Fears of the fearless

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice

39 (2011) 280e302www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj

‘Fears of the fearless’

Loretta Faye Trickett

Nottingham Trent University, UK

Abstract

Based on a qualitative study of the fear of crime, this article examines the fears and anxieties of a groupof young men who regularly engaged in violence. The article explains how the fears and anxieties relatedto the masculine identities and daily lives of the young men and implications for their feelings of safetyand behaviour. The article also documents the inherent contradictions within the masculine identities andsuggests that the fears and anxieties were a driving factor behind the violence discussed. The articleconcludes that the fears warrant further attention by researchers so that policy responses to violence maybe better informed.� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fears; Anxieties; Violence; Masculinities; Gangs

1. Introduction

Young men have long been known to be the social group most at risk of assaults in publicand yet, despite this, research on the “fear of crime” has often suggested that they are the leastfearful of social groups. This lack of insight into men’s fears is surprising, given the extensivepolitical and media focus in the UK on the violence between young men particularly thatinvolving gun1 and knife2 crime.

The tragic shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007 shocked the nation. Thefollowing year saw hundreds of people march against knife crime in the city of London, in

E-mail address: [email protected] NCIS (2003: 67). In 2007 80 young men lost their lives to gun crime (see Hallsworth and Silverstone, 2009).2See Lockhart et al. (2007). See 2008 Action Plan to tackle violent crime, Saving Lives, Reducing Harm and Pro-

tecting the Public (HM Government, 2008). Gang Link investigated after youth’s shooting in Peckham, see www.bbc.co.

uk/news/uk-england-london-12092758.

1756-0616/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijlcj.2011.08.004

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12092758

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12092758

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2011.08.004

www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/17560616




http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijlcj

281L.F. Trickett / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 39 (2011) 280e302

response to a spate of youth-on-youth killings; which have continued to feature heavily in thenews.3 At first glance the scale and apparent ‘casualness’ of such violence is troubling.However, debates about young men and violence have tended to focus on aggression and thishas contributed to a portrayal of ‘hard’ and ‘fearless’ young urban males.4 In this article, it isargued that there is a pressing need to ‘deconstruct’ this image in order to better understandviolence between young men and an examination of fears can help in this endeavour.

There are four sections in the article. After this introduction, section two outlines theresearch methods and sources of evidence deployed. The third section explores the theoreticalbackground to the research and contextualises the literature. The fourth section outlines thefindings of my own research firstly, the masculine identities of the young men and thebehavioural norms within their gang and how these contributed to their use of violence againstothers and their own victimisation. It then goes on to examine the fears and anxieties of theyoung men which were connected to their identities and behavioural norms and their continuedinvolvement in violence. The fifth section provides an explanation of the evidence. Theconclusion outlines how insights provided by this work may inform the questions of futureresearchers and the responses of policy makers working in the area of young men and violence.

2. The research

The dataset used in this article formed part of a larger study into the fear of crime with menat different stages of the life course. The research was conducted in Birmingham, the secondlargest city in England, in an area which consisted largely of council housing. There were 45respondents in total,5 broken down into 15 respondents from three age groups, 16e21, 21e45and sixty plus.6 Of these, 42 were white with three of the younger respondents being of MixedRace; two being Afro-Caribbean/White and one Asian/White.

The interview schedule used open-ended questions. A combination of cross-sectional andnon-cross sectional indexing was used in the analysis of the data. As the data was collected itwas entered into the qualitative data analysis package of NUD.IST, a software package whichenables the researcher to index and retrieve data across a whole set of coded interviews. Thiswas used mainly as a repository for the hand-indexed data and to provide a visual illustration ofthe emerging linkages between key themes and questions but it was also used in conjunctionwith non-cross sectional indexing.7

This article is based on interview extracts from the youngest age group; 10 ofwhomwere part ofa peer group regularly involved in crime and violence. Although given the size of the sample, it isdifficult to make large-scale generalisations from the data; it is nevertheless possible to extrapolatecertain key issues which are fundamental to ongoing debates about young men and violence.8

3Murder of schoolboy in south London ‘as bad as it gets’, says senior detective, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-

glasgow-west-13737292.4See Media Coverage of Rhys Jones killing. www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/deborah-orr-

this-is-what-happens-when-only-a-gang-makes-you-feel-you-belong-1192725.html.5Initially snowball sampling, a form of chain referral sampling was used, but a switch was quickly made to quota

sampling when the chain referral stalled (see Silverman, 2000).6These were considered to be important age groups for a study on men’s fear of crime as they involved different life

stages and life events e see Trickett (2009).7See Mason (2002).8The researcher was female; there are possible gendered effects on interviewees and whilst it is impossible to

accurately gauge the extent of these, it is important to bear any possibilities in mind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-13737292

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-13737292

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/deborah-orr-this-is-what-happens-when-only-a-gang-makes-you-feel-you-belong-1192725.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/deborah-orr-this-is-what-happens-when-only-a-gang-makes-you-feel-you-belong-1192725.html

282 L.F. Trickett / International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 39 (2011) 280e302

3. The theoretical background to the research

The ‘fear’ of crime is a much contested notion (see Hale, 1996; Holloway and Jefferson,2000) indeed, ‘fear’ is both an emotional and physiological response to an immediate threatand as such cannot be measured. The most that researchers can do therefore is to askrespondents to recall past experiences of occasions when they felt fearful and their accountstherefore will take the form of reconstructive narratives. This article includes such recollectionsof feeling ‘fearful’ and also feelings of anxiety. Although these might not be strictly regarded asaccounts of ‘fear’ per se, such emotions are regularly discussed within the ‘fear of crime’discourse and are important for understanding an individual’s perceptions of risk and behaviouraround it (see Trickett, 2009).

This paper uses two key theoretical arguments to the explanation of the recollections of fearand anxieties discussed. Firstly, it draws on the work of Bowling (1993) who argued thatvictimisation involves a process; this is a very different approach to that of surveys wherevictimisation is conceptualised as involving individual incidents where the categories of victimand offender are treated as being separate. The conceptualisation of victimisation as a processhelps to illustrate how the distinction between the two is not always stable. Indeed, as Ruggerio(1992: 129) has suggested the categories may ‘blur and overlap’ for an individual, even withinthe course of a single day and this was certainly the case for the respondents discussed here;indeed, sometimes within the same hour.

The concept of ‘process’ can also help to connect individual experiences within a person’slifetime and explain how they inform recollections of fears and anxieties and perceptions ofrisks. For just as victimisation arguably involves a process, so too do perceptions of risks (seeWalklate, 1997; Goodey, 1997; Douglas, 1986, 1992; Merry, 1981) and arguably fears (seePain, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2001; Wesely and Gaarder, 2004; Trickett, 2009).

