Youth Gangs research study

A new national project known as ‘Youth Gangs: The Australian Experience' is currently under way in Australia.

Headed by Associate Professor Rob White from the University of Tasmania, it is the second such study examining youth gangs.

This first research formed the basis for this project. It was published by the Australian Multicultural Foundation in 1999 and consisted of a seven-volume report examining the formation and sociology of youth gangs and their ethnicity.

This new project offers a national perspective on the issue of youth gangs and will be undertaken by the OzGang Research Network which is made up of: Associate Professor Rob White, University of Tasmania; Associate Professor Scott Poynting, University of Western Sydney; Carmel Guerra, Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues; Hass Dellal, Australian Multicultural Foundation; and Gerard Daniells, Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau.

The project will encapsulate three major dimensions including:

• Examining and identifying the various types of youth group formations starting with youth subcultures and ending with criminal gangs.
• Examining the trends of specific types of youth group formations by investigating the social processes undertaken by individual and/or group movement (particularly focusing on the movement between groups).
• Analysing the various strategies adopted by law enforcement agencies aimed at the prevention of criminal formation.

A number of methodologies will be adopted that focus on primary research techniques such as interviewing street-present young people in each capital city. There will also be related research running alongside this project that will investigate the issue of gangs in schools and anti-gang strategies in general. This material will be collected via questionnaires, program implementation and projects.