Employment patterns of youth gangsters, their social behavior and existence in urban Sri Lanka

Abstract

Youth gangsters have grown to become a common sight and a festering issue in the Western province of Sri Lanka, especially in the Colombo district. This issue is excessively prevalent among the poverty stricken and ill-educated communities in the city. Deprived of the joys of a normal and secured childhood and adolescence, many of these children get involved in abrasive street gang activities and face adverse life threatening experiences that even include death through criminal activities unleashed by themselves or other rival groups. Those who survive roam the streets or waste away in despair, relieving their suffering by escaping into the often self-destructive lifestyles and income generation mechanisms. Purely for survival purposes, they lead a gloomily ignorant and dangerous existence on the streets. For them, every day is a cycle of torment: hunger, thirst, risky and poorly paid jobs, disease, loneliness, lack of affection, police harassment, legal red tape, institutions, sordid prisons, drugs, slavery disguised as housework or even bare-faced slavery, prostitution, sexual abuse and terminal diseases such as AIDS that come as a result. Merely to understand or combat this apparently incontrollable, growing and unbearable phenomenon, authorities and academics must ask: What are the root causes? Who invites them to the streets? What sustains them on the streets?In addressing the above, this paper has been developed to understand the factors that attract youth onto the streets and the factors that play a pivotal part in sustaining them on the streets, giving specific emphasis to youth gangs operating in Colombo and suburbs. In supplementing, the research focused on areas to ascertain the negative impact youth gangs have on the lives of general public in the specified area. The Research focused on 493 identified youth gang members belonging to 75 gangs within 14 GN divisions in Colombo city, within the age group of 18 – 32 years. All the said gangs and the gang members were identified within the study area through a snowball technique using available contacts and via the data gathered using formal research methods.