so SAYS THE OLDEST active member we interviewed. His conjunction of harmless socializing and lethal violence is echoed in the voices of younger gang members, and their words reflect two polar opposites of the group behavior of gang members. Like most teenagers and young adults, gang members in St. Louis do a lot of “hanging” with their friends - watching television, drinking beer, sitting and talking, shooting hoops, smoking weed, cruising, looking for girls. Gang members spend their lives (and most often commit their crimes) in groups (Zimring 1981; Klein 1971) and what those groups usually do together is nothing more than “just fuck around.”

But the litany above finishes with: “we also go kill together,” an indication of the integral role violence plays in the lives of gang members. Nonlethal and lethal force is routinized through initiation rites involving “beating in” and shooting at enemies, in dealings with drug customers, and in “gang banging” – fighting with rival gangs, beating up interlopers or insulters, drive-by shootings, planned killings. Violence is both a defining attribute of gangs (Thrasher 1927) and an epitomizing activity that sharply differentiates the lives of gang members from their nongang peers.