, Lyman (1989) defines prison gangs as:
An organisation …show more content…
Both prison gangs and street gangs have a similar order of power and structure. Within both types you will find an alpha who has power and control over the rest of the members, and ‘foot soldiers’ who risk adding more time to their sentence to carry out attacks or smuggle drugs/prison-made weapons for those gang members of more power than them.
Similarly, both gangs inside and outside of prison have a strong family-like bond. Barbara Wilding, the Chief Constable of South Wales, spoke out, saying “Gang loyalty has replaced family ties for almost feral youths”. She believes that those who are at high risk of joining a gang are youths who have experienced family breakdown, and therefore established a gang culture in replacement of this. This could also be suggested as a reason as to why gang-involved youths go on to join gangs within prison too. The only family known to them is their gang, and therefore replacing them with a gang inside the YOI means that they still have the sense of loyalty and security as they did outside of the …show more content…
In general, there is considerable support for the idea that victims of bullying are more likely to be first- time offenders (Viljoen, O’Neill, and Sidhu, 2005) , reinforcing that first-time offenders are at a vulnerability to the pressure of joining a prison gang for protection from other individuals. However, street-gangs are found to be more violent than prison-gangs due to the availability of weapons, such as guns and knives. Although prison gangs, have unavailability of these weapons, they have still found ways to torture individuals. Same sex rape within prisons is at a very high
An organisation …show more content…
Both prison gangs and street gangs have a similar order of power and structure. Within both types you will find an alpha who has power and control over the rest of the members, and ‘foot soldiers’ who risk adding more time to their sentence to carry out attacks or smuggle drugs/prison-made weapons for those gang members of more power than them.
Similarly, both gangs inside and outside of prison have a strong family-like bond. Barbara Wilding, the Chief Constable of South Wales, spoke out, saying “Gang loyalty has replaced family ties for almost feral youths”. She believes that those who are at high risk of joining a gang are youths who have experienced family breakdown, and therefore established a gang culture in replacement of this. This could also be suggested as a reason as to why gang-involved youths go on to join gangs within prison too. The only family known to them is their gang, and therefore replacing them with a gang inside the YOI means that they still have the sense of loyalty and security as they did outside of the …show more content…
In general, there is considerable support for the idea that victims of bullying are more likely to be first- time offenders (Viljoen, O’Neill, and Sidhu, 2005) , reinforcing that first-time offenders are at a vulnerability to the pressure of joining a prison gang for protection from other individuals. However, street-gangs are found to be more violent than prison-gangs due to the availability of weapons, such as guns and knives. Although prison gangs, have unavailability of these weapons, they have still found ways to torture individuals. Same sex rape within prisons is at a very high