SV_EN_SSp.indd 205
Three decades of research on youth groups and gangs An important part of the research on youth groups in the Netherlands is linked to immigration, ethnicity, socio-economic factors and neighborhood disorganisation, factors that have been identified as important in the formation and proliferation of gangs in pioneering American gang studies conducted in the 20th century (Thrasher 1927; Whyte 1943; Cohen 1955; Cloward & Ohlin 1960). These theoretical themes are still relevant in the Dutch context in which street gangs emerge. Furthermore, research on gangs in the Netherlands is linked to events and developments that took place in the whole of Europe. The hip hop and gangsta rap youth culture played an important role in spreading American West Coast gang stereotypes in European countries. There have been riots in the French banlieues (suburbs) in which gangs were involved, and more recently in London. In Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, we have seen the emergence of extremist white power groups. Early ethnographic studies on youth groups in the Netherlands appeared in the 1980s. The first studies focus on street groups of ethnic minority youths. In this period, there was an important inflow of young Surinamese immigrants, who arrived in the Netherlands after the independence of the former colony in 1975. Drug addiction, especially to heroin, became a new and serious problem that affected the lives of many young immigrants (Buiks 1983; Van Gelder and Sijtsma 1988a; Sansone 1992). In the inner city neighbourhoods of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, black Surinamese youngsters introduced the South American streetcorner life, which created a niche for drug dealing. In the period that followed, Moroccan youths became a second important immigrant group to be studied in relation to street groups and gangs (Van Gelder and Si205
19/03/13 23:28