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Motives of Knife-Carrying among the Youth in Azerbaijan: In-Depth Interviews Among 27 Experts and 5 Knife-Carriers
Abstract
Drawing on in-depth interviews with psychologists, criminologists, and sociologists (n = 27), as well as five adolescents (aged between 15 and 17 years) with a history of knife-carrying in Azerbaijan, this study attempts to explore the motives for knife-carrying among the male youth. Using a phenomenological approach, the interviews found a set of mixed and interrelated factors as the key motivators of carrying a knife among male youth. The answers provided by members of both samples generally overlap, but each provides some unique insights as well. Experts argue that young men tend to suffer from poor socialization and fail academically, which forces them to seek companionship, status, and identity elsewhere. In such circumstances, adolescents become likely to fall under the influence of their peers, as well as the criminal world whose figures are widely popular in the country. Since knife-carrying provides a sense of power and self-esteem, as well as constitutes a core attribute of notorious criminal figures, it becomes attractive to the youth. Male interviewees with a history of knife-carrying, all with irregular class attendance and part of “circles” (deviant peer groups), were attracted to sharp objects (a) by their ability to project power to others around them, such as so-called “predators” and (b) rule of the circles. The desire to exercise informal control over an area (school or neighborhood) and emulate thieves-in-law was particularly critical in shaping adolescents’ decision to carry knives and five-knuckle. The findings not only largely confirm the results reported by the Western studies, but also advance our understanding of youth's inclination towards knife-carrying in a nonwestern society.
... In 2021, Shabazov published a study, along with Afandiyev and Ayshem Balayeva, using, inter alia, logistic regression to show that over 70 percent of survey respondents that had been a victim of financial crime did not report the matter to police but, instead, sought to resolve it outside of the criminal legal system [38]. In 2022, Shahbazov, Goshgar Maharramov, Orkhan Farajli, and Efsane Rustamova published results from thematic analyses of interviews with 27 social scientists and five young adults regarding knifecarrying among young people in Azerbaijan [39]. They found knife carrying to be largely the result of young people's desire for respect from peers and perceived rivals. ...
The purpose of legal scholarship is to maintain and advance society’s understanding and awareness of the law and legal topics. When scholars ask, “What are actual problems in criminal law?,” the answer must be empirical as well as doctrinal. In the present work, I draw on the prior work of Dreyve, Wijtvliet, and Lampach to call for an empirical criminal legal jurisprudence, one that utilizes the empirical methods of the social sciences to support the conceptual theory that currently predominates legal scholarship in Azerbaijan and elsewhere. The purpose of this legal research would be to better map, explain, and predict legal outcomes for the enhancement of legal practice. To do this, criminal law scholarship will require a more robust program of empirical training and research implemented by a diverse and inclusive professoriate.
Purpose
Knife carrying has caused considerable public concern in the UK. But little is known of the epidemiology and characteristics of men who carry knives. We investigated associations with socioeconomic deprivation, area-level factors, and psychiatric morbidity.
Methods
Cross-sectional surveys of 5005 British men, 18–34 years, oversampling Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) men, lower social grades, and in London Borough of Hackney and Glasgow East. Participants completed questionnaires covering violent behaviour and psychiatric morbidity using standardised self-report instruments. Socioeconomic deprivation measured at small area level.
Results
Prevalence of knife carrying was 5.5% (4.8–6.9) and similar among white and BME subgroups. However, prevalence was twice the national rate in Glasgow East, and four times higher among Black men in Hackney, both areas with high levels of background violence and gang activity. Knife carrying was associated with multiple social problems, attitudes encouraging violence, and psychiatric morbidity, including antisocial personality disorder (AOR 9.94 95% CI 7.28–13.56), drug dependence (AOR 2.96 95% CI 1.90–4.66), and paranoid ideation (AOR 6.05 95% CI 4.47–8.19). There was no evidence of a linear relationship with socioeconomic deprivation.
Conclusion
Men who carry knives represent an important public health problem with high levels of health service use. It is not solely a criminal justice issue. Rates are increased in areas where street gangs are active. Contact with the criminal justice system provides opportunity for targeted violence prevention interventions involving engagement with integrated psychiatric, substance misuse, and criminal justice agencies.
