Youth Gangs, Violence and Social Respect - by R White (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This is the first book dedicated to Australian youth gangs, exploring the subtleties and nuances of street life for young men and their quest for social respect. The key focus is on group violence and the ways in which the 'gang' provides a forum for the expression of this violence.

Review Quotes

"This is an excellent, and long overdue, book on youth gangs in Australia drawing on 15 years experience in the field. Rob White has produced a very readable and illuminating book that will be required reading for any one with an interest in criminology or youth: it rightly deserves to become a classic text."

- Andy Furlong, University of Glasgow, UK

"Critically engaging with international literature of 'youth gangs' research and based solidly on wide-ranging and long-term empirical study of the area throughout Australia, Youth Gangs, Violence and Social Respect is a valuable contribution to study in this field. Rob White's writing is accessible as it is perceptive."

- Scott Poynting, University of Auckland, New Zealand

"Authoritative and provocative, theoretically engaged and empirically grounded, White's book makes a major contribution to the controversial and contested research literature on youth 'gangs'. The wide-ranging coverage and sharply-focused analysis speaks eloquently to 'gang' questions in Australia and elsewhere. A must read for researchers, teachers, students, practitioners and policymakers with interests in modern urban youth."

- Barry Goldson, University of Liverpool, UK

"Youth gangs fuel moral panics and media headlines. Rob White's readable yet rigorously argued book debunks taken for granted assumptions providing new ways of understanding the lives of young people, their relationships with each other and the role of violence. Based on conversations with young people and years of research the book is essential reading for all those interested in the reality behind the headlines."

- Jude McCulloch, Monash University, Australia

"Rob White has produced a timely and important new contribution to the growing body of work that might be called critical global gang studies. Casting his eye over empirical data from diverse ethnic groups over twenty years of his gang research in Australia he concludes that gangs are but a symptom of massive structural inequalities in society and are themselves not the main cause of so many of our related social problems. Critiquing the bulk of criminal justice and criminological gang studies that through pseudo-scientific positivististic approaches reify and dehumanize the gang, White convincingly argues that only a humanistic, contextual and critical criminological lens can fully appreciate the complexity of the gang phenomenon. This work helps to broaden our global appreciation of the gang and rescue the study of this deeply complex social phenomenon from the parodic treatments to which it has been increasingly subjected. An important addition to any serious social scientific library."

- David C. Brotherton, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA

About the Author

Rob White is Professor of Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is author of Juvenile Justice: Youth and Crime in Australia (with Chris Cunneen) and Youth and Society (with Johanna Wyn), and editor of Youth Subcultures: Theory, History and the Australian Experience, and the three-volume Doing Youth Work in Australia (Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies).