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.On the other hand, they all share out-rageous hate of foreigners, Jews, gypsies, capitalists, and communists, listen to racist-motivated music, wear characteristic clothes and use certain symbols as identification(Bundesministerium für Verfassungsschutz, 2006).Most skinhead gangs only oper-ate in their own district and tend to have a lose structure without a specific hierarchy,resulting in group affi liation that is mainly based on kinship ties or long-term per-sonal relationships to other members of the local gang (Bundesministerium des Innern,2006).However, there are also inter-gang connections with gangs from other areasand even a structure that connects gangs within the entire country (Wahl, 2003).Not all skinheads are members of the various political right-wing parties, nonethe-less, these parties recruit their voters mainly in East Germany whereupon the skin-head groups make up a fair amount of their constituency (Bundesministerium fürVerfassungsschutz, 2006).Although there is a rise of assaults and robberies againstforeigners and other disliked groups in Germany, the main focus of the skinheadgangs tends to be hanging out, listening to right-wing music, and attending illegalskinhead concerts (Bundesministerium des Innern, 2006; Wahl, 2003; Farin, 1993).Second- and Third-Generation ImmigrantsImmigrant gang incidents have been denied to an even greater extent than those ofskinheads.Germany had only a very short gang era that strongly resembled Ameri-can gangs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.These gangs consisted of second- andthird-generation immigrants of mainly Turkish, Italian, former Yugoslavian, andMoroccan background who were fighting over territories and turfs influenced bymedia reports on American gangs (Tertilt, 1996).After the police had seemingly ap-proached these gang formations successfully, newspapers reported only on rare oc-casions about gang incidents with immigrants.However, the plea of a Berlin schoolprincipal in 2006 to close her school after a situation with violent second- and third-generation immigrant students (since they were beating German students and threat-ening teachers) was a wake-up call for many Germans who could have never imag-ined that these problems existed (Von Randow, 2006).One can only speculate whyGerman media and politicians have denied the increasing problem of immigrantteenagers over such a long time.The most appealing reason may be found in the his-tory of Germany and the strong sense of general guilt that does not allow society tospeak openly about violent teenagers with Turkish, Moroccan, or Albanian back-ground.Germany does not want to be viewed as a racist or excluding country andtherefore, only a few politicians admitted and spoke openly about these teenagersnot without having to face severe criticism.Additionally, Germany has never consid-ered itself an immigration country in the past (though it has the highest immigrantpopulation in Europe).Instead, Germany identified their foreigners as guest work-ers who would soon leave the country again and return to their home countries (seeSchiffauer, 1983; White, 1997).Therefore, kindergartens, schools, and other agen-cies were completely unprepared for immigrant children and their specific needs(Radtke, 2002).Moreover, politicians have continuously denied the existence of in-tegration difficulties as the integrating process itself has never been planned (White,1997).Moreover, the children are not granted German citizenship even though theyare born and raised in Germany.Additionally, they are still considered and labeledas migrants in the public debate as migration has the notion of moving aroundwhereas immigration would imply the destination in the country (see White,1997). 116 GERMAN GANGSNowadays, the immigrant groups are the most pressing gang issue that Germanyis facing, and the country has finally recognized and accepted the inevitable prob-lems that come with 10 percent of the teenagers (Bundesministerium für Bildung undForschung, 2004a, p.8) who are not granted German citizenship or who have mi-grant backgrounds which limits their life chances.On the other hand, many in the general public hold the view that most second-and third-generation teenagers do not have the ambition to be integrated into main-stream society.According to this perspective, they (young immigrants) refuse to as-similate and lack the qualities that are needed for surviving in the German formaleconomy: on average, these teenagers have low high school achievement records,possess deficient language skills, and lack the willingness to be part of hierarchicalsystems as demanded by employers.As the Program for International Student As-sessment (PISA) has shown, there is no other country besides Germany that has somany difficulties with integrating immigrants (www.destatis.de/basis/d/biwiku/schultab16.php).The gap in school performance between students from an immi-grant background and native Germans, and the gap between those from a poor so-cio-economic background compared to those from a wealthier one, is greater thananywhere else in the world.Apparently, teenagers from immigrant families almostalways have both preconditions: being immigrant and having a poor socio-economicbackground.Therefore, their chances of success in the German system are limitedfrom the outset (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 2004b, p.79f.;OECD, 2004, p.14f
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