Knife crime is a source of concern for the police in England and Wales, however little published research exists on this crime type. Who are the offenders who use knives to commit crime, when and why? Who are their victims, and is there a victim-offender overlap? What is the social network formation for people who are exposed to knife crime? Using a multidimensional approach, our aim is to answer these questions about one of England and Wales’ largest jurisdictions: Thames Valley. We first provide a state-of-the-art narrative review of the knife crime literature, followed by an analysis of population-level data on central tendency and dispersion of knife crimes reported to the police (2015–2019), on offences, offenders, victims, victim-offender overlaps and gang-related assaults. Social network analysis was used to explore the formations of offender-victim networks. Our findings show that knife crime represents a small proportion of crime (1.86%) and is associated largely with violence offenses. 16–34 year-old white males are at greatest risk of being the victims, offenders or victim-offenders of knife crime, with similar relative risks between these three categories. Both knife offenders and victims are likely to have a criminal record. Knife crimes are usually not gang-related (less than 20%), and experienced mostly between strangers, with the altercation often a non-retaliatory ‘one-off event’. Even gang-related knife crimes do not follow ‘tit-for-tat’ relationships—except when the individuals involved have extensive offending histories and then are likely to retaliate instantaneously. We conclude that while rare, an incident of knife crime remains predicable, as a substantial ratio of offenders and victims of future knife crime can be found in police records. Prevention strategies should not be focused on gang-related criminals, but on either prolific violent offenders or repeat victims who are known to the police—and therefore more susceptible to knife crime exposure.
Background
Since 2013, the number of violent crimes and offences by sharp instruments have increased continually, following a previous decrease, with majority of cases occurring among young people and in London. There is limited understanding surrounding the drivers influencing this change in trends, with mostly American-based research identifying risk factors.
Methods
The aim of this review is to identify and synthesise evidence from a range of literature to identify risk factors associated with weapon-related crime, for young people (aged 10–24 years) within the UK.
A search strategy was generated to conduct a systematic search of published and grey literature within four databases (EMBASE, Medline, PsycINFO, and OpenGrey), identifying papers within a UK-context. Abstracts and full texts were screened by two independent reviewers to assess eligibility for inclusion, namely study focus in line with the objectives of the review. Weight of Evidence approach was utilised to assess paper quality, resulting in inclusion of 16 papers. Thematic analysis was conducted for studies to identity and categorise risk factors according to the WHO ecological model.
Results
No association was found between gender or ethnicity and youth violence, contrasting current understanding shown within media. Multiple research papers identified adverse childhood experiences and poor mental health as positively associated with youth and gang violence. It was suggested that community and societal risk factors, such as discrimination and economic inequality, were frequently linked to youth violence.
A small number of studies were included within the review as this is a growing field of research, which may have led to a constrained number of risk factors identified. Due to heterogeneity of studies, a meta-analysis could not be conducted. As many studies displayed positive results, publication bias may be present.
Conclusions
Several risk factors were identified, with evidence currently heterogeneous with minimal high-quality studies. However, findings highlight key areas for future research, including the link between poor mental health and knife-crime, and the trajectory into gangs. Risk factors should help identify high-risk individuals, targeting them within mitigation strategies to prevent involvement within crime. This should contribute to efforts aimed at reducing the rising crime rates within UK.
We analyse the influence of gun culture and exogenous political events on gun regulation in post-Soviet Georgia. While neighbouring states retain restrictive Soviet-era gun laws, in Georgia, state failure, armed conflict and proliferation of weapons during the 1990s
all impelled recent governments towards moderate gun policies, including liberal rules on handgun ownership, strict rules on gun carriage and a national gun registry. We conceptualize gun policy as the product of relatively durable institutional legacies and
underlying social attitudes—in this case, a distinctive post-communist ‘gunscape’—which constrain future policy development; and specific political conjunctures, which provide
opportunities for limited policy experimentation. While Georgian gun owners desire
weapons for self-defence, sport and the affirmation of masculinity, they do not seek
to defy the state or replace its role in collective security, leading to a moderate ‘harm
reduction’ approach to regulation that may be applicable in other post-conflict societies.
