Education Commons^™

Youth Gangs In A Remote Indigenous Community: Importance Of Cultural Authority And Family Support, Teresa Cunningham, Bill Ivory, Richard D. Chenhall, Rachel M. Mcmahon, Kate Senior

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Indigenous community of Wadeye in the Northern Territory, Australia has been described as a community 'under siege from continual gang violence' (Rioting flares again at Wadeye. The Australian 7 August; Gang violence plagues Wadeye. ABC News 1 December; Wadeye worst in 50 years. NT News 2 November). The gangs appear to have emerged in the early 1980s and are generally defined through youth aligning themselves along cultural, clan and family affiliations into groups with contemporary Americanised gang characteristics, symbolic links with heavy metal music and clearly defined turf boundaries. Although they do engage in some relatively minor drug (predominately …