Disputed Definitions and Fluid Identities: The Limitations of Social Profiling In Relation to Ethnic Youth Gangs

Abstract

This article provides a critique of social profiling in relation to ethnically identified youth gangs by considering the fluid nature of social identity and the ambiguities of gang formation. It begins by outlining the nature of youth group affiliation and association, and the multilayered ways in which social identity is constructed. This is followed by a brief review of key propositions relating to youth gangs, derived from international gang research over the last decade. The final section of the paper presents two models of social profiling, one of which is based upon actual criminal events, the other on prediction of `risk'. It is argued that anti-gang intervention based upon a type of social profiling that net-widens will most likely compound the very problem it is intended to address.