This study examines the trust in political institutions in Azerbaijan using the data from the survey Caucasus Barometer (CB) conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) in 2012-2013. Two hypotheses - cultural and institutional - were tested. The study partially confirms the previous findings that national culture, as well as individual socialization (macro and micro-cultural theories) are the main determinants of trust in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, government performance and individual evaluation (macro-and micro institutional theories) did not affect much on the trust level in the country.
Our work contributes through a cultural criminological perspective to a contextualised knowledge of street violence and its constructed meanings; uncertainty, familiarity and strangeness in spaces of urban disadvantage as perceived by Scottish white youths are examined. Youth criminal and anti-social behaviour associated with knife-carrying is widely reported and structures political and media discourses which classify street culture. In our article we argue that a particular symbolic construction of social space, as experienced and constructed by weapon-carrying young white men in Glasgow, informs the landscape of violence judged in terms of official statistics and fear of crime. Signal crime theory as a particular type of cultural criminology affords insights about why weapons are carried. Links with a hierarchical codification of consumer culture inform the findings and resonate with the penetration of capitalism in the lives of the marginalised street youth.
Weapons and violence are both real and mythic elements of gang life. Though violence is a real element
of gang life, public perceptions about gangs may be exaggerated, invoking the idea of dangerous youth
roaming the streets. The image of violent gang members is also embraced and used by youth on the
streets to navigate their social world. Gang members often create personal and group-based myths by
exaggerating their use of weapons and violence. This chapter examines the division between myth and
reality in gang life. It reviews research to establish that weapons and violence are real elements of gang
members’ lives throughout the world. It further explores how myths emerge among gang members who
have ample motivation for fictionalizing violence and weapons use. This chapter relies on the social
psychological ideas of social constructionism, interpretive socialization, and identity to explain the
existence of myths in gang life.
While there have been numerous studies on gangs, most research has avoided the complexity of asking and answering the question involving possible influences that the media might have on gang behavior, more specifically Hollywood's gang-related films. The main purpose of this paper is to either offer a plausible explanation for the influences that gang films have on gangrelated behaviors such as gang wars, lifestyles, violence, and criminal activities; or suggest that these aspects of gang life are simply a reflection of reality portrayed in Hollywood's gang-related films. Data collections for this qualitative descriptive analysis consisted of interviews with law enforcement officials, current and former gang members, and newspaper reports of gang violence relating to gang films. The interviews provided valuable insight on what is being learned in gangrelated films and what is currently happening on the street. The theoretical explanations used to explain this association between gang behavior and the viewing of gang films include social learning, differential association, and instigation theory.
Fatal and nonfatal injuries resulting from gun violence remain a persistent problem in the United States. The available research suggests that gun violence diffuses among people and across places through social relationships. Understanding the relationship between gun violence within social networks and individual gun violence risk is critical in preventing the spread of gun violence within populations. This systematic review examines the existing scientific evidence on the transmission of gun and other weapon-related violence in household, intimate partner, peer, and co-offending networks. Our review identified 16 studies published between 1996 and 2015 that suggest that exposure to a victim or perpetrator of violence in one's interpersonal relationships and social networks increases the risk of individual victimization and perpetration. Formal network analyses find high concentrations of gun violence in small networks and that exposure to gun violence in one's networks is highly correlated with one's own probability of being a gunshot victim. Physical violence by parents and weapon use by intimate partners also increase risk for victimization and perpetration. Additional work is needed to better characterize the mechanisms through which network exposures increase individual risk for violence and to evaluate interventions aimed at disrupting the spread of gun and other weapon violence in high-risk social networks.
The purpose of this study was to identify empirically, for the first time in France, the prevalence of adolescent weapon carrying with particular focus on the contribution of a broad range of social bonding, strain, social learning, and sociodemographic predictors. A multivariate logistic regression model was conducted using a backward elimination procedure to identify the significant predictors of weapon carrying controlling for age, gender and SES in a sample of 12,706 French youth aged 11–19 years. Results revealed that the odds of weapon carrying increased among adolescents who suffered from past victimization, who had a negative relationship with their mother, and who repeated a grade at school. Moreover, holding pro-delinquent beliefs and having delinquent peers also increased the odds of weapon carrying. Our findings highlight the importance of the interpersonal and social context when examining the determinants of weapon carrying.
