Black and white, male and female, rich and poor, American teenagers have the herding instinct. On streetcorners, in shopping centers, in the ghetto and in the suburbs, the boys and the girls hang out. Sometimes the kids get together for fun, sometimes for trouble, sometimes for political purposes. Mostly, they crave recognition, companionship and excitement. Gangs are a way of life for many adolescents-part of the ritual of growing up.Eight promising young men-children of good, stable, white upper-middle-class families, active in school affairs, good pre-college students-were some of the most delinquent boys at Hanibal High School. While community residents and parents knew that these boys occasionally sowed a few wild oats, they were totally unaware that sowing wild oats completely occupied the daily routine of these young men. The Saints were constantly occupied with truancy, drinking, wild driving, petty theft and vandalism. Yet not one was officially arrested for any misdeed during the two years I observed them.This record was particularly surprising in light of my observations during the same two years of another gang of Hanibal High School students, six lower-class white boys known as the Roughnecks. The Roughnecks were constantly in trouble with police and community even though their rate of delinquency was about equal with that of the Saints. What was the cause of this disparity? the result? The following consideration of the activities, social class and community perceptions of both gangs may provide some answers.
24Society
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