Chapter 4: Street Collectives and Group Delinquency: Social Disorganization, Subcultures and Beyond

Simon Hallsworth & Tara Young

Street collectives and group delinquency: Social disorganization, subcultures and beyond The sight of young people congregating in public remains a source of perennial fascination for the adult world. It is a subject that concerns the wider public, often because they are terrified by the presence of such outsiders in their midst; the mass media because their flamboyant and defiant appearance is often read as signifying the arrival of a new public enemy; and for social researchers because they are interested in understanding what these groups represent and who want to understand why they appear. In this chapter, we will examine how ongoing preoccupation with what we genetically term ‘street collectives’ has resolved itself in the history of criminological thought from the early twentieth century through to the present day. To examine the world of street collectives (a term which includes groups such as peer groups, gangs and youth subcultures more ...

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