Chapter 12: Street Gangs and Urban Violence

This chapter outlines the major trends and debates surrounding the links between urban spaces and violence, with a particular focus on street gangs. It explores the various perspectives developed by a range of different disciplines and fields in response to global urbanisation, as well as the various forms of real-world responses to urban violence that have been taken by state and municipal authorities around the world. The chapter has two main objectives; first, to show that urban violence is a major current and future challenge for global peace and security in the 21st century; and second, to show that street gangs and urban violence, though often described narrowly in terms of localised criminality and transgression, are intimately linked to the broader political and social conditions in which they emerge.