Ending Gang and Youth Violence: A Critique

Abstract

This article assesses the appropriateness of the strategies laid out in the 2011 Ending Gang and Youth Violence report (HM Government, 2011), for achieving the goal of reducing youth violence in England and Wales. Gangs, it is argued, have been constructed as a ‘suitable enemy’ in the report, obscuring the wider, structural roots of youth violence. At the level of enforcement, a focus on gang membership may also be counterproductive; creating confusion and resulting in a drag-net approach which can criminalize innocent young people rather than focusing resources on serious violent crime.