Defining Street Gangs in the 21st Century

In contrast to the pattern of long-standing occidental street gangs modelled in the North American paradigm, new-age gangs have appeared as loosely organized, with a high degree of interchangeability of their membership. Associated with this structural fluidity is an equally significant geographic mobility, which paradoxically does not appear to diminish the intensity of personal bonds formed within and between ‘new-age’gangs.The dimensions of fluidity of gang membership and geographic mobility across police jurisdictions is increasingly seen as the organizational pattern of emerging gangs, in large part shaped by worldwide patterns of human migration and globalization. While the structure of new-age gangs appears as loose-knit, what must be emphasized is that this characteristic is reflective of a criminal network of economic commodity-based ‘turf’ as opposed to a close-knit geographically anchored ‘turf’ that has characterized the prevailing North American (occidental) gang model. This volume illuminates the structure and organization of increasingly emergent, fluid and mobile, new-age gangs within the context of transnational networks. The implications for law enforcement agencies is two-fold: i) the fluidity of new-age gang players challenges investigative techniques that remain predicated on suspect recognition through modus operandi repetition by those involved, and; ii) the movement of new-age gang players across police jurisdictions challenges the sharing of police information. This innovative work will be of interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice, as well as related disciplines including Sociology and Anthropology studying gangs and group-organization. It has strong implications for practitioners and professionals working in law enforcement, public policy, or with at-risk youth/young adults.

Dr. Cathy Prowse is a former 25-year police officer with the Calgary Police Service and holds a PhD in anthropology, where her work continues to focus on culturally-influenced aspects of crime. Dr. Prowse is the recipient of local, national, and international recognition for her gang research which, over the course of her policing career and beyond, has been requested and used to inform expert testimony on four continents. As a result of her early work in this area, she was honoured in 1996 by the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts for her writing of a police investigators’ handbook titled, “Vietnamese Gangs: Fluidity and Mobility as Instruments of Organization”; the first individual Canadian to receive this honour. Due to its seminal nature, the distribution of her publication was limited to within the international law enforcement community to serve as an investigative tool into evolving gang structure; a gang structural prototype that is now being increasingly adopted by 21st century street gangs worldwide. Dr. Prowse’s expertise in the area of street gangs continues to be recognized; she was one of twelve Canadians invited recently to advise the Department of Justice on its youth-at-risk (of gangs/criminality) strategy. Dr. Prowse currently teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University on the topics of social control, crime, and justice.