The word "gang" has a long history in our language, and some of that history sheds light on contemporary use of the term and on present social attitudes toward designated groups of adolescents in our cities. In early English usage, "gang" was often employed as a synonym for "a going, a walking, or a journey"; in this sense it traces its origin to the Scandinavian languages. There was also another common meaning of the word, one with an Anglo-Saxon derivation, which appears in print as early as 1340, and which is equivalent to "a number of things used together or forming a complete set." The linguistic ideas of "a journey" and "a set of things" were shortly combined so that "gang", came to stand for a crew of a ship or companies of mariners. The etymology of the word "gang" provides a starting point from which to examine contemporary social views about gangs. These social views are constructed from an amalgam of fact, myth, and stereotype, and like all such views, they tend to elicit and to perpetuate the process that they seek to describe.
It is one of the noteworthy insights of social. Sciences that the isolation and labeling of forms of behavior tend to solidify and sometimes to increase such behavior. Labeling provides a definitional framework in its recognition of a phenomenon, adding a further dimension to its previous characteristics. It is one thing to drink intoxicating beverages, but it is often quite another to violate the law by such behavior. It is one thing to hang around with a group of boys, but another thing to be a member of a gang; and the particular self and social definition imparted to the behavior may sometimes greatly affect the behavior itself.
In the United States, the emphasis on........