These processes are all gendered; as men and women receive different messages aboutvictimisation and risk through the socialisation process9 their experiences will be differentwhich must be accounted for (Walklate, 1997, 2004). Indeed, Kelly (1988: 74) has suggestedthat the connected experiences, which inform women’s fears can be understood asa ‘continuum’ in that women experience sexual violence as ‘a continuous series of events whichpass into one another and which cannot be readily distinguished’ (Kelly, 1987: 77, see alsoStanko, 1990a,b; Pain, 1995).10

Similarly, men’s fears of crime and experiences of victimisation need to be placed within thecontext of their experiences of living ‘as a man’ including both their public and private livesand their use of public and private space. In terms of young men’s use of public space, theconcept of a continuum is very useful as in some public spaces male on male assault may be socommonplace that it becomes a feature of men’s daily lives; as was found to be the case in thisresearch.

A consideration of gendered identities must also be connected to the ageing process (seeGardiner, 2002; Tulloch, 2000); by viewing gender developmentally we can forge a connectionbetween identities and the fear of crime, enabling us to take account of the changing nature ofindividual selfhoods which affect men’s discursive choices around masculine identities, theirfears and their experiences of victimisation. Whilst the young men discussed in this article,were both users of violence and at high risk of violence from other young men; as men age and

9See www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/11/joanna-yeates-murder-impractical-advice.10See also Stanko (1990a,b).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/11/joanna-yeates-murder-impractical-advice


their lifestyles and responsibilities change, their inclination and ability to engage with violentmasculinities may decrease as may victimisation (see Trickett, 2009).

Finally, when discussing gendered ‘fears’ and possible differences between men and women,the argument that survey methodology, such as that employed by the British Crime Survey,11

contributed to a so-called disparity between the fears of young men and other members ofsociety are adequately dealt with elsewhere.12 However, whilst qualitative research has donemuch to counter the suggestion that the fears of women and the elderly are ‘irrational’13; therehas been a dearth of such research to explain the so-called, and similarly ‘irrational’,14 fear-lessness of men. Whilst this can be partly explained by the enduring assumption that men arenaturally reticent and reluctant to discuss their feelings and experiences (see King, 1992;Stanko and Hobdell, 1993: 400)15; qualitative work on men’s fear of crime can help towardsalleviating this gap in knowledge (see Trickett, 2009).

4. Gangs, masculinities and street life

The young men in this article identified themselves as being in a ‘gang’ and consistentlyreferred to their ‘gang’; which was based on friendship ties and area of residence. The conceptof ‘the gang’16 is problematic but is worthy of attention because it has been a major factor inexplanations of street violence17 perpetrated by young men; said to be linked to both a gangsand weapons culture (see Bullock and Tilley, 2002; Pitts, 2007).18

Despite the existence of ethnographic work on gangs in both the USA19 and Britain,20

government policy has largely been influenced by the administrative research tradition focus-sing on reductive risk factors which can be confirmed statistically. Research on gangs in Britainhas been contradictory with some research depicting gangs along the lines of an hierarchicalAmerican model, being armed and dangerous, controlling territories, such as social housingestates and being heavily involved in crime; particularly drug dealing (see Bullock and Tilley,2002; Pitts, 2007). In contrast, other researchers have suggested that ‘gangs’ have little formalranking and organisation and are often combined of loose networks of youngsters who associateoften purely on the geographical basis of where they live and that street violence perpetrated byyoung men is not ‘instrumental’ but expressive, random and unpredictable (see Heale, 2009;Pitts, 2007; Sharp et al., 2004).

11The Annual Home Office National Survey of Crime in England and Wales.12For example, the use of global style questions such as ‘Do you feel afraid walking in your area in the dark’ may

contribute to differences in rates of the fears of men and women. Moreover, notions of risk are gendered and variable see

Walklate (1997) and Goodey (1997). National surveys also serve to gloss over geographical differences and multiple

victimisation as local surveys have demonstrated see Lea and Young (1984, 1996), Kinsey (1984), Jones et al. (1986),

Genn (1988), Young (1988), Crawford et al. (1990), Farrell (1992) and Pantanzis (2000).13See Pain (1991, 1995).14For a discussion about the problems in referring to rational and irrational fears see Sparks (1992) and in relation to

gender see Walklate (2004).15See also Newburn and Stanko (1990).16See Thrasher (1927) for an early use of the term.17More recently it has been used as an explanation for rioting in British Cities including London, Birmingham,

Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham. See ‘How gangs have taken the place of parents in urban ghettos’, Ian Burrell,

The Independent, 10th August 2011.18For a discussion of the multiplicity of factors behind gun use see Edwards and Sheptycki (2009).19Vigil (1988), Hagedorn (1988), Moore (1978), Decker and Van Winkle (1997) and Fleisher (1998).20See Aldridge et al. (2007), Maher (2007) and Alexander (2004).


Hallsworth and Young (2008) have outlined the problems with overuse of the word ‘gang’,not least of which involve the lack of a standard definition21, which makes measurement of thenumber of gangs and their link with criminality difficult22, but also the detrimental effects suchas the development of policies which fail to deal with the multiple and underlying problemsbehind street violence whilst diverting attention from them.23

It should be noted that of the respondents referred to in this article all but one had criminalrecords24 and the remaining respondent had several cautions from the police. However, thisauthor is not trying to suggest that there is a straightforward connection between criminalityand gang membership. Rather, the importance of the peer group or ‘gang’ in this article is asa source of an honour code not as a hypothesis as to whether gangs are criminogenic or not. Thefocus here is about how involvement with a peer group enacting a similar form of masculineidentity and sharing norms around appropriate behaviour contributed to violence and also tofears and anxieties around assault.

Hallsworth and Silverstone make a persuasive case that the best approach to the study ofviolence between young men is by drawing on subcultural theory25 which conceives of cultureas a dynamic response to the social conditions in which people live. The personal dynamicsinvolved in street encounters must certainly be afforded more attention if we are to understandthem. The work of Hallsworth and Silverstone (2009) and Gunter (2008) about life ‘on road’provides advantages in this regard because it is informed by an emphasis on ‘symbolicprocesses of meaningful construction’.

Such processes enable us to consider constructions of masculine identities; the incidents ofviolence discussed in this article involved ‘situational accomplishments’ of gender withinrelational settings (Messerschmidt, 1993, 1997) whereby men who inhabit the same socialspaces drew on shared knowledge about appropriate and inappropriate male behaviour toconfigure the activities of both themselves26 and others through the notion of accountability.

