Youth Gangs in Wales: Blocked Opportunities and Broken Transitions—A Generational Evolution from Troublesome Youth Groups to ‘Gangs’ in South Wales?

With few exceptions, existing UK youth gang research has focused rather narrowly on large cities in England. The serious organised and drug-related violence found among young people in some ‘inner-city’ and socially deprived conurbations is seldom replicated among young people in less densely populated areas, such as south Wales. However, drawing on observations derived from the two principal ethnographic studies of marginalised and deviant young people in Wales (see Williamson and Williamson 1981, Williamson 2004, 2021; Maher 2007), this chapter examines the origins, growth and issues particular to youth ‘street’ culture in Wales and considers the applicability of the idea of the ‘gang’ to define and delineate lifestyles, attitudes and activities.