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When the surrounding factor of Colombo city is concerned it provided a greater
privilege for Gangs. Some of the gang members are born in Colombo while
others have become residents in Colombo owing to their marriages,
employment or being unauthorized dwellers, thereby they could became either
founders in forming gangs or co-partners of maintaining groups. When the
gravity of such mentality is concerned those youth who were born in streets and
grew up as street children without legal ownership of any land tend to find a
permeant place for settling, eventually it builds a mentality to behave as heroic
bandits. It also could observe that each one of them had to assess the duration of
their experience in urban community as a formal indicator used for accessing
gang or the gang identity. The geographical ownership inherited to them from
their ancestors also considered whereas, some youths get opportunity to join
gangs through senior gangsters, friends, or relatives. The Research focused on
493 identified youth gang members belonging to 75 gangs within 14 GN
divisions in Colombo city, within the age group of 18 32 years. All the said
gangs and the gang members were identified within the study area through a
snowball technique using available contacts and via. the data gathered using
formal research methods. In addressing the above, this paper has been
developed to understand the factors that conflict youth onto the streets and the
factors that playa pivotal part in sustaining them on the streets, giving specific
emphasis to youth gangs operating in Colombo and suburbs. In supplementing,
the research focused on areas to ascertain the expansion way through their
conflicts and negative impact youth gangs have on the lives of general public in
the specified area. As a whole, appropriately followed localization method is a
crucial factor for a gang to p~rform in a planned and secured manner. Basically,
a sufficient time margin might be necessary for a gang to be established in a
geographical area. As an average, it needs minimum 5 years of duration to attain