In this respect, the lifestyles of the young men discussed in this article were similar tothose of Gunter’s (2008) and Hallsworth and Silverstone’s (2009) respondents. In his study ofAfro-Caribbean boys on a London housing estate, Gunter (2008) refers to ‘road life’ enactedby a minority of young males, who immerse themselves into a social world of ‘badness’.Similarly, Hallsworth and Silverstone (2009: 365) use the phrase ‘on road’ as a descriptiveterm used by their respondents both for a way of life some elected to take, while for others itwas perceived as a destination, a place in which you ended up, specifically if you wereexcluded from mainstream society and its institutions. What life ‘on-road’ tends to encourageis a daily existence characterised by a hyper-aggressive form of masculinity (see Campbell,1993). This is a vision of purified masculinity informed by homophobia and misogyny where

21For contrasting definitions see the Eurogang Network, Alexander (2008), Battin et al. (1998), Bjerregaard (2002),

Communities That Care (2005), Smith and Bradshaw (2005), Bullock and Tilley (2002), Stelfox (1996), Bennett and

Holloway (2004), Bannister and Fraser (2008), Dying to Belong (2009), Hallsworth and Young (2006), Sharp et al.

(2004) and Young et al. (2007).22US research suggests a connection between gangs and violence Curry and Spergel (1992), Decker and Van Winkle

(1997), Jankowski (1991), Klein (1995), Sanders (1994a,b). Some UK research also supports this see Communities That

Care (2005), Bennett and Holloway (2004), Bradshaw and Smith (2005), Sharp et al. (2004).23See also Katz and Jackson Jacobs (2003).24Crimes committed included assault, theft, fraud, burglary, shop lifting, ‘joy-riding’ and arson.25See Cohen (1955) and Miller (1958).26See Tracey et al. (2007).


being hard assumes master status; there is no backing down in the face of threat or provo-cation and violence is imperative (see Hallsworth and Silverstone, 2009).

In order to theorise these enactments ofmasculinity, Gunter looks to theories on youth crime, inparticular, thosewhich drawon discourses around hegemonic ‘masculinity’ (Connell, 1987, 1995)whereby class and race combine to place certain young males at the bottom of the social andeconomic ladder. Whilst acknowledging that masculinities based upon deviance and criminalityare partly determined by a structural crisis within a racist-capitalist global and politicaleconomy,27 and following in the vein of writers who argue that working class males respond totheir powerlessness by constructing subcultures based around crime and other deviant modes ofbehaviour (see Collier, 1998; Messerschmidt, 1993; Newborn and Stanko, 1994), Gunter (2008)argues that for his respondents ‘badness’ is also a lifestyle choice e involving the complexinterplay of power and control, via physical force, that is adopted by some youngmen. In this way,hegemonicmasculinity can be viewed as a discursive and behavioural resource for choices around‘the doing of masculinity’; albeit one needs to remain aware that structural factors may serve torestrict an individual’s choices around different enactments of masculinity.

Whilst the work of Hallsworth and Silverstone and Gunter provides useful insights into thenature of street life, masculinities and violence, this article argues that there is still a need tomake more explicit linkages between research on street violence and masculinities with that on‘fears’. Fears have received inadequate attention as a factor in street violence perpetrated byyoung men. Consequently, a street level view of ‘fears’, which is theorised within the context ofmasculinities and connected to the structural factors of an urban street life, can help us to betterunderstand young men’s engagement with violence as is illustrated by the findings of thisresearch.

4.1. The research findings

The respondents described themselves by talking about their current lifestyles in terms of whatthey did and also aspects of their personalities. They were frequently involved in episodes ofviolence and exemplified lifestyles which involved enacting ‘hard’ masculinities within thecontext of a peer group of similar young men in the geographical area in which they lived. Bothlength of residence in the neighbourhood and their membership of a gang within it were central totheir discussions of their identities and daily lives. At the time of the study all of these respondentshad criminal records and several cautions from the police; none of them was in paid employmentand all lived with their mothers or their mother and a step-father in social housing.

The respondents in the current study acted as they did because of the shared social identity thatthey inhabited; this had two powerfully salient characteristics; a ‘hard’ masculinity, informed bytheir ideas about how to be a man and their involvement with a gang, membership of which wasinformed by shared social and geographical histories and ‘feelings of belonging’ to an area.

The majority of these respondents had lived in the local area for all of all their lives, havingstrong family and friendship networks. This attachment to neighbourhood has been referred toby other researchers as an attachment to your ‘ends’ (Gunter, 2008; Heale, 2009; Hallsworthand Silverstone, 2009). The attachment to their ‘ends’ helped the respondents here to feelsafer within their own neighbourhood than they thought that they would have done in a new

27Whilst hegemonic masculinity has been extremely influential in research on gender relations and masculinities it has

also been heavily criticised see (Beasley, 2008a,b). For a response to such criticisms see Connell and Messerschmidt

(2005).


neighbourhood, despite being at high risk of violence within it (see also Evans et al., 1996;Evans, 1997; Reay and Lucey, 2000; Gunter, 2008; Hallsworth and Silverstone, 2009).

Each side of the dual identity of the respondents, the social persona of being a ‘hard’ manand being a member of their gang, was reinforced by the other. The combined themes thatemerged from the discussions around masculine identities and group norms included bravado,loyalty, retaliation and reputation; all of which were heavily implicated in the frequent use ofviolence discussed by the respondents. The hyper-aggressive masculinity that they adopted wasinformed by norms of behaviour similar to those found in the ethnographic study by ElijahAnderson (2000: 9e10), where he argued that, the violence between and amongst inner-cityAfrican American youths, could be explained by a ‘Code of the Street’:

At the heart of this code is a set of.informal rules, of behaviour, organised arounda desperate search for respect that governs public social relations, especially vio-lence.particularly among young men. Possession of respect e and the credible threat ofvengeance e is highly valued for shielding the ordinary person from the interpersonal violenceof the street.

The combination of a hard persona within the context of group norms such as loyalty meantthat that these men were, and had to be constantly prepared to use violence. Hallsworth andSilverstone (2009: 365e366) refer to life ‘on road’ as a space in which violence and itsthreat is everywhere. Surviving ‘on road’, as such, requires a certain mastery of violence; itcomes with an obligation to be able to do violence or, at least mobilise it in ways that mightward it off. ‘On road’ the choices are stark: survive or become a victim. For the young men inthis study violence was simply part of their daily lives; being attacked by and being prepared toattack, other young men on the streets was an occupational hazard for them and managing suchrisks was part of their daily routines.

