DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENT GROUP VIOLENCE AND VANDALISM

This paper is not an attempt to produce any fresh theoretical insights into the field, or to describe my own research. Nor do I wish to review the historical evolution of the field and report on its current status. Such tasks have already been undertaken by Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1967) in regard to criminal violence as a whole and by a number of others (Empey, 1967; Geis, 1965; Hardman, 1967; Short, 1963; Tomkins, 1966) in regard to those forms of adolescent violence identified with gang or sub-cultural delinquency. Writings in the latter tradition—that of gang or sub-cultural delinquency—have dominated sociological interest in adolescent violence and vandalism. In certain respects, research in this tradi tion has become somewhat repetitive in the last few years. This is not to deny the quality of many such studies (see, for example, Klein, 1969; Lerman, 1967; Short and Strodtbeck, 1965; Short, 1968) but, with few exceptions, they have gone along the same directions laid down originally by Thrasher and given theoretical depth through the advances made by Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin. In this country, the work of Downes ( 1966a) stands alone in the sixties as a mainstream contribution to this tradition and, com pared to America, this period has been notable for the virtual absence of any genuinely sociological work on delinquency. What has happened—and this is only slightly more obvious in Britain than in America—is that sociologists in this field have been left behind by two major developments. The one is the construction and consolidation of the interactionist approach to deviance and the other is the emergence of civil disorder, revolts and protest move ments in America, centred around the anti-war cause, students and the Negroes. To the extent that any sociological theories of adoles cent group violence and vandalism have become established at all—