Therefore, it is difficult to get out of crime
The neighborhood means everything, says a sociologist who has spent nine years on the streets of Copenhagen with criminals from minority communities.
Violent gangs and groups of delinquent young people from minority communities live in troubled areas of the largest cities in the world.
They sell drugs and have violent confrontations with gangs from other areas. They live in the neighborhood they grew up in, along with their non-criminal family members.
When they decide to find a way of life other than crime, they often have to move away and break with the past.
– It is an extremely complex process. They have to somehow leave everything they know, says researcher Mette-Louise E. Johansen.
Gata means everything
For many, it is difficult to live without the environment. It means everything to them, says sociologist Hakan Kalkan.
As part of his research, he has hung out with criminals on the streets of Nørrebro in Copenhagen for a year. He has written about the research in the book Roads to respect – about street life in Nørrebro.
– The most marginalized spend their entire social lives on the streets. It often starts in the teens when they spend time in public spaces with childhood friends, says Kalkan, who is a researcher at the Institute for People and Technology at Roskilde University.
– The neighborhood means a lot to them. This is where they spend most of their everyday life, and where they experience and community that is accepted and recognized. The neighborhood is important for identity, and there are often battles with groups from other areas, he continues.
Crime, violence and drugs are part of life, and young people often go in and out of prison.
But in everyday life, most of the time is spent just hanging out, playing football or barbecuing, says Kalkan.
Street life is not glamorous
Gradually, street life becomes less and less attractive.
– When they get older, it is no longer so glamorous to live a marginalized existence on the streets with the risk of ending up behind bars. Then they start talking about wanting to move on, says the researcher.
– Some manage it on their own, or there may be several in the same group of friends who want to continue and who support each other. For others, having to leave the environment can be very lonely.
Some gang members have to move completely away from both family and friends to put crime behind them.
Then they have to build a new life in a different place with completely different social codes than they are used to.
“I belonged on the streets”
In her research, Mette-Louise E. Johansen interviewed a former gang leader who was helped to get off the streets in an exit program in Aarhus. Read more about this case at forskning.no.
He talked about how alien he felt when he moved:
– With the gang, I had a strong sense of belonging. Then I became a complete stranger, says the former gang leader AK in an interview.
– I was just one among all the other “Arabs” on the street. Then I became a stranger somewhere in the suburbs where I had neither family, friends nor history, he continued.
Needs new community
Hakan Kalkan is currently working on a research project on what it takes to leave the street life and establish a life without crime.
He already has a strong assumption that new shared community is absolutely essential.
– It can be difficult for them to get a foothold in the labor market because of a criminal past. But a community where they feel they belong and where they are accepted and recognized will solve the attraction of the street environment, Kalkan believes.
In an exit program, members can get help from police officers and social workers to establish a crime-free life.
Reference:
Hakan Kalkan: Roads to respect – About street life in Nørrebro, Hans Reitzel’s publishing house. 2021. Summary