From the discussions about violence the themes of bravado, loyalty, retaliation and repu-tation were identified and these were reflected in the patterning of the accounts of victimisation;for whilst, there were some examples of being mugged or attacked by unknown men whenoutside of the area, accounts more frequently involved assaults by men that were known eitherby sight or by reputation and arguably involved processes within which these respondents wereboth victims and aggressors (see Bowling, 1993):

Sean (Aged 18)28

28All

“.you get trouble with strangers, if you’re outside the area, but most of the time it’sother groups of lads in the area, they’re like us really but they’re not part of our gang”

Therefore, in terms of threats against themselves, these respondents perceived themselves tobe at high risk of physical assault from men who adopted similar versions of masculinitieswhich valued toughness and group loyalty: including those within their own group, those inother gangs within the area and also men outside of the area. As these respondents werefrequent users of violence their narratives were littered with both experiences of their ownviolent victimisation and their victimisation of others. The following quote refers to a recentincident where two of the gang members had been stabbed:

Craig (Aged 17)

“I’ve been stabbed recently. There was three or four of us and there was a bit of troublewith some lads that used to hang out [in another part of the area]. We went back up there

names have been changed.


and I got stabbed in my ankle. My mate got it worse. He got stabbed in the arm and it wasa bad wound”

Flashpoints for violence were based around the dual identity of the respondents; includingthe necessity to demonstrate a hard masculinity within the context of the gang norms and thesefeatured heavily in the narrative accounts of violent encounters. For example, being a hard manrequired the continual demonstration of bravado. There were two aspects to this; the firstrequired group members to put on a tough image when passing other groups of men on thestreets and to this end narrative accounts were underpinned by the habitual and deliberatepractice of provoking violence which was engaged in by both the respondents and others:

Mickey (Aged 16)

“We do it ourselves really. If you’re with your mates and you pass a kid on his own, youpush into him or ask him what he’s looking at or something and it’s the same with othergroups of blokes. Like they’ll do it when they’re passing us or they’ll try and get you upsetespecially if you’re on your own and if you’re with your mates they’ll start mouthing off”

Whilst ‘bravado’ was largely about demonstrating ‘hardness’ to other men on the streets, itwas also linked to loyalty which was an important aspect of gang membership. The respondentsclaimed that they expected loyalty from their mates and this meant lending them money, notgrassing on them to the police and ‘standing up for them’ against other men:

Lee (Aged 20)

“if you’ve got trouble with other lads or the police, you expect your mates to be there, tofight and be loyal to you”

Therefore, bravado also involved the expectation that gang members would get involved inthe fights of someone else in the gang including those that took the form of retaliation whichwas the overwhelming response for dealing with assaults and provided an important demon-stration of ‘loyalty’ to other gang members. As gang members were expected to get involved infights on behalf of someone else in the gang as part of their loyalty it appeared that there waslittle real choice in this regard:

Ricky (Aged 19)

“You get two choices really. You help your mates out by backing them up, or you geta beating from them”

The expectation of ‘back-up’ from their mates took no account of the fact that gangmembers may have had no part in the original dispute. For example Kris is under threat ofserious assault from some men, one of whom he has had trouble with some years before. Theman in question has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for his part in themanslaughter of another man. It transpires that Kris also slept with the girlfriend of one of thisman’s accomplices to the aforementioned killing, albeit Kris stated that he had not known thatthe woman had any connection with either of the men. The following quotation indicates theserious nature of the threats and also highlights how Kris is counting on the support of his matesin any confrontation:

“He’s phoned up and sent letters out whilst he’s been in prison, saying he’s gonna kill meand he’s phoned me since he’s been out of prison saying he wants to stab me. As soon ashe comes I’m just gonna have to fight back ain’t I? I’m rarely out on my own anyway now.I’ve asked my mates to help me when it happens and they’ve said they will”


We can see, therefore, that the related themes of bravado and retaliation were heavilyimplicated in the accounts of ‘trouble’ with other men; coined as ‘beef’ by other researchers,a term which refers to a dispute with another man or group where it is imperative that allparties involved are willing to ‘back it up’ and bring the dispute to a violent conclusion (seeGunter, 2008; Hallsworth and Silverstone, 2009; Heale, 2009). Indeed, for the respondents inthis study, ‘trouble’ with other blokes frequently involved a process of retaliation and thenarratives of respondents recalled disputes stretching over time and becoming increasinglyviolent. In the following quotation Kris gives some indication of an earlier incident in theongoing dispute with the men who are currently looking for him following their release fromprison:

Kris (Aged 21)

“There’s a few blokes who had just come out of prison who are looking for me. Thatbothers me. But I just have to wait till it comes. One of them, I did something with hismissus [sex] while he was inside. I didn’t know he was going out with her, but my friendhad done it as well, with another bird he was seeing before he was inside. He kidnappedhim. We were walking down the road and he jumped out of a car with a knife and put it tohis throat and forced him into the boot and he drove him up to the reservoir, opened theboot, smashed a glass in his head and then shut the boot and reversed the car into a walla few times with my mate still inside. Then he rolled the car into the reservoir. My mategot out. He kicked the back shelving off. The window was smashed because of himreversing into wall. So he managed to get out of the window in time but if he hadn’t thenhe would have been killed.”

In line with the findings of other researchers, violent episodes were frequently associatedwith disputes with men in adjoining areas based on issues of territory, postcode affiliation andrivalry. As the respondent in the following quotation indicates, being seen outside of your areain the area of another gang was deemed to be provocative:

Sean (Aged 18)

“Its other groups of lads in this area and the next area, they’re like us really but they’renot part of our gang.they come into your area just to piss you off”

The themes of bravado and retaliation meant that the expectation of violence in response tosuch slights was paramount because the image of ‘toughness’ had to be preserved at all costs.For this reason the themes of bravado and retaliation were also linked to that of reputations. Theissue of reputations was a contradictory one in that these men invested in tough reputations andin part, relied on these to ward off potential perpetrators. However, having a tough reputationalso exposed them to continued threats of violence in two ways. Firstly, in that those with thetoughest reputations were the first point of call for retaliatory attacks against other men andsecondly because having a reputation for being hard meant that other men wanted to fight anddefeat you in order to enhance their own reputations as ‘hard’ men:

Gary (Aged 21)

“If you’ve still got a reputation, people will always want it. They’ll want to take you on toprove that they’re harder than you”

The themes of bravado and reputation therefore were heavily implicated in the practice ofretaliation. The maintenance of a hard reputation was a paramount preoccupation which wasongoing and meant that defeat had to be defended against. Following an attack or after suffering


some other slight these young men wanted to retaliate as quickly as possible to repair anydamage done to their reputation and to undermine the increase in status that the victor hadgained as a result:

Sean (Aged 18)

“If two people are fighting, basically whoever loses is gonna think ‘Well, he’s took me fora cunt, he’s smashed me so I’m gonna go back and smash him as well’ and it will justcarry on like that”

Therefore damage to reputations was connected to retaliation because reputations had to bepreserved at all costs and any ‘loss of face’ had to be prevented or instantly repaired. Moreover, asretaliation with violence was the expected response to slights or provocation it was not limited toissues emanating from outside of the gang. Respondents suggested that a failure to show loyalty toother gang members could expose them to the risk of assaults and retaliation frommen within thegang and also meant they could become ostracised thereby losing support in physical confron-tations with men outside of it. Given the severity of the potential consequences this was anoutcome that the respondents thought best to avoid as the following quote suggests:

Craig (Aged 17)

“You’d be done for really”

Because of this, there was a suggestion in the narrative accounts that it was important to takecare about interactions with others within the gang. For example, exposure to risks of assaultsfrom other gang members could be increased though internal resentments about possessions,such as being considered ‘too flash’ because you have better clothes and accessories as detailedin the following quote:

