Pairs gangs

by Nick Greven

Marwan Mohammed is a sociologist who specializes in research about youth gangs in the Paris suburbs. He has written a book on this topic and spent a great deal of time among the young people he is researching.

Mohammed’s mother was a housekeeper for a wealthy family in central Paris when he was a young child. After she changed jobs they moved to the suburbs and he had a lot of trouble in school.  Mohammed eventually dropped out of school and became a social worker until he was 22 years old. Then he returned to school, earned his diploma, and went on to earn his doctorate in sociology and become a researcher.

Earlier this week, we focused our interview questions on youth gangs and violence in the suburbs because that those are Mohammed’s areas of expertise.

It turns out that in France the term “gang” does not apply to an organized criminal network to which people must pledge a life of allegiance as it does in the states. There are no nationwide networks like the Bloods and the Crips that have symbols and special tattoos and are obliged by membership to be aggressive toward one another.

In fact, the way the French use the word is closer to its actual English definition: a group of people, usually boys, hanging out together in an environment conducive to delinquent activity.

The word gained an application in France during the riots of 2005 because bored young people turned to destruction and violence in order to vent their frustration with the system. They did so with their “gang” of friends in their own neighborhoods, burning cars, throwing rocks, and clashing violently with police

Mohammed also talked to us about the availability of guns in the suburbs because we had heard from other people that during the riots in 2007 rioters were using shotguns against the police. He explained to us that since the end of WWII and even more since the fall of the Soviet Union, firearms have become easily available in most of Western Europe. To accentuate that point, Mohammed said that if we were to get him €500, he could find an automatic weapon for us within five hours despite the strict firearms regulations in France.

However, there are very few homicides in France using guns because, according to Mohammed, there is no “gun culture” here. Even the few people who do have guns are reluctant to ever use them.

Just as Mohammed cleared up our misconceptions of gangs and the use of firearms in the Paris suburbs, so walking around the streets of Paris has proven, unequivocally, that nobody but tourists actually wear berets.

From this I have learned that it is important to be sure that we base our opinions on facts rather than stereotypes.

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