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Parts of Sandton town centre were perceived to be ‘owned’ or ‘possessed’ by certain groups of young people, whom the youth centre-based young people would class as ‘others’ and ‘outsiders’. The young people in Sandton were scared about the threat of these ‘other’ young people reflecting ‘middle class fears about dangerous or underserving youth’ (Pearson, 1983: 64; Valentine, 2004). The youth-centre based young people articulated a populist discourse about young people being ‘disorderly’, ‘to be feared’ and ‘anti-social’. They feared being shouted at, attacked, and beaten up by other young people. The findings from this research concur with Deakin’s (2006) assertion that young people are more likely to be the victims of harassment, assault or verbal abuse by other young people. This was regularly talked about in Sandton:

“I’ve had things shouted at me, been spat at a couple of times… there used to be a massive group like chavs and they used to get this little kid who, I still see him walking around, and they used to push him and tell him to hit people and he used to come up to you and proper punch you and then he would be like laughing, he would only be like 7, and he would be eating things and then he would spit what he had eaten, like half eaten on people and that it was gross…there were loads of them and there was like 17 lads and like 3 or 4 girls all dressed in like trackies and hoodies and stuff and the girls were in tiny skirts and I was like I am going to avoid you and then they start running after you and chasing you and like spitting at you and shouting and stuff” (Female 15 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

As already noted in Chapter Seven, the young people in Sandton had less confidence in the police than those in Rockford. Consequently, the young people in Sandton were generally reluctant to report to the police and their victimisation essentially remained hidden. A circular motion was apparent whereby they felt that the police did not understand their situation which then fed back into their reluctance to report. The research findings presented here corroborate the work of others (see Anderson et al., 1990; Loader, 1996):

“Because most of the time it is young people that are a victim of other young people’s attacks and they [police] don’t really focus on that” (Male 14 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

The young people from Sandton youth centre would blame ‘others’ if any problems or trouble in the area occurred. These ‘others’ were ‘problematic’ young people who were regarded as ‘outsiders’ and were the reason that all young people were perceived negatively and got a bad name. One young person described this group as:

“The people who go around threatening, there is loads of nice people but then there is like quite a lot of mean people who are like, lots of them don’t realise that they are mean but they are they just intimidate you” (Female 15 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

These ‘problematic’ young people were often categorised as ‘chavs’ or ‘gangs’, and were seen as the reason for the young people’s perceived lack of safety in the town centre:

“Gangs and hoodies, they’re scary because of their image. They have always got those dogs too, staffies walking around with them that scare me” (Female 14 Sandton Outreach-based).

“I think chavs are the worst for giving abuse out like when they are all stood in a group all together and I think they are the ones who try and cause fights, they are more gobby… chavs, I don’t know, a lot of the time, they are just intimidating and they shout stuff when you walk past and that” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

The term ‘chav’ often overlaps with the characteristics of an ‘anti-social person (see Bawdon, 2009; Martin, 2009 and Nayak, 2003). The derogatory term used by the youth centre-based young people towards the working class young people in Sandton was evidence of the ways in which the young people separated themselves away from the ‘others’. As already noted in Chapter Six, the ‘othering’ (Skeggs 2005) of the working class by middle class ‘ideals’ (Lawler, 2005) using the term ‘Chav’ has been suggested as being a new form of classism (Hayward and Yar, 2006).

“Othering enables the middle classes to focus on aspects of their identities which they wish to hold up as defining their groups’ characteristics (e.g. middle

class taste, intelligence, refinement), while denying these characteristic to the working class other” (Holt and Griffin, 2005: 248).

The young people in Sandton who attended the youth organisation claimed that they were the subject of regular harassment from ‘gangs’ of other young people who they feared would physically assault them. Young people in Sandton reported feeling most vulnerable when they walking alone in public space and coming into contact with ‘gangs’ or groups of ‘other’ young people. This was reiterated when young people were asked about what worried them the most:

“I think its gangs in Sandton, you know like gangs being violent” (Male 16 Sandton Outreach-based)

“Like bullies really, I don’t know because of loads of chavs and stuff. Sometimes they would all shout stuff at me, because of my hair…just when chavs are shouting at me, I think” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview). “I get really intimidated by big gangs – I always cross over the street” (Female 15 Sandton Outreach-based).

When some young people did see groups of young people this made them feel uncomfortable:

“Sometimes walking through town and you see big groups of people you do feel uncomfortable when you are on your own and you walk a bit faster and stuff, there are quite a few different groups in town like that will hang around outside the main bit of town and [fast food outlet] by there and they can be quite intimidating when you are walking past on your own and you are not with anyone else. There are still times when I walk past the shop and I think I will just put my head down put my headphones in and quickly walk past them” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

“I just put my hood up and my earphones in and… that’s why we always like move because like, this sounds stereotypical as well, but all like young people drinking and everything, so wherever you go there is going to be some people drinking but like you might have heard of it but when we use to hang around at the skate park loads of things kept happening like, erm I don’t want to say chavs because its dead stereotypical but like, but people like that came and set the ramps on fire and robbing peoples bikes and robbing their stuff and that” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

In Rockford, young people hardly ever applied labels to other young people, when compared to Sandton. The consumption of the latest trends and styles was not something that the young people in Rockford participated in, due to expense. It was not unusual to see many young people in the youth organisation in their school uniforms or pyjamas. However, due to territoriality as detailed in Chapter Six, Many young people in Rockford felt unable to attend the youth centre due to rivalry between young people:

“There will be some people scared to come here because of who else comes here I do find that a lot…yeah you always get that especially here. It’s because it depends on people who have got a reputation and also because they’ve probably been bullied by someone in there that’s the most likely thing. I mean I know people who won’t come here because they get bullied they’ve been bullied by certain people even a few years ago and it’s probably blown over by now but they’re still afraid of them and they’re probably twice the size of them now and that shouldn’t be a problem but it’s just that and then you’ve got people who are less confident and erm they just want to stay away and avoid it so” (Female 16 Rockford youth-centre Interview).