Mickey (Aged 16)

“.they say I’m spoilt that my mum and dad spoil me, they buy me trainers and clothes,they think that I get what I want, it’s just the way they see it and it causes argumentssometimes”

More frequently, however, flashpoints for violence within the gang often involved similardisputes to those that underpinned violence with men outside of it; commonly involving slightsto male honour involving reputations and women. Such factors were often behind inter-grouprivalries which could sometimes fester and become problematic; an example is provided in thenext quote where the respondent suggests that boasting about being harder than others in thegang could be perceived as provocative:

Lee (Aged 20)

“You have to be careful. If you boast like your mates might think that you are getting toobig-headed. If you were boasting about being harder than someone else, that could causetrouble”

Another factor that was implicated in possible internal gang conflict was the issue of womenand this issue could also increase risks of physical assault from men outside of the gang. Therewas a distinction made by respondents here between ‘birds’ and ‘sluts’, the latter was a termused to indicate women that these men has casual sex with, whereas a reference to theirgirlfriend was denoted by a reference to their ‘bird’ or ‘missus’ and these terms were based onsexual exclusivity to them as boyfriends. This territorial approach to ownership of a girlfriend’ssexuality could even extend to ‘ex-girlfriends’ and was well understood within the gang. The


respondents suggested that making an approach to or becoming involved with someone else’sbird was taboo and posed a risk of physical assault:

Kris (Aged 21)

“Well you wouldn’t make a move on a mate’s bird”

These views meant that men were expected to respond with violence if another man made anadvance to their girlfriends. Such advances posed a double-edged insult by suggesting thata girlfriend might not be sexually exclusive and that a man may have been mistaken about hisgirlfriend’s loyalty. Such advances posed challenges therefore to the masculine identities of therespondents in terms of defending the sexual ‘honour’ of their girlfriends, keeping their sexualavailability exclusive and maintaining their own masculine status. So well understood was thischallenge that respondents admitted that it was an easy way of provoking violence with othermen and one that they often engaged in themselves:

Gary (Aged 21)

“.I’ve done it before, you’re with a few lads like, you’ve got some nice bird walkingdown the street with some geezer, you’re gonna say, ‘Alright love’, pissed out of your faceand make a grab for her and then he goes mad and you’re gonna do him”

As we have seen so far, the themes of bravado, reputations and retaliation referred to thosepractices which were used to initiate violence and also to deal with actual and threatenedviolence from men both inside and outside of the gang. Finally, a further practice for dealingwith actual or potential victimisation was the carrying of weapons, albeit as we shall at a laterpoint, respondents were also aware of the risks involved in carrying weapons:

Sean (Aged 18)

“I carry a knife with me”

The carrying of weapons was particularly important when out alone, which most menavoided, particularly following an episode of ‘trouble’ where they tried to make sure they werenot out on the streets unaccompanied as the following quote indicates:

Ricky (Aged 19)

“.if you’ve got a spot of bother with other lads you just try and go out with your matesfor a while if you can”

In summary, therefore, the expectations of hardness and the norms of their gang wereheavily implicated in the continued use of violence by these respondents. In the main, theperpetrators of violence against these young men were other young men in the surrounding areawho ascribed to the same group norms of behaviour including, at times, their own gangmembers. The behavioural practices that these young men engaged in including their acts ofbravado, the managing of reputations, their engagement in retaliation and the carrying ofweapons were all met with violence from others which was likely to escalate. The continuedexpectation of violence meant that even in situations involving high risks of death to oneselfand others, respondents were expected to act through using violence themselves; indeed, byagreeing to help ‘Kris’ in his forthcoming confrontation with the men who have issued deaththreats against him from inside prison, his friends are exposing themselves to the risk of seriousand escalating violence.

A final factor in the continued use of violence by these respondents was the lack of alternativesolutions available to them. All of these young men had a problematic relationship with the police


because they had several criminal convictions and therefore the police were not considered to bea legitimate means of dealing with problems. Moreover, as part of their loyalty to other gangmembers there was an expectation that information would never be given to the police:

Troy (Aged 18)

“.if anyone was to grass then they would be battered and we’d kick em out of the gang”

It was suggested that ‘grassing’ was a despised practice which demonstrated weakness; thismeant that it was considered ‘taboo’ even to grass up those outside of your gang. In thefollowing quotation the respondent suggests that grassing could expose him to yet moreviolence whilst also undermining his reputation as a man:

Lee (Aged 20)

“there’s a name for it, they call it grass.say if I went to the police and said ‘I’ve justbeen jumped by some kids’, if you’re out on the streets you’d get terrorised like, cos theywould come back to sort you out, plus you don’t wanna be known as a grass cos of whatother blokes are gonna think”

In summary, the hard masculinity enacted by these men within the context of their gangmembership fuelled both the violence that they experienced and perpetrated. This meant thatthe violence discussed here was not random; it made sense in ‘action’ and ‘reaction’ terms andthe ‘projection of face’ in public. However, whilst not random the violence was often unpre-dictable because the respondents did not always know when an attack would be perpetrated orsuffered or exactly how it would come about. Behavioural responses to managing both actualand potential victimisation including the use of bravado, relying on reputations, engaging inretaliation and the carrying of weapons all reflected the action/reaction form of the violence andthe unpredictability of its occurrence. Unfortunately, all of the behavioural responses discussedwere implicated in ever escalating violence and importantly fuelled fears and anxieties about it,a factor which has been underexplored in the literature on male violence and it is to this that Inow turn.

4.2. The fears of the ‘fearless’

We have just seen how the continued expectation of ‘hardness’ within the context of thegroup norms of bravado, loyalty, reputation and retaliation helped to fuel the violence describedin the narratives. However, all of the aforementioned themes were also linked to the ‘fears’ andanxieties discussed by these respondents. Although the factor of ‘fear’ has received littleattention in street violence discourse it is evident that the fears discussed by these young menwere extremely important and seemed to act as a driving factor behind their continued use ofviolence.

This research found that the respondents frequently experienced fear during particularincidents of violence and also suggested that anxiety was a constant presence in their lives. Aspreviously explained, the following interview extracts do not strictly discuss ‘fear’ but insteadinvolve (i) recollections of feeling fearful in response to an immediate threat of violenceexperienced in the past and (ii) feelings of anxiety around anticipated threats. What theaccounts do reveal, however, is the fragility of the hard faced public persona exhibited by theserespondents which was covered in the previous section.

It appeared that the fears and anxieties of these young men took the form of a continuum(see Kelly, 1988) ranging from their recollections of ‘fear’ both immediately before and during


specific incidents of violence to their anxieties about future attacks which were linked to theprocess of violence within which they were engaged. Both of these examples were related to anoverall concern about ‘losing face’ which was implicitly linked to the dual identities of beinga hard man and a gang member.

