Not Just Another Thug

This study is a qualitative analysis that focuses on how agencies in Saskatoon define youth gang activities and behaviours. The agencies involved constitute community based organizations, permanent and part-time holding residences, justice and city officials. Grounded theory analysis was utilized to maintain the original interviewees own voices from interviews to the final product. The final analysis is divided into three sections that focus on: characteristics of Saskatoon youth gangs, implications of defining, and programming. By analyzing these themes we begin to see that defining youth gangs becomes a very political issue and that agencies who work with youth have difficulty in coming to terms in creating a common definition or criteria to assess youth gangs for Saskatoon.