The Co-Relationship between Inter-Gang Conflicts for Longitudinal Expansion and Retain Their Identification in an Urban Context

Abstract

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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