The themes that emerged from the narratives around these two different examples includedfear, chance, losing face, anxiety, reluctance, weariness and triviality. In their recollections ofviolent encounters respondents discussed their fear and adrenalin both before and during suchepisodes; often such recollections included acknowledgements of the high risks of seriousinjury or death presented by such encounters:

Gary (Aged 21)

“.there are times when your legs feel like they are gonna give way, you are shaking,sweating.you know the risks, especially when there’s weapons involved”

These acknowledgements of the risks of death or serious injury within the discussions ofviolent encounters involved the theme of chance. Far from being self-assured about theircontrol of violent incidents, as their ‘hard’ personas might imply, the respondents suggestedthat often outcomes of violent confrontations were simply down to chance:

Ricky (Aged 19)

“Sometimes it just bad luck, innit? You might get stabbed, killed. You wonder, is it gonnabe your turn tonight”

Respondents were more than aware therefore that any power that they may have in a violentencounter could be fleeting and that the chances of serious injury or worse were always high inscenarios where the odds could change dramatically within a matter of minutes or evenseconds:

Danny (Aged 20)

“You are really fucking frightened, cos you know it could all be over in a matter ofminutes, you could lose control that quickly and bang, you’re down”

This meant that each encounter involved taking a step into the unknown and this fuelled thefear described in specific incidents of violence as often respondents had no real way of knowinghow the incident would turn out as suggested in the following quote:

Brad (Aged 16)

“.it’s scary sometimes, you dunno what’s gonna happen”

A further factor that was touched in terms of specific incidents of violence was the combinedfears of ‘someone getting in first’ and the issue of ‘losing face’ if they did. If you were severelybeaten in an incident referred to by the respondents as ‘being battered’ then your reputationwould be damaged as indicated in the following quote:

Mickey (Aged 16)

“.it’s not just the beating, it’s what everyone thinks of you after as well”

Therefore, given the threats to physical safety alongside the potential damage to one’sreputation ‘as a man’ through possibly ‘losing face’, violent confrontations were highlycharged. Because of this the combined threats of someone getting in first, losing face andsuffering severe physical injury were factors that featured in discussions about the carrying ofknives:


Brad (Aged 16)

“You know that other blokes are carrying knives and so you carry one and then in a fightyou pull it out or else if he has got one he will get in there first”

In addition, to their recollections of past incidents in which they had felt fearful, myrespondents also discussed experiencing anxiety about anticipated assaults, especially when outalone; which many of them avoided:

Sean (Aged 18)

“You have to be alert. Kids round here are always ready to start on you. They’re moody;they’ll be looking at you. There’s always a threat of trouble. You’re always looking overyour shoulder, paranoid”

Such anxieties reflected the unpredictability of the violence recalled and this was reflected indiscussions about feelings of unease and the attempts of respondents to make sure that theywere not out alone, albeit sometimes this was not always possible:

Lee (Aged 20)

“You have to be really careful, be on your guard, and suss things out. It is frightening cosyou could walk around the corner and you could get killed or anything. You’re alwaysworried because you never know when it’s gonna come”

The anxiety about street attacks was increased still further when these men had beeninvolved in a recent episode of ‘trouble’ with other men:

Ricky (Aged 19)

“A few times I’ve been worried. If I’ve got into a fight with my mates before and thensomeone’s been after me. If you are out on your own its worse. If I had to go to theDoctors say, I’d be watching. I’d be looking to see who’s about”

As the aforementioned quote indicates, in situations where being alone was unavoidablerespondents described adopting a high level of vigilance where they remained constantly on thelook out for danger. They also explained how they were particularly careful about how theypresented themselves when travelling on public transport alone and when passing groups ofother men:

Sean (Aged 18)

“You’re on your guard. You have to try to look not bothered. You try and look ahead, likeyou’re not frightened but you don’t look at them, cos that might start something off”

These attempts at avoidance of violence when out alone were in direct contrast to thosesituations that were discussed earlier, where respondents described passing other groups ofmen when in the presence of their gang and trying to provoke violence. Therefore thebehaviour described when out alone compared to when out with their gang was verydifferent. Moreover, some respondents did also express feelings of personal reluctanceabout the practice of provoking violence when with their gang and this will be discussedshortly.

Whilst the examples of actual fear during specific incidents arguably involved a peak ina continuum which also included anxieties about anticipated attacks, there were also timeswhen anxiety about assaults increased. For example, respondents reported that they oftenbecame more anxious during periods of ‘trouble’ with other men; indeed, during such


periods, some respondents described being highly agitated and feeling under threat even intheir own homes:

Troy (Aged 18)

29Kris

had jus

friend

“When someone is after you and you know it’s coming, you’re just waiting, watching. It’sfucking tiring cos you can’t switch off. You’re on edge. You can’t do anything. You can’twatch TV, you can’t sleep. One bloke I know, he lives with his mum and his sister and onenight, he got a fucking fireball through the window of his house”

Such anxieties were increased still further if the threat emanated from a man or men withreputations for extreme violence such as murder or manslaughter. In terms of assessing danger,it was very important to know about the reputations of others because this knowledge helpedrespondents to make judgements about the seriousness of risks posed by other men. Whilst allthe men in this study used violence themselves, they suggested that if they had crossed someonewith a reputation for extreme violence29 they were more anxious:

Lee (Aged 20)

“I would be anxious if I’d got trouble with a few people round here. The one’s I’d worryabout, they’ve got reputations, for being really bad. Some people round here havekidnapped people. So I’d be more anxious of blokes like that than of others”

An example of this increased anxiety is demonstrated in the next quotation from Kris, whodespite his own reputation as the hardest of his own gang, is extremely worried about the recent‘death threats’ from a man with a reputation for extreme violence and consequently he makessure that he is never out alone. He is, however, aware that he is unlikely to escape a confron-tation and considers an attack to be inevitable:

Kris (Aged 21)

“I’ve got trouble coming myself and because I’ve seen him kidnap one of my matesalready, he put a fucking glass in his head then tried to drown him. I know what this guycan do. I know he is dangerous. I’m worried, on edge all the time, but I’ve just got to waitand when he comes I’ve got to go for him”

In addition to anxieties over anticipated violence, some respondents also expressed moregeneralised concerns over the ‘climate’ of violence within which they lived, where risks ofdeath or serious injury were high. Indeed, these respondents expressed feelings of ‘nostalgia’for a ‘past’ which was less violent when you supposedly could have a fight and win or losewithout the risk of retaliation:

Troy (Aged 18)

“It’s more violent now than when my dad was young and people carry knives. Cos thenyou could have a fight, but if you won, then you won, that was it. No comeback or nothing,but nowadays if you lose, then you wait till the next time you see him then you go for itagain and then he will get his mates involved and so will you”

An acknowledgement of the scope for escalation in violence through the practice of retal-iation featured heavily in these accounts, particularly when weapons were involved:

was considered the hardest of this group but he had crossed a man with a reputation for extreme violence who

t finished a prison sentence for killing another man and who had recently kidnapped and tried to murder his

in an incident which involved no other men at the time, see earlier quote.


