How to Turn “a bunch of gang-bangin’ criminals into big kids having fun”: Empowering Incarcerated and At-Risk Youth through Ensemble Theatre

Abstract

Los Angeles County is the “epicenter of gang activity nationwide,” with an estimated 175,000 gang members and more than 1,400 gangs. Although crime has been on the decline, gang membership continues to rise, largely due to increasing participation by minors. The total number of youth on probation in the Los Angeles probation system in 2009 is 18,285; in 2007 alone, 4,398 youths were admitted into residential probation-camp facilities, which provide structured treatment and programming for juvenile offenders. These statistics of high youth involvement in gangs, along with corresponding criminal activity and arrests, have resulted in an aggressive, multi-pronged gang-reduction and -prevention approach that includes strict gang injunctions, as well as increased educational and extracurricular programming designed to reduce youths’ gang membership and activity (Dunworth, Hayeslip, Lyons, and Denver 15–26). Like the youths’ gang affiliations themselves, which can be seen as actively performing resistance to existing socio-demographic structures and societal norms, these gang-reduction and -prevention strategies can be read as performative—performing the power dynamics of the state over perceived abhorrent behavior.