Key question

• Key statistics -

  • 50,000 serious knife crime incidents between July 2023 and June 2024
• key statistics -

  • at least 27,000 children are County Lines gang members, with 4,000 in London alone.
• key statistics -

  • relevantGangs to society as in 2019 it cost the police 100 million pounds to try and tackle knife crime in the UK related to gang violence, these funds could have been used elsewhere such as education or the NHS.
• key statistics -

  • estimated that gangs are responsible for as much as half of all knife crime with injury, 60 per cent of shootings, and 29 per cent of reported child sexual exploitation.
• in the UK are defined as “Groups of young people who see themselves (and are seen by others) as a discernible group for whom crime and violence is integral to the group's identity.”  British Crime Survey data held by the Office of National Statistics suggests that there are 27,000 children in England who identify as a gang member.
• Young people are bribed and groomed by older gang members, which is evidenced in county lines and are exploited as drug runners. As of July 2023, the Children's Commissioner for England believes that at least 27,000 children are County Lines gang members, with 4,000 in London aloneThe key question is relevant to society because it is estimated that gangs are responsible for as much as half of all knife crime with injury, 60 per cent of shootings, and 29 per cent of reported child sexual exploitation.  
• Also, those that kids that join gangs are more likely to drop out of education, not gain qualifications and therefore they are not employable. Therefore, the key question is relevant to the because by joining a gang their criminal lifestyle will lower their life chances in terms of social mobility. The key question is also relevant to society as it has shown that people who victims of gang violence are more likely to suffer PTSD, therefore the consequences of gang violence not only affect those involve but also wider society.
• Finally, understanding gang violence is relevantGangs to society as in 2019 it cost the police 100 million pounds to try and tackle knife crime in the UK related to gang violence, these funds could have been used elsewhere such as education or the NHS. 
• Gang violence can also be explained by the realistic conflict theory. The theory states that competition is the result of competition over a finite resource as there is only one, which makes it a limited resource.  For example, gangs involved in county lines, are in competition over the finite resource of territory to sell their drugs, if two gangs are wanting to sell their drug in the same area that makes the area a limited resource as there is only one. Resulting in a zero-sum situation as only one group can win, leading to negative interdependence whereby one group winning the limited the resource is dependent on the other group losing the limited resource. 
• For example, since only one gang can win the area, they wish to sell drugs in the zero-sum situation leads to negative interdependence as one gang wining the area to sell their drugs is dependent on the other gang losing the area to sell their drugs.  This creates out group hostility, whereby gangs engage in such behaviour as knife crime to win the zero-sum situation of being able to sell their drugs in a certain area
• A strength of RCT is that it has supporting research fromThis is supported by, Sherif's Robber's Cave Study 1954/61 provides evidence supporting RCT.  In the first week, two groups of boys were brought to the Robber's cave state park and kept separate. In the second week, they were brought together and immediately qanted to challenge each other. After competitions began for challenges such as tug of war and baseball, hostility developed, and the boys called each other rude names and even fights broke out. In group members were considered brave, out group were sneaky.   This shows that gang culture can be the result of limited resources as the study shows that that when there are limited resources , such as winning a trophy, prejudice occurred in the name calling.
• This can be applied to gangs engaging in knife crime when fighting over a limited resource such as selling drugs in one area.  The key question is therefore relevant to society as of July 2023, the Children's Commissioner for England believes that at least 27,000 children are County Lines gang members, with 4,000 in London alone. Suggesting that we need to understand gang violence to help the most vulnerable not to be groomed for county lines gang activity.
• A weakness of RCT is that it has refuting research.

  On the other hand RCT may not be able to explain gang violence because there might be other biological factors such as evolution, whereby men fight for territory for survival in order to pass on their genes.   For example Daily and Wilson found, homicide is more common in poor and unmarried men than richer, married ones. This supports the idea of aggression stemming from our evolutionary needs to retain our limited resources, resulting in higher competition. We are more likely to act aggressively if our resources are lacking because we feel the need to secure them more. Suggesting that gang violence, which usually involves individuals from lower socioeconomic classes, is the result of wanting to retain what little wealth that they have and even use such violence as knife crime to gain more wealth.  Suggesting that social psychology is incomplete in explaining gang violence.
• Gang violence can be explained by the social identity theory.  Members of a gang will form an in-group and other members of society or of a rival gang will form the outgroup, this is known as social categorisation, such as the Ladbroke Grove Boys (LGB), who are based on the Kensal New Town Estate, and the Harrow Road Boys (HRB) from the Mozart Estate.   Secondly, Social Identification occurs, where the individual adopts the beliefs, values and attitudes of their ‘in-group’ and behaves in accordance with the norms and values of a group.   For example, members of a gang might adopt gang tattoos, such as rosary beads with a cross on the hand a heart with £ or $ on the hand. As well, members of a gang may carry a knife or a weapon.
• Finally social Comparison occurs when the person subjectively perceives the in-group as better than the out-group, resulting in prejudice building towards the other group. Self-esteem is boosted by making subjective comparisons with out-groups, which may result in violence because of their prejudice towards the other group.  For example, once a member of a gang identifies with their in-group, they then are willing to carry out such crimes a knife crime to assert their gang’s status/superiority over the other gang.  For example, he Ladbroke Grove Boys (LGB), who are based on the Kensal New Town Estate, and the Harrow Road Boys (HRB) from the Mozart Estate, often engage in knife crime against each other to assert their superiority over one another.  This will then boost their self-esteem, when their gain win’s the turf war and lead to further violence because of in in group, out group prejudice towards each 

  gang.
• Social identity theory is supported by Tajfel who worked with 14-15 year-old Bristol school boys.  They were shown several paintings by two artists and asked to say which they preferred.  Boys were told by the researchers which boys had also chosen the artist they liked and those who didn’t, creating arbitrary in- and out-groups. the boys were asked to allocate points to the other boys, which would be exchanged for cash. Tajfel found that more points were awarded to boys in the same in-group at 9/14 points than those in the out-group. Additionally, when asked to allocate points to two boys in their in-group in average points were split Thisevenly between the boys at 7.5 points each.This therefore supports the social identity theory by highlighting gang members nature to subconsciously categorise themselves into us and them groups which create the basis for prejudice leading to gang violence in order to boost their gang’s self esteem.
• This can be applied to society  as there were 50,000 serious knife crime incidents between July 2023 and June 2024, suggesting that we need to understand gang violence to prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries. Understanding Social Identity theory and the three stages of Social categorisation, social identification and social comparison can help understand where hostility may arise which may lead to violence between gangs, and so could be used to reduce violence between gangs