Brad (Aged 16)

You just don’t stop. Until someone’s killed basically, like if someone pulls a knife or getsa gun”.

A related point here was that respondents discussed their awareness of the potentially highcosts of their compliance with group norms; showing a dissonance between the expectations oftheir gang and worries about their own physical safety:

Troy (Aged 18)

“You know you could be a dead man really easy, especially when someone has a knife orsomething. But it’s just what’s expected. It’s what everyone expects of you”

It was for these reasons that some respondents suggested that privately they did not alwayswant to get involved with ‘trouble’ involving retaliatory attacks:

Ricky (Aged 19)

“To be honest at times you just don’t wanna know.your mate will ring up and ask you tomeet him to sort someone out and you just want to stay at home, drink a beer and staysafe”

Some respondents also suggested that when they passed other groups of men on thestreets, when in the company of their gang, that personally they often hoped nothing would‘kick off’:

Lee (Aged 20)

“Sometimes you see a group of guys and you just want to get past them, you know. Youcould end up dead over someone else’s trouble, mouthing off, anything. Sometimes I justwant an ordinary life, you know, none of this shit, just to have a job, come home to yourfamily and watch the telly”

This reluctance was linked to another theme in the discussions wherein some of the factorsfrom which the violence arose were perceived to be trivial and petty:

Mickey (Aged 16)

“It’s pointless sometimes, the fighting and that. It can be over nothing”

These acknowledgements of reluctance and the sometimes trivial precursors to violencewere also linked to the theme of weariness. Some respondents suggested that they sometimesfelt tired of the constant pressure of living under the threat and expectation of violence:

Danny (Aged 20)

“It’s constant, never ending really”

Reference was made to the emotional and mental strains of living under the constantexpectation and anticipation of violence which was particularly demanding followingepisodes of ‘trouble’ where respondents were living under the knowledge that someone was‘after them’:

Gary (Aged 21)

“It grinds you down”

These feelings were also linked to talk about distancing oneself from violence and thesediscussions often touched on the idea of ‘getting away’ from the situation:


Danny (Aged 20)

30Such

“You get weary sometimes. You don’t talk about it but when you have got someone afteryou, it can get too much and you wanna get away”

Some of these accounts involved respondents joking about a geographical move such asgoing to live in what they perceived to be a more tranquil geographical space like a holidayresort:

Craig (Aged 17)

“There are times when you want to end it. You know. You feel like running away. I thinkabout moving to the seaside sometimes”, laughs

In reality, however, distancing oneself from violence whilst remaining in the area wasproblematic and attempts to do so were often futile owing to the group expectations and theongoing nature of the violence which meant that past disputes kept resurfacing:

Kris (Aged 21)

“When I was younger I was always starting fights and it just keeps coming back on menow. I’ve tried to cut down on fighting and crime and that. I’ve got a son but stuff from mypast keeps on coming back. These blokes that are after me now have come back from thepast. They’ve been inside and now they’re out and after me. Say I did something threeyears ago. That bloke could drive past and then jump out of a car and start on me. Italways comes back to you”

In summary, what these interviews reveal is the fragility of the hard faced personademonstrated by these respondents. The personal acknowledgements detailed here indicate thatthe ‘hardness’ of these respondents involved a public act that was often very difficult tomaintain and which also involved huge personal risks and costs. Furthermore, the discussions offear and anxieties, including the acknowledgements of the dangers presented by violence,alongside the expressions of weariness, reluctance and desires to leave violent lives,30allsuggest that the commitment of these young men to violence and gang norms was at timesquestionable. The extracts above indicate a tension between the public ‘hard’ persona and gangmember and the private selves of the respondents; where sometimes the questioning of groupnorms and expectations fuelled by acknowledgements of the compromise to their own physicalsafety and emotional well being did occur. Whilst acknowledging that these respondents did useviolence, I suggest that arguably, theirs is not the confidence of an accomplished user; such asthe arrogant conquistadores often depicted in the media, but rather resembles the anxiousstrutting pose of a frightened adolescent who is not always sure about what he is doing, why heis doing it or whether he really wants to do it.

5. Explanations for the findings

I have previously argued that the fears and anxieties of these young men took the form ofa continuum (see Kelly, 1988) ranging from their recollections of fear both immediatelybefore and during specific incidents of violence to anxieties about attacks, which were linkedto the process of violence with which they were engaged. Ironically because of the hard

desires are discussed in more detail in a later article.


masculinities that they adopted and the group norms that informed it they lived witha constant sense of vigilance and anxiety. Potentially these respondents were at risk ofphysical violence and of ‘losing face’ from every direction, from complete strangers and frommen like themselves including those in other gangs and their own. Perhaps, the penultimaterisk was from themselves, because they were acutely aware that they could fail to live up tothe expectations of others and thereby their own expectations of themselves as men. There-fore, every man was a potential threat to both his collective and individual senses ofmanhood.

The risk of physical victimisation was particularly troubling for the men in this studybecause the stakes were high; if they failed to demonstrate sufficient physical and psychologicalpower in violent confrontations then the potential outcome was serious bodily harm or death.Indeed, given the involvement of weapons and/or several other parties in confrontations, thiswas always a possibility no matter how physically capable of fighting a man was; as encountersand results were volatile and unpredictable often based on chance. A further consequencewould be the exposure of their ‘hard persona’ as a charade,31 which could result in furthervictimisation from men outside the group and possibly also the risk of being assaulted andshunned by those in their own peer group.

Indeed, the narratives revealed that my respondents were acutely aware that that they couldfail to live up to the one version of ‘successful’ masculinity that had potentially been accessibleto them because their accomplishment of hardness was always transient. Given their lack ofeducation and employment this risk was especially troubling as they knew that other ways of‘being a man’ such as being a wage earner or provider were currently unavailable to them,indeed all of these men were living with their mothers and had no proper income or home oftheir own.

We can theorise the nature of this dilemma fuelled by unease about masculine identities bydrawing on Beck’s (1992: 28) vision of a ‘risk society’ which refers to:

31See

“living with a calculative attitude to the open possibilities of action, positive andnegative, which, as individuals and globally we are confronted with in a continuous way”

Building upon Beck’s vision, Young (2002: 562) refers to an actuarial stance where peopleare wary and are preoccupied with damage limitation. The question now, he suggests, is “whatlikelihood there is of your rules being broken and that unit of risk is your chance of victim-isation”. This preoccupation with damage limitation and your rules and norms being brokenleads me to a consideration of Goffman’s (1972) notion of the ‘Umwelt’. The Umwelt refers toa core of accomplished normality with which individuals and groups surround themselves. TheUmwelt has two dimensions: the “ore” in which one feels secure and the area in which one isaware; and secondly the area of apprehension, which shrinks and expands in relation to one’ssurroundings. The nature of the Umwelt varies by social category, class and age, it is genderedand racialised. Young (2002: 566) refers to another sign of Umwelt, that of ‘apprehensionwhilst keeping a lookout for indications of prey and the possibility of predation’.

