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Themes of the book
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* Philip Gooderson describes the "modern" (!) Phenomenon of emergence of a violent youth culture, especially in working-class Birmingham tw. gang-accepted dimensions. Anyone who thinks that youth gangs, as we know, for example. From major US cities it, a phenomenon of the 20th century were very much mistaken.
* Backgrounds for this development were:
- Urbanization and industrialization trends during the 19th century, which meant that more and more working-class families lived in slum-like dwellings with many children from major cities such as Birmingham. Unlike today, where the number of children is decreasing and youth quasi represents a "treasure", there was at that time a great number of children and young people, who had to deal with on the road.
- In this respect, (discipline of) violence in authoritarian family background, in factories / handicraft businesses, in schools, in political campaign events, etc. on the agenda was, violence was also a key factor in the (self-) socialization of children and adolescents - particularly from the working class. Sociologists would here say that physical violence in education served as a communications medium. As this medium, at least in Western countries, collapsed in the 2nd half of the 20th century, the teachers were faced with task as "discipline" their pupils should. It has now the impression that above all on "(vulgar) psychologizing" with all kinds of therapies and medicine (keyword: Ritalin & Co) (ADS, ADHD, etc..) Is set to immobilize any behavioral problems children and young people.
- Anyway, in the last third of the 19th century sometimes took the youth violence in Birmingham almost epidemic proportions, which also attacks on police were normal. Especially throwing (Brick) stones at police seems to have been a kind of national sport of the working classes-Rowdies. In short, target of hatred of the working class was the police!
- The end of the 19th century these youth violence could increasingly be curbed by:
-> Longer sentences (previously were physical assaults sometimes almost treated as minor offenses and dismissed by a fine)
-> Better and more systematic police monitoring
-> Improve living conditions (demolition of slums, etc.)
-> Offer of leisure activities for young people (especially boxing clubs and the emergence of football can increasingly the function of aggression regulation operate when there may be new physical confrontations even at football matches)
-> Separation of juvenile and adult offenders in reform institutions / prisons, etc.
etc.
However, does not mean that that street gangs are no longer relevant in the 20th / 21st century. A look at the news is enough to convince even in industrialized countries the opposite. But although one sometimes gets the impression that the violence increased in the streets in recent years, you have to wonder whether this is not seated a media distortion. For the whole of the appeal has fallen on physical violence in our days as compared to the 19th century probably "massively" (!).
Facing an increasing electronic surveillance by cameras and telecommunications facilities at all (-> Summer of Snowden) and the above-mentioned Psychologisierungs- and Medizinalisierungstendenzen in schools, however, the further question arises as to whether now is not more subtle ways of conduct disciplining the crude recourse to violence replace.
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Legibility
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The reading was often a bit tiring for me, because it dominates the orientation of newspaper articles and court records. As interesting as it may be in individual cases, the detailed list of all possible types of injury (sometimes, but apparently less common than today: death) was for me at times simply "too much",
so that I have repeatedly skipped some pages.
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Desideratum
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Although the reasons for the emergence of violent youth culture are beautifully dissected, a deeper connection would for example. Sociological research desirable. Sociologically could analyze violence namely eg as a communication medium, the collapse in the 19th / 20th century. Even a connection to Michael Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" conceivable - and then the question would arise as to which ideological distortion effects can be observed in the presentation of the urban working class milieus. For one must at the newspaper articles and court records the perspectives
and biases the upper and middle classes to the respected as a threat to the working class (Tags: socialism / communism / trade union movement, etc.) and the associated IA Youth Culture ib consider.
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Conclusion
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Recommended reading an historically been neglected phenomenon in the modern era, in which you can be glad that you were not socialized at this time in this environment!
~ PB
