Leaving Gangs in Cape Town: Disengagement as Role Exit

Abstract

A lack of scholarship on gang leaving in Cape Town, South Africa creates the impression that joining gangs is a death sentence. However, this paper shows that gang members can disengage, even amidst the scarcity of an emerging city. It combines life history research with Ebaugh’s (2013) role exit theory in an analysis of the disengagements of 24 former gang participants. Research considers the various stages of out-of-gang transitions, profiling the drivers and impediments to gang exit. Specific focus is placed on understanding how violence both catalyzes and challenges out-of-gang transition during the differential processes of disengagement. Findings indicate a lengthy and challenging transitional process from the point the first doubts emerge to the time a person successfully becomes an ex-gangster. Progress through different phases of gang exit is generally uneven and unpredictable, and carried out in a context with significant social, economic, and security challenges. Still, those interviewed for this study offer compelling examples to show that disengagement is possible. Their journeys yield insights that can be leveraged to design better informed efforts to reduce gang violence—whether in Cape Town, or in other similarly inequality prone and insecure cities around the world.