By applying these ideas to the narratives discussed here, I argue that the area of appre-hension for my respondents involved threats of violence which threatened their physical wellbeing and which they needed to neutralise, whilst at the same time, they also needed to protectand retain control over their ‘ore’ e the core of their accomplished normality e their

Gilligan (1996) on humiliation as a factor in murders by men.


heterosexual, hard, masculinities by not ‘losing face’. They attempted to achieve the latter bybeing vigilant, carrying weapons and using violence. However, the behavioural tactics that theyused to defend their ‘ore’, their masculine identities, served to increase the threats to theirphysical safety in the area of apprehension. It was the tension between these two facets thatinformed perceptions of risks alongside fears and anxieties as revealed in their discussions.

The driving factors behind the violence were more complex therefore than has sometimesbeen assumed in portrayals of street violence and could not simply be explained as involvingthe need to demonstrate a hard masculinity, and this also reflected the correspondingcomplexity of the power relationships involved. For several years, writers have referred to howsome young men construct masculine identities in order to resist structural disempowerment32

by forming peer groups with their own moral codes and values.33 In this way, young men havebeen said to use and subvert cultural norms to develop and assert masculine status bydemonstrating toughness and putting down others; such accounts may depict the embodimentof a tough masculinity and the frequent use of violence and carrying of weapons as a form ofresistance to structural disempowerment.

There are, however, problems with seeing the development of masculine identities in thisway, not least, because it grossly over-simplifies the complexities of the power relationshipsinvolved and perhaps, more importantly, because it detracts from the negative effects of suchresistance and the implications for others and the men themselves. As, we have seen theseyoung men were perpetrators of serious violence against others and were also on the receivingend of such violence and these facts must be addressed.

A fluid conceptualisation of power informed by the work of Foucault (1978) is preferable tomore ‘structuralist’ accounts based on resistance, because the former locates power within indi-vidual experiences and accounts for its shifting nature. Such a conceptualisation is helpful whenexamining the power relationships both between social groupings and within particular encountersbetween individuals especially important when considering street violence between young men.

An account of power as fluid is essential to the argument being made here, which is that whilstthe actions of the young men are, in part, driven by their engagement with a ‘hard’ version ofmasculinity within the context of a gang whose ‘norms’ expect and encourage violence, they arealso largely driven by the fears and anxieties that are generated by such behaviour most notablythe fear of ‘losing face’ and of suffering serious physical harm or being killed.

A fluid conceptualisation of power can also help to explain contradictionswithin social identitiesincluding conflicts between public and private versions of self which underpinned the identities,fears and anxieties discussed. The narrative accounts here revealed that masculine identity involveda social construction and accordingly the men experienced imbalances and shifts in power. Indeed,these respondents were both powerful and powerless in relation to othermen and their constructionsof masculine identities continually fluctuated between these two polar opposites in terms of boththeir structural circumstances and also their encounters of street violence.

Whilst they lacked control over many areas of their lives they attempted to control twothings; (1) the right to define what it meant to be a ‘real man’ and (2) the right to defineownership of social spaces within the geographical area based on their version of masculinity.The irony is that these men engaged in this hyper-aggressive version of masculine identitybecause it was familiar, it was expected by their peers and it was more accessible than otherversions of ‘successful’ masculine identities.

32Early accounts of such resistance include Taylor et al. (1973), see also Hall (2002), Hall and Winlow (2003).33See Willis (1977) and Sewell (1997).


However, this accomplishment of a ‘hard’ persona was always a work in progress which keptthem in a permanent limbo of physical and emotional threat by rendering them at risk of seriousinjury or death whilst posing a constant test to their identities as hard men; leaving them ina continual state of anxiety over both. Therefore, in contrast to their structural powerlessness,whilst they did exercise some power in terms of their gang membership and abusive behaviourtowards others, this power was always transient and constantly under threat from other men;including those in their own peer group. This ‘hard’ persona also severely limited the possibilityof adopting different versions of masculinity and, in turn, kept their life opportunities limitedwhich often left them feeling powerless in terms of their futures.

A fluid conceptualisation of power can therefore help to theorise both the fears around theunpredictability of violence as described in recollections of individual encounters and also thefeelings of powerlessness touched upon when living under a constant sense of threat and antici-pation of harm. It can also explain how these fluctuations in power were implicated in the fears andanxieties described and how they informed behavioural strategies such as the carrying of knives anduse of retaliation. Finally, a fluid conceptualisation of power can help us to go beyond a focus onstructural factors and aggression and enables us to look more deeply at other issues.

In their discussion of their ‘on-road’ respondents, Hallsworth and Silverstone (2009:373)have written of how capitalism destructively reproduces itself from above; by marginalisingand excluding its poorest citizens, it creates its concomitant effect, patterns of destructive self-reproduction from below. Here, they argue, a small number of socially marginalised men havecome to respond to their predicament destructively, in what comes close to what ThomasHobbes described as a war of ‘all against all’. This is the zone of the outlaw where deeplyinternalised anger and rage among depoliticised and deeply alienated young men finds violentexpression. The tragedy here is that the rage and anger they feel is not directed outwards andtowards the world that marginalised them; instead it is directed inwards and towards each other.

Whilst, we must always acknowledge the structural factors behind street violence, muchresearch has continued to focus on the aggression of young men. However, in order to gaina more holistic picture of street violence, it is important to be mindful of the risk of focussingexclusively on aggression as this may generate a distorted view of the problem.34 It is vital tobear in mind the effect of the other side of the violent dynamic by focussing on accounts ofvictimisation, fears and anxieties and in doing so, to also look at the whole self, including boththe public and the private versions and the resulting contradictions within narrative accounts.

6. Conclusion

The driving force behind the assaults that the young men in this study perpetrated againstothers was not simply their rage and anger or their desire to exhibit power through aggressionby demonstrating a ‘hard masculinity’ in response to their structural powerlessness. Rather Iargue that it frequently involved the realisation of the fragility of their masculine identities,their self-doubt, and their increasing awareness that their ‘hardness’ involved a socialconstruction that they may not be able to perpetuate or indeed, even want to perpetuate. It isthrough an acknowledgement of such fears, anxieties and contradictions in young men’sexperiences that we may be able to develop a better understanding of their behaviours andinform policy accordingly.

34See also Gunter (2008).


Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Mr Graham Ferris, Dr Jonathan Doak and Dr Paul Hamiltonfrom the Departments of Law and Criminology at Nottingham Trent University for theirvaluable feedback on earlier drafts. Any omissions or errors remain my own.

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Fears of the fearless

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