The offender’s perspective is perhaps the most neglected area of criminological inquiry (see, for example, Walker, 1984). This perspective, however, is of crucial importance to the formulation of both theory and policy. In regard to theory, for example, the factors often observed to be associated with crime must be linked to criminality through the perceptions and decision making of offenders. As Glueck (quoted in Bovet, 1951 p. 20) has suggested, “A factor cannot be a cause before it is a motive.” Somewhat similarly, Toch (1987 p. 152) has argued that “criminology can benefit by illuminating the ‘black box’ (offender perspectives) that intervenes between conventional independent variables (criminogenic influences) and dependent variables (antisocial behavior).” And Walker (1984) has gone so far as to maintain that criminological theorists are “wasting their time” (p. viii) if they do not consider what he calls the “states of mind” (p. viii) that lead up to criminal offenses.
We investigated the prevalence of juvenile weapon carrying and psychosocial and personality-related risk factors for carrying different types of weapons in a nationally representative, population-based sample of Finnish adolescents. Specifically, we aimed to investigate psychopathic-like personality features as a risk factor for weapon carrying. The participants were 15-16-year-old adolescents from the Finnish self-report delinquency study (n = 4855). Four different groups were formed based on self-reported weapon carrying: no weapon carrying, carrying knife, gun or other weapon. The associations between psychosocial factors, psychopathic-like features and weapon carrying were examined with multinomial logistic regression analysis. 9 % of the participants had carried a weapon in the past 12 months. Adolescents with a history of delinquency, victimization and antisocial friends were more likely to carry weapons in general; however, delinquency and victimization were most strongly related to gun carrying, while perceived peer delinquency (antisocial friends) was most strongly related to carrying a knife. Better academic performance was associated with a reduced likelihood of carrying a gun and knife, while feeling secure correlated with a reduced likelihood of gun carrying only. Psychopathic-like features were related to a higher likelihood of weapon carrying, even after adjusting for other risk factors. The findings of the study suggest that adolescents carrying a weapon have a large cluster of problems in their lives, which may vary based on the type of weapon carried. Furthermore, psychopathic-like features strongly relate to a higher risk of carrying a weapon.
In the midst of societal optimism, how do young men cope with the loss of a vibrant future? Young Men, Time, and Boredom in the Republic of Georgia provides a vivid exploration of the tension between subjective and societal time and the ways these tensions create experiences of marginality among under- or unemployed young men in the Republic of Georgia.
Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Martin Demant Frederiksen shows how the Georgian state has attempted to make the so-called post-Soviet transition a thing of the past as it creates new ideas about the future. Yet some young men in the regional capital of Batumi do not feel that they are part of the progression these changes create. Instead, they feel marginalized both by space and time—passed over and without prospects.
This distinctive case study provides empirical evidence for a deeper understanding of contemporary societal developments and their effects on individual experiences.
This paper analyzes the relationship between having one or more father figures and the likelihood that young people engage in delinquent behavior. We pay particular attention to distinguishing the roles of residential and non-residential, biological fathers as well as stepfathers. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that adolescent boys engage in more delinquent behavior if there is no father figure in their lives. However, adolescent girls’ behavior is largely independent of the presence (or absence) of their fathers. The strong effect of family structure is not explained by the lack of paternal involvement that generally comes with fathers’ absence, even though adolescents, especially boys, who spend time doing things with their fathers usually have better outcomes. There is also a link between adult delinquent behavior and adolescent family structure that cannot be explained by fathers’ involvement with their adolescent sons and is only partially explained by fathers’ involvement with their adolescent daughters. Finally, the strong link between adolescent family structure and delinquent behavior is not accounted for by the income differentials associated with fathers’ absence. Our results suggest that the presence of a father figure during adolescence is likely to have protective effects, particularly for males, in both adolescence and young adulthood.
