The involvement of youths in motorcycle gangs is no longer just a hobby or a desire to socialize with peer groups, but has shifted into a platform for expressing antisocial attitudes and deviant subcultures that tends toward criminal territory.
In Depok, for example, it was reported that two teenagers fell victim to the ferocity of motorcycle gangs (8/6/2017). Without any reason or trigger, the two teenagers who were riding motorcycles were suddenly stopped by motorcycle gang members and, without any warning, were attacked with sharp weapons, receiving serious head injuries.
In another area, the activities of motorcycle gangs are no less worrying. In Gowa regency, South Sulawesi, for example, dozens of motorcycle gang members reportedly attacked residents of a housing complex (7/6/2017), simply because they felt ridiculed when one of them fell during a freestyle attraction. About 30 of the angry motorcycle gang members then attacked the residents with bows and arrows and other sharp weapons.
In Jakarta, the actions of motorcycle gang members frequently show not just the usual behavior of juvenile delinquency, such as smoking or fighting. As in other areas, motorcycle gangs have become increasingly involved in violent and criminal activities, such as stealing, mugging, and even killing. The Jakarta Police has arrested at least 28 teenaged motorcycle gang members and confiscated the various sharp weapons they used.
Subculture
It must be admitted that looking for the factors and root causes of why motorcycle gang youths become easily involved in brutal acts, even criminal acts, is not an easy thing. This is because they are intertwined with a variety of complexities.
First, from a psychological perspective, the deviant behavior and tendency of motorcycle gang members to be involved in criminal acts, aside from being influenced by the deviant behavior of their friends and a wrong lifestyle, are often triggered by alcohol and drug abuse. Moreover, the loose control of their parents and schools is another factor that has been blamed for causing motorcycle gangs to act uncontrollably, even to the point that they do not hesitate to beat others to death.
More than just juvenile delinquency, the acts committed by motorcycle gang members in various places actually indicate something wrong in the process of child development. Adolescence is a time of searching for one’s identity and, as a result of negative influences from the wrong social environment, don’t be surprised if young children suddenly grow up to be a thug who does not want to be curbed by social norms.
Second, it has something to do with the growth of a youth subculture that identifies with “the other”. A research by experts from the Chicago School on the origins of juvenile delinquency and the deviant behavior they develop has concluded that most of the patterns of criminal behavior among youths do not result from biological or psychological causes.
It is believed that those who engage in deviant behavior or evil acts are not necessarily psychologically aggressive and evil, but rather do so because of the values, norms and influences they received as teenagers from their peer group.
Two early studies on subculture by Frederic Thrasher and Paul Cressey discovered that gang activity is not caused by psychological abnormalities, but arise from intimacy, a shared sense of excitement and joy, which are intertwined with each other (J. Patrick Williams, 2011: 22; Cressey, 2008).
Thrasher and Cressey concluded that when the main institutions of society – such as families, schools, churches, and recreation sites – are split, new and deviant social institutions, such as motorcycle gangs, will emerge as a kind of surrogate organization.
Meanwhile, another Chicago School figure, Albert K. Cohen, in his monumental book Delinquent Boys (1955), states that the deviant behavior developed by gang youths is actually the attitudinal implication of groups with limited access to dominant cultural resources, who then attempt to solve their problems using an alternative method, thereby developing pathological subcultures that tend to challenge the status quo.
In Cohen\'s view, the activity of motorcycle gangs that crashes through all social barriers is actually a consequence of their inability to solve their problems. Cohen\'s study illustrates how deviant behavior among youths from the lower classes continues to be developed, especially in the face of various tensions that occur.
This means that the frustration experienced by their low social status leads to "reaction formation" through which they try to reverse the dominant cultural values and norms that legitimize certain actions. Instead of working hard to gain public respect, gang members instead reverse the goal by deliberately not achieving that goal, such as carrying out vandalism to gain respect from the equally marginalized people around them.
Empathize
Police officers who are enraged by the increasingly worrisome motorcycle gangs will not simply catch the troublemaking perpetrators. If necessary, there is also a shoot-on-sight policy against perpetrators who have passed the limit of tolerance. This strict action has been taken deliberately asa deterrent against brutal motorcycle gang members, and because there have been many casualties.
Whether the strict police action will really work to curb the brutal acts of motorcycle gangs, of course, will be tested by time. However, seeing that what is being faced is a youth subculture that tends to be resistant and anti-status quo, repressive actions that regulate their movements will likely continue to be circumvented, even opposed.
More than just repression, what is actually needed to dampen the acts of motorcycle gangs is also an understanding of youth subculture and how we might create rival cultural narratives that empathize with the cultural tendencies of motorcycle gangs. Motorcycle gang subcultures that are resistant and always anti-establishment will undoubtedly be eliminated if they are offered a course of action that is judged to be equally seductive, rather than trying to cut off their space altogether.
RAHMA SUGIHARTATI
Lecturer of Library and Information Science,Department of Social and Political Sciences at Airlangga University, Writing a Dissertation on Youth Subculture