Some young people on Outreach explained why they did not go to the youth organisation:

Researcher: “So why do you come here [skate park] and not the youth centre?”:

Young male 1: “Because we’d rather come here [skate park]” Young male 2: “Because of the people”.

Young male 4: “Yeah that’s probably like where all the drug dealers go”. Young male 1: “Because we get picked on. All the chavs go to that youth club”

Young male 5: “There’s a lot of chav’s go though isn't there to be fair, to be fair”

Young male 3: “Does [young person] still go there? I don’t want to go if she goes there” (Five Males 15 Rockford Outreach-based).

These divisions and spatial boundaries were evident in Rockford, however they were not class-based like in Sandton. Instead they reflected territorial behaviour as part of their super place attachment to Rockford.

In Sandton, one young person discussed the group divisions:

“I think it’s the divide in young people because of what people class as different groups like chavs and emos and moshers and stuff. It’s like if a group of chavs saw a mosh walking down the road it would be like shouting abuse at them just because they are seen as different people to them…and like also the moshers would say chavs and stuff its very like that” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

The above description highlighted how the ‘labelling’ process worked in Sandton. This became an everyday occurrence for the young people there. It caused tensions and was not a positive experience:

“It is hard, it’s a big thing ...like because you can’t be in the middle you have to be either a ‘mosh’ or a ‘emo’ or a ‘chav’ and there is some massive conflict between them. It’s just like you can’t walk down the street, and say you’re in a group of people that is one side and if you are in a group of people that is the other, then they are automatically glaring at each other. I don’t mean this in like a biased way but usually the moshery people are just walking past and then the chavs like keeping up their image being like oh I’m gonna go and bang yeh going to hit you and push you and stuff and spit at you and you just think go away you wouldn’t do that to anyone else, and the fact that I am small as well the girls go look you’re a midget’ and I am just thinking shut up” (Female 15 Sandtonyouth-centre Interview).

Rivalries between groups of young people in both case study sites were not sex specific with both female and male interviewees reporting incidences of conflict. In Sandton, the majority of the young people aware of tension and rivalry between groups were aged between 13 to 17 years old, whereas in Rockford this tended to span a wider range, from about 10 to 18 years old. The young people in each locality created complex and tight boundaries, and this would often result in conflicts between the groups as well as restricting the young people’s mobility. These ‘tyrannical spaces’ were defined as no-go areas and areas of danger and threat, which Percy-Smith and Matthews (2001: 50) have called ‘neighbourhood bullying’. Many young people felt unable to cross certain boundaries associated with other groups of young people. Young people were, therefore, excluded from spaces if they were unable to afford access, and also due to the ‘hostility’ from other groups of young people who wanted to control certain local areas (Travlou, 2003: 9). Sports facilities,

skate parks, parks and youth centres were all examples of places which certain young people would go or not go due to the crossing of ‘invisible territorial markers’ (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2004: 450). In Sandton, many young people who attended the youth centre would not go to the skate park or other parks in the area:

“I wouldn’t even go to take my little brother, I wouldn’t just go there” (Female 15 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

“I don’t think that I would go on one of the parks in my area, just because I know that not gangs but groups of lads that are like people that are older than me and they still go and get drunk on there and stuff and a lot of them, especially the girls, want to start fighting when they have had a drink and that and I am not like that I don’t like confrontation at all” (Female 16 Sandton youth-centre Interview).

The notion of young people drinking was a common recurring theme in Sandton. Some of the young people, when not at the youth organisation, would drink alcohol with friends. The perceived risks of this behaviour and threats to their personal safety when drunk was an issue bought up in an educational session at the youth organisation in Sandton entitled ‘Unsafe Behaviour’. A learning mentor at a local school also voiced her concern about young people drinking alcohol in Sandton, reminiscent of the Police’s concerns in Chapter Seven:

“Drinking is by far the biggest problem…more than ever the biggest problem is with drinking and they [young people] are more open about it than ever before. One girl I know said she had drunk half a bottle of vodka the night before and she was in school the next morning with no hangover. Their bodies are getting used to it and it scares me” (Learning Mentor Sandton Interview).

Though some young people in Rockford did drink alcohol, it was not as prominent as in Sandton. Underage drinking Valentine (1997) suggests may often be seen as a resistance to adult power. It posed risks to the young person’s own health and safety. Crossing boundaries also proved to be dangerous In Sandton. One young person described being verbally attacked by a group of young people outside a popular food outlet in Sandton:

“I wasn’t even dressed my usual way, I wasn’t even wearing my bag that day, just what I usually wear and I don’t see what was wrong. I think, no, they didn’t

even know us I have never seen any of them before in my life, they just come up to us and spit at us and stuff” (Female 15 Sandtonyouth-centre Interview).

During a session at the youth centre in Sandton, young people were invited to write on individual pieces of paper what they perceived to be a dangerous situation. Figures eight and nine illustrate that being attacked by this group was a dominant issue.

Figure 8 A dangerous situation by a 15 year old male in Sandton.