Whilst quantitative research to date gives us some indication of the prevalence at which knife-carrying occurs among young British men, there have been few explanations for why it occurs, and for what the relationship might be between broader social issues of control and power and the behaviours of young men themselves. Drawing on interviews with 16 young white British men, the present paper explores the ways in which the sample accounted for knife-carrying. Two interpretative repertoires were identified: (1) attributions of blame to authorities for a lack of protection and a subsequent justification of knife-carrying, and (2) discussions of masculinity in relation to knife-carrying. The findings suggest that what is required are policy and practice responses that take into account the symbolic functions of knives for young white men, and which recognise the dilemmatic bind that such men are caught in when they attempt to negotiate competing demands of protection and control.
Perceived social support is a protective or risk factor that is consistently cited in the school violence and weapon possession literature; however, few empirical studies to date have thoroughly examined the relationships among social support variables and school violence or weapon possession. In the present study, two broad research objectives were pursued: (a) to examine perceptions of social support by students who carry weapons and (b) to assess potential predictors, including social support, of carrying a weapon to school. Data were collected for 461 students from an urban Illinois middle school. A survey packet was given to students that contained two rating scales: The Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale—Revised Edition (CASSS; Malecki, Demaray, & Elliott, 2000) and an untitled survey developed by a community agency to address health and safety issues at the school. Students who reported carrying weapons to school reported less overall or total perceived social support than did their peers who did not carry weapons. In addition, the former reported significantly less perceived social support from all sources—parents, teachers, classmates, close friends, and the school. Another finding was that in addition to other commonly cited and researched risk factors (e.g., drug use, alcohol use), individual social support from parents, teachers, classmates, and close friends also was a significant predictor of weapon carrying in school. Study results and implications are discussed.
OVERVIEW Socially desirable responding (SDR) is typically defined as the tendency to give positive self-descriptions . Its status as a response style rests on the clarification of an underlying psychological construct. A brief history of such attempts is provided . Despite the growing consensus that there are two dimensions of SDR, their interpretation has varied over the years from minimalist operationalizations to elaborate construct validation . I argue for the necessity of demonstrating departure-from-reality in the self-reports of high SDR scorers : This criterion is critical for distinguishing SDR from related constructs. An appropriate methodology that operationalizes SDR directly in terms of self-criterion discrepancy is described. My recent work on this topic has evolved into a two-tiered taxonomy that crosses degree of awareness (conscious vs . unconscious) with content (agentic vs . communal qualities) . Sufficient research on SDR constructs has accumulated to propose a broad reconciliation and integration .
This book researches the question of what the Russian Mafia is, and challenges widely held views of its nature. It charts the emergence of the Russian Mafia in the context of the transition to the market, the privatization of protection, and pervasive corruption. The ability of the Russian State to define property rights and protect contracts is compared with the services offered by fragments of the state apparatus, private security firms, ethnic crime groups, the Cossacks and the Russian Mafia. Past criminal traditions, rituals, and norms have been resuscitated by the modern Russian Mafia to forge a powerful new identity and compete in a crowded market for protection. The book draws on and reports from undercover police operations, in-depth interviews conducted over several years with the victims of the Mafia, criminals, and officials, and documents from the Gulag archives. It also provides a comparative study, making references to other mafia in other countries (the Japanese Yakuza, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, American–Italian Mafia and the Hong Kong Triads). The book has an introduction and conclusion and between these is arranged in three parts: I. The Transition to the Market and Protection in Russia (three chapters); II. Private protection in Perm (two chapters investigating the emergence and operation of the mafia in the city of Perm); and III. The Russian Mafia (three chapters).
