Gang Culture-Power-Crime & Deviance

Since the earliest periods of human social organisation, gangs have existed alongside crime and deviant behaviour. While the concepts of crime and deviance remain relatively stable in meaning, the definition of gangs has evolved over time, reflecting changes in social structures and cultural contexts. Gangs can be understood as organised groups of individuals who demonstrate unity, often through shared leadership, distinctive clothing, language, and collective identity, particularly during times of adversity. For the purposes of this paper, gangs are defined as “a group whose members show harmony through clothing and language and whose activities are criminal or threatening to society” (Valdez, 2011). This case paper adopts a sociological perspective to explore gangs and aims to examine their broader impacts on crime, deviance, and society as a whole. Crime refers to actions that harm public welfare and are typically prohibited by law, with society, through the legal system, assuming the role of the victim. However, as argued by Herman and Schwendinger (1975), certain behaviours may be inherently criminal regardless of their legal status. Deviance, by contrast, encompasses behaviours that violate social norms and attract social disapproval, and may be either criminal or non-criminal in nature.