Just as I have replaced the term ‘delinquent gang’ with ‘enterprise gang’, I refer to Yablonsky’s ‘mob’ with a different term: the ‘spontaneous gathering’. This is to reflect the fact that the word ‘mob’ is language of Yablonsky’s era and is no longer regularly used in daily parlance: indeed, participants in my research did not used the term. However, several participants did refer to their involvement in spontaneous gatherings, taking part in collective, illegal acts. These gatherings were characterised by their near-instantaneous formations, and their activities rarely resulted in the accrual of financial gain. Participants had normally taken part in spontaneous gatherings during their adolescence, identifying these formative experiences as precursors to their involvement in gangs: participating in disorganized, spontaneous violence allowed these young people to show resistance to authority, and a willingness to engage in public, law- breaking acts. However, the compositions of spontaneous gatherings were the opposite to those of a gang. For example, reflecting the language of Yablonsky’s original study, Kelly (2011: 1) refers to a ‘mob’ as an “amorphous [group that] ... has little central focus, little organization or structure … [and] no clear roles as leader or mediator or representative. These groups are commonly found in urban and race riots or in post catastrophe looting. It is a free-for-all” (Kelley 2011: 1). Likewise, participants in my research described the compositions of their spontaneous gatherings in terms which were the opposite of how they described gangs. Whereas many gangs were characterised by leadership, hierarchy and pre-existing social ties, a spontaneous gathering was composed of individuals who mostly did not know each other prior to the event:
During the Salford riots, it was just, basically, a whole lot of us got together. Just people from Salford. And were these people you knew? No, not really. Some of us were mates, but not all of us. We took part in what we saw as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was our way of saying “these are our streets”; having pitched battles with the police, putting up barricades.
Ben, Non-Gang Member, HMP Forest Bank
Years ago, when I used to be at school, it always used to be Asians against Whites. Like in Glodwick, where the riots was, there was never no whites allowed in there. And my part of Oldham, there was never no Asians allowed there. So, we’d cross into those areas to deliberately provoke fights. Just loads of fights, between schools and … just madness, all over nothing really. Happened many times. And who’d usually win those fights? To be honest, we never really classed it who won or who lost. It just got stopped and that were it.
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Either it got stopped by the Police or it just got out of hand and both of us just like separated.
Bill, Gang Member, HMP Forest Bank
There were many such accounts delivered by participants, who described the spontaneous nature of their collective violence, including the use of weapons and resulting serious injuries. Older participants also spoke of the role football hooliganism played in inculcating them with a propensity for violence prior to their involvement in gangs (see also Williams et al. 1984; Garland and Treadwell 2010). Analysing these accounts was also useful when attempting to define ‘the gang’, principally because, in many ways, spontaneous gatherings were the opposite of gangs: whereas several participants described gangs as characterized by a degree of planning and preparation, the spontaneous gatherings which pervaded the Greater Manchester riots of 2011 were “people just jumping on the bandwagon. Obviously, they heard about something and just wanted to join in. It’s not planned” (Noah, Gang Member, HMP Manchester). Such gatherings did not contain hierarchy, a division of roles, structure, or planned violence - things which could be attributed to many gangs. Numerous participants spoke of their experiences in such gatherings, which would often be characterised by extreme violence:
And it would just, like, happen. Groups from rival schools would batter each other. We’d use fists, weapons, tyre-wrenches, whatever. Amir, Gang Member, HMP Forest Bank
I remember one time, I was only young, like, about 17. But I was outside a club, and I’d see a liberty being taken: a group of lads all attacking this one lad by himself. So, I had to act – to get involved. And before you knew it there was about thirty or forty lads. Some of me mates from inside the club come out to help me. And then, bottles are being broken over heads, me shoe came off, one of me mates got a chair and knocked another lad out. And I was kind of enjoying it, it’s a bit like an extreme sport. You don’t think of the injury side – you get over that, over the years. Cos, you couldn’t do it otherwise.
Tim, Former Offender, Manchester
The responses delivered by Amir and Tim illustrated the significant role held by violence in ‘spontaneous gatherings’. Incidents such as the ones above show how these gatherings often marked the beginning of one’s involvement in more serious delinquency. There was the germination of allegiances and conflict based along certain lines, such as “rival schools” (Amir). Another older, serving prisoner (Tony, Non-Gang Member, HMP Manchester) referred to “a lot of the scraps back in the day being about leathering someone for wearing a
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rival football shirt, or even having a different accent, which showed you were from a different part of town”. Similarly, spontaneous gatherings could also show the beginnings of ideas around self-concept, purpose, and ‘a mission’: for example, getting involved in violence if one saw “a liberty being taken”. This notion of purpose was axiomatic to the violent gang, as I go on to illustrate in the next section of this chapter. Moreover, engagement in ‘spontaneous gatherings’ assisted individuals in becoming proficient at being able to ‘do’ violence, something which was necessary if one was to join a ‘near group’ or a ‘violent gang’. In the following section of this chapter, I describe the characteristics and delineations between these two gang ‘types’, and particularly focus on illustrating how the ‘near group’ transformed into the ‘violent gang’. I continue to draw on primary data gathered from gang members and use their testimonies to illustrate how progression occurred between these gang ‘types’ which were on a ‘gang continuum’.