Despite being a post-conflict society, Azerbaijan now enjoys relatively low levels of gun crime and firearm ownership. Adopting a data triangulation approach, this study explored the attitude of the self-select sample (n = 589) in Azerbaijan on guns and gun laws regulating the acquisition of guns, in addition to qualitative interviews. The majority of the participants were content with the current restrictive gun control policies and legislation. Firearms were viewed mostly as an instrument for hunting and self-defence. Qualitative interviews among experts and respondents with experience of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (n = 19) largely supplemented the findings obtained through the online survey and provided in-depth insights into the meanings attached to firearms. This explorative study contributes to our understanding of the gunscape in the post-communist and post-conflict society that does not suffer from a gun epidemic. From a comparative perspective, the perceptions of Azerbaijani respondents indicate the absence of "conflict mentality" observed in some other conflict-stricken regions, as well as an extremely limited degree of cultural acceptance of guns as honourable and symbolic items to possess. ARTICLE HISTORY
Amid rising public concern of knife-enabled crime, this article seeks to review and reframe the contemporary debates on knife crime which remain tied to concepts of fear, protection and fashion. Concepts of social field theory and street capital theory have much to offer in reframing a more contemporary narrative. Through such analysis, knife crime can be redefined as a logical response to the unpredictable asymmetrics of the social field, offering mechanisms for agency and control while providing both a pressure release and opportunity to demonstrate authenticity in ‘The Game’.
Criminology has much to offer activities to reduce the harm of violent incidents-particularly by reducing weapon-carrying and use-but the discipline's engagement with the harm reduction agenda has been limited. In addressing this, the article identifes risk factors for carrying a weapon by a young person in England and Wales. It demonstrates that this decision is influenced by individual-, interpersonal-and communitylevel factors and that weapon carriers can be distinguished from other respondents using relatively few characteristics. The study also shows that defensive factors, such as victimization and concerns about personal safety, are relevant to understanding weapon-carrying, but they are outweighed by criminogenic factors such as violence, neighbourhood disorder and, importantly, lack of trust in the police.
Using the findings from an extensive ethnogrpahic study of local residents, professionals and gang members in south London, and drawing on his vast experience and knowledge of the field, this bok proposed a unique theoretical perspective on survival in violent street gangs. I apply Bourdieu's principles of social field anlaysis and habitas to gangs. I establish them as an arena of social competition where actors struggle for distinction and survival, strviing to become 'players in the game', in the 'casino of life.' for these gang involved young people, success is determined by accuring and retaining playing chips - street capital.
In recent years, surveys in the United States have faced increasing refusal to answer questions about firearm ownership, even as other similar questions see no comparable up-tick in item nonresponse. Asymmetrical polarization, elite messaging, and changing media institutions all suggest that the surging nonresponse concerning gun-ownership questions may be increasingly concentrated among those with rightward political and partisan leanings, potentially skewing inferences about gun-related issues. Data from the General Social Survey confirms that the increase in probability of declining to answer firearm-ownership questions is particularly stark among those identifying as Republicans, particularly those with a conservative outlook skeptical of government.
The Eurogang Paradox is the first comprehensive collection of original research reports on the status of street gangs and problematic youth groups in Europe, as well as a set of special, state-of-the-art reports on the current status of American street gang research and its implications for the European gang situation. Seven American papers are joined with reports from England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Holland, Belgium, France, and Slovenia. Summary chapters by the American and European editors provide overviews of the street gang picture: the associated issues and problems of definition, community context, comparative research procedures, and implications for prevention and intervention. Professionals and students will find these papers easy to comprehend yet fully informative on comparative street gang studies.
Although existing cross-cultural studies of adolescence have focused on topics including fighting, bullying, and gangs, little cross-national research has centered on weapon carrying. However, weapon carrying among youth has been identified as a worldwide concern, with significant variation by nation and region. This variation is not well understood. This article investigates the nation-level cultural and contextual determinants of adolescent weapon carrying, specifically focusing on human development, governmental corruption, and a nation’s orientation toward violence. Data are drawn from 27 countries in the International Self-Report Delinquency Study, Wave Two. Analyses use multilevel logistic and ordered logistic regression models to assess associations with weapon carrying frequency, likelihood of carrying a weapon with friends, and age of weapon carrying onset. Results show that residing in a nation with less corruption is associated with a decrease in weapon carrying frequency, a later age of onset, and a lower likelihood of carrying a weapon with friends. Mixed results were found for interactions with a nation’s orientation toward violence. Possible explanations for these results, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.
