LE GANG GIOVANILI E LA LORO SOPRAVVIVENZA NEL TEMPO. UN PROBLEMA DEFINITORIO.

The phenomenon of youth gangs -- which manifested itself significantly in America after the crisis of the 1930s -- has also spread to Europe and Italy in the following decades, arousing considerable attention among sociologists. The aim of this article is to briefly outline the social causes at the origin of this phenomenon and to investigate the account itself of youth gang, identifying the necessary and sufficient characteristics that the activities put in place by a group of boys must have in order to qualify as a gang. To this end, I analyse and compare the studies and positions of various sociologists -- not coeval -- such as Frederic M. Trasher, Albert K. Cohen and Franco Prina. The analysis induces to hypothesize for this complex phenomenon a multifactorial genesis that require a punctual case-by-case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]