Why Youth Join Gangs and Somalis’ Approachto Gang Prevention and Intervention

Abstract

In recent years, youth gangs have been an issue of social concern in Somalia. From this concern comes a desire to conduct research about gangs, their formation, and what can be done to intervene with them. Researchers’ recommendations can lead to success for organized crime groups in the country.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate why youth join gangs and Somali’s approach to gang prevention and intervention.
Design/methodology: A qualitative method has been used for the data collection; different focus groups and a total of 10 key informative interviews have been conducted with Mogadishu residents. Three key variables were investigated namely: joining, prevention, and intervention to gangs based on the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) process. transcripts were used to analyze data.
Findings The findings of this study indicate that youth join gangs because of a lack of parental guidance and support, peer-to-peer influence, drugs addiction, the presence of gangs in the area, political interest, and so on.
Research limitations/implications. This study only emphasized Somali Gangs; thus, the findings of the present study may not be applicable to other countries.
Originality/value: Limited studies have been conducted to investigate why youth join gangs and how the government can build gang prevention and intervention services in Somalia.