How do young people get by in hard times and hard places? Have they become a ‘lost generation’ disconnected from society’s mainstream? Do popular ideas about social exclusion or a welfare dependent underclass really connect with the lived experiences of the so-called ‘disaffected’, ‘disengaged’ and ‘difficult-to-reach’? Based on close-up research with young men and women from localities suffering social exclusion in extreme form, Disconnected Youth? will appeal to all those who are interested in understanding and tackling the problems of growing up in Britain’s poor neighbourhoods.
Weapons and violence are both real and mythic elements of gang life. Though violence is a real element of gang life, public perceptions about gangs may be exaggerated, invoking the idea of dangerous youth roaming the streets. The image of violent gang members is also embraced and used by youth on the streets to navigate their social world. Gang members often create personal and group-based myths by exaggerating their use of weapons and violence. This chapter examines the division between myth and reality in gang life. It reviews research to establish that weapons and violence are real elements of gang members' lives throughout the world. It further explores how myths emerge among gang members who have ample motivation for fictionalizing violence and weapons use. This chapter relies on the social psychological ideas of social constructionism, interpretive socialization, and identity to explain the existence of myths in gang life.
People in groups act aggressively as a group, not as a collection of individuals. The Psychology of Group Aggression's comprehensive journey starts with group dynamics theory and research by reviewing its relationship to aggression. Arnold P. Goldstein then provides a unique and valuable insight into the different types and levels of intensity of anti-social behavior, examines its causes and considers its costs. In separate chapters he considers low intensity aggression, including ostracism, hazing, teasing; mid-intensity, e.g. bullying, harassment; and high intensity aggression e.g. mobs and gangs. In a final section, he considers management and intervention techniques, both those widely employed and emerging methods. An important work for both a pure and an applied audience, this will be a key reference for many, including clinical and forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, criminal justice workers, social psychologists and academics and students in criminology, psychology and sociology.
A great deal of youth crime is committed in groups, which has been proven empirically for quite some time now. Nevertheless, the group aspect is still paid relatively little attention by the criminal justice system and in the field of criminology. This may be based on the fact that group behavior is more difficult to describe than the nature and characteristics of individual persons.
Is America bitterly divided? Has America lost its traditional values? Many politicians and religious leaders believe so, as do the majority of Americans, based on public opinion polls taken over the past several years. But is this crisis of values real?. This book explores the moral terrain of America today, analyzing the widely held perception that the nation is in moral decline. It looks at the question from a variety of angles, examining traditional values, secular values, religious values, family values, economic values, and others. Using unique data from the World Values Surveys, the largest systematic attempt ever made to document attitudes, values, and beliefs around the world, this book systematically evaluates the perceived crisis of values by comparing America's values with those of over 60 other nations. The results are surprising. The evidence shows overwhelmingly that America has not lost its traditional values, that the nation compares favorably with most other societies, and that the culture war is largely a myth. The gap between reality and perception does not represent mass ignorance of the facts or an overblown moral panic, Baker contends. Rather, the widespread perception of a crisis of values is a real and legitimate interpretation of life in a society that is in the middle of a fundamental transformation and that contains growing cultural contradictions. Instead of posing a problem, the author argues, this crisis rhetoric serves the valuable social function of reminding us of what it means to be American. As such, it preserves the ideological foundation of the nation.
While there is evidence that gang membership impacts an individual’s gun carrying proclivities, existing research has largely focused only on males and at-risk youth. The present study investigates the role of gang membership, peer gang membership, and delinquency on whether individuals carry a firearm using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Carrying a firearm was associated with involvement in delinquency, peer gang membership, and respondent gang membership. The association between gang membership and carrying a firearm weakened with age. Few significant differences across categories of sex and race emerged suggesting that the relationship between gang membership and carrying a firearm is equivocal across these groups.
