Alt-Right Gangs and White Power Youth Groups

Abstract

Gang scholars for the last three decades have explicitly excluded youths who are active, overtly or implicitly, in white supremacy groups (e.g., neo-Nazis; racist skinheads; white separatists, nationalists, and identitists; the alternative right [referred to as “alt-right”]) from conventional street gang studies. More recently, gang scholars, however, have suggested that street gangs and white supremacy groups are more analogous to each other than originally thought. Inconsistently designating these white power groups and making ad hoc decisions to include or exclude them from a gang study has impaired researchers, law enforcement, and policymakers and left them not only ill-equipped for understanding the risk factors impacting white supremacists but also disadvantaged for determining which intervention strategy is best to employ. As of 2017, a new wave of culture wars and identity politics has taken hold in the United States and throughout Europe with a growing concern by scholars and policymakers with the radicalization of individuals into these violent groups. The rise of the “alt-right” (a term coined in 2008 by white supremacist Richard Spencer) came about when young, white identitists, a group of leaderless, loosely organized, tech-savvy millennials, began to use facetious Internet jargon to recast and mainstream their white supremacist beliefs. A more inclusive characterization acknowledging that a substantial amount of similarity exists between white power groups and street gangs is synthesized in the term “alt-right gangs.” Adapting the Eurogang definition, one of most widely adopted and utilized gang definitions, an alt-right gang is defined as a durable, public-oriented group (both digitally and physically) whose adoption of signs and symbols of white power movement and involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity. This definition incorporates the description by political scientists of the alt-right as being a loosely structured, youth-oriented, right-wing political movement focused on white identity and nationalism with its core remaining a racist movement. Incorporating such a diverse set of literature into a singular definition provides a broad description that can be applied in a practical way. In the end, the risk factors driving marginalized youths, perceived or actual, to join a street gang or an alt-right gang are analogous. Just like any street gang, the alt-right is not a universal monolith, but rather is composed of various factions that regularly feud and have conflicts. Removing such restrictive categorizations allows for a broader understanding of youths involved in these racist groups and can provide scholars and policymakers with prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies that are not pigeonholed to only a subsample of alt-right gang members. This article addresses a collection of key characteristics that highlight the origins and subculture of white power youth groups to highlight the substantial overlap between conventional street gangs and alt-right gangs and exposes how well-situated gang scholars are to examine these white supremacist groups.