This article reflects on the lives of a group of young men on Ireland's socio-economic periphery, focusing on how exclusion shapes their cultural orientation and orders their spatial practices. Whilst populist imaginaries and certain academic understandings of young, disadvantaged, urban males tend to cast them in the role of claiming and violently defending territories, their relationships to space may be considerably more transient and fluid. Within the late-modern 'liquid city' exclusion has cast the young men researched here into migratory practices, where they must negotiate relationships with potentially hostile peers in various parts of the urban environment. Adopting street cultural norms of rugged masculinity, crimino-entrepreneurialism and the recourse to violence can result in the accumulation of 'street social capital'. This can allow disadvantaged young people to secure a sense of existential security, pleasurable experiences, disposable income and a culturally mediated notion of dignity, despite their spatial and socio-economic exclusion.
Purpose
The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of English adolescents' views on knife‐carrying and offer a potential framework for challenging their implicit tolerance of the phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 25 adolescents from three large English cities (London, Birmingham and Manchester) was interviewed about knife‐carrying at seven youth community centers and their narratives were analyzed by drawing on the classical discourse analysis and the concept of narrative repertoires.
Findings
The adolescents constructed the social and legal consequences of knife‐carrying as normal, trivial and inevitable.
Research limitations/implications
Talking to a stranger with a voice recorder about the sensitive subject of knife‐carrying appeared to be problematic, which probably had an inhibitory effect despite the conversational warm‐up and assured anonymity.
Practical implications
Cautioning against creating common sense associations between knife‐carrying and irresponsibility or deviance, the paper emphasizes the need for the focus on the low controllability and unpredictability of the knife.
Originality/value
The paper presents scholars and outreach workers with an intimate glimpse of how personal responsibility for knife‐carrying and its potential consequences could be diminished by removing the agency from the carrier and rhetorically placing it in society.
Objectives: To determine the factors associated with weapon carrying in school among Czech, Russian, and US adolescents. Methods: Logistic regression was used to analyze data drawn from the Social and Health Assessment (SAHA). Results: Violent behavior (perpetration
/ victimization) was linked to adolescent weapon carrying in all countries. Substance use was associated with weapon carrying among boys in all countries. Greater parental warmth reduced the odds for weapon carrying among Czech and Russian adolescents. Associating with delinquent peers was
important for weapon carrying only among US adolescents. Conclusions: Factors associated with weapon carrying in school vary among countries although violent behavior and substance use may be associated with weapon carrying across countries.
In the present digital revolution we often seem trapped in a Kafkaesque world of technological advances, some desired, some disliked or even feared, which we cannot influence but must accept. This book discusses the urgent need to redress this situation. The authors argue that technologies succeed or fail according to their relevance and value to people, who need to be actively engaged in order to create shared visions and influence their implementation. Strategies for citizen engagement and empowerment will enable citizens to influence and shape desirable digital futures. The book reviews the currently accepted ways of thinking about the design of systems and the reasons why these methods are no longer adequate. From an academically rigorous analysis of case histories across a wide variety of sectors, knowledge and best practice are captured in a rich, descriptive model of the contributions of citizen engagement to the design process. Finally, it provides specific practical guidance, based on sound academic research, for policy makers, administrators and ICT professionals on the strategies, methodologies, tools and techniques needed to change design practice.
In most states in the U.S. it is legal to carry a concealed handgun in public, but little is known about why people want to do this. While the existing literature argues that guns symbolize masculinity, most research on the actual use of guns has focused on marginalized men. The issue of concealed handguns is interesting because they must remain concealed and because relatively privileged men are most likely to have a license to carry one. Using in-depth interviews with 20 men, this article explores how they draw on discourses of masculinity to explain their use of concealed handguns. These men claim that they are motivated by a desire to protect their wives and children, to compensate for lost strength as they age, and to defend themselves against people and places they perceive as dangerous, especially those involving racial/ethnic minority men. These findings suggest that part of the appeal of carrying a concealed firearm is that it allows men to identify with hegemonic masculinity through fantasies of violence and self-defense.
This study explores the relationship between social capital and adolescent violent behaviors for a national sample of secondary school students (N = 4,834). Cross-sectional data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to evaluate multivariate models examining the family, school and neighborhood correlates of violent behaviors. Results demonstrate the importance of social capital factors across domains as significant resources moderating violence outcomes, especially parent-child relationships and school affiliation. Although we hypothesized that greater sports and club participation would decrease tendencies toward violence, results indicate otherwise.