STREET GANGS IN SIERRA LEONE: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

Sierra Leone's post-independence history has been shaped by a pronounced north-south political divide, broadly corresponding to a Temne-Mende ethnic divide and the two main parties (Kandeh Reference Kandeh1992), yet associations of marginalised youth have often been markedly varied in composition.Footnote ⁶ Contemporary cliques, like wartime rebels preceding them, emphasise this pluralism as an intentional challenge to the divisive practices of elites. Nevertheless, like their pre-war antecedents of the 1970s and 1980s, they are also vulnerable to politicisation by incorporation into patronage networks through which elites dictate access to resources and opportunities along political lines (Boersch-Supan Reference Boersch-Supan2013; Enria Reference Enria2015).

Street-based associations of ‘marginals’ have been a perennial source of violent resistance against the ‘system’ – the structural inequalities that keep them poor and marginalised – as well as a source of violence for the system, regularly mobilised by political patrons to intimidate rivals. Due to this violence and their survival by illicit means, they have been stigmatised as lawless and idle in a way that obscures the complicity of elites and the reality that survival on the streets is relentless work, requiring endless resourcefulness. Street groups can be understood as performing three main functions for marginal youth; as an expression of resistance against their marginality; as a means of mitigating the daily insecurity of marginality; and as a potential way out of marginality, for example by accessing patronage networks.

Nineteenth-century British colonial rule rendered many rural Sierra Leonean youths ‘neither citizen nor subject’, forcing those without influential connections to seek a living in illicit economies and urban centres (Fanthorpe Reference Fanthorpe2001: 372). This embedded a bifurcated social world – what Abdullah refers to as the ‘colonial duality’ – dividing the mainstream from the marginalised, the ‘respectable’ from the ‘dregs of society’ (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2002: 21). Youths surviving on the streets became the feared archetypes of social deviance. They are described as ‘gangs’ in early 20th-century reports on crime in Freetown's seafront slums (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2002: 22) and appear in Graham Greene's (Reference Greene1948) ‘Heart of the Matter’ as dangerous ‘wharf rats’ armed with razors and broken bottles. This supposed dangerous potential of Freetown's youth permeated colonial efforts to delegitimise radical social movements as support for decolonisation gathered momentum (Spitzer & Denzer Reference Spitzer and Denzer1973). Fear of the spread of Marxism combined with colonial notions that a politically engaged urban poor represented a threat to order and civilisation itself. Ensuring law and order thus became synonymous with maintaining the political marginalisation of urban youth.

Post-independence, rarray boy subculture, comprising marginal youth engaged in petty crime, played a central role in the socio-spatial organisation of the street (Utas Reference Utas, Hazen and Rodgers2014: 173). Their social life revolved around the potes – hangouts where youth would drink, smoke and gamble together – and the odelays – alternative secret societies for those excluded from mainstream societies and dancehalls due to class and ethnic divides (King Reference King, Knörr and Kohl2016: 59). In this regard rarray subculture expressed resistance to an exclusionary system (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2002: 23) and provided marginals with a sense of belonging and security that was otherwise out of reach (Utas Reference Utas, Hazen and Rodgers2014: 174). Following independence in 1961, they were drawn into the power-struggle between the two main political parties, the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the All People's Congress (APC). Street youth were mobilised in a way that highlighted and compounded their marginalisation, sought for their violent labour rather than as a constituency and incorporated into youth wings that were ‘always peripheral to where real power was located’ (Abdullah Reference Abdullah1998: 207). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they became a primary tool for both political suppression and resistance in what Rosen describes as the ‘fusion of politics and street violence’ (Rosen Reference Rosen2005: 78; Harris Reference Harris2013: 69–70).

Economic recession in the late 1980s exposed the degree to which wealth was concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite, leaving Sierra Leone's youth desperate and politically frustrated (Richards Reference Richards1996; Bangura Reference Bangura1997: 134). Emerging US rap culture became a fixture in informal social clubs across Freetown, resonating through its message of resistance to the system and the poverty of the ghetto. Student radicals increasingly socialised in the potes, drawn by shared opposition to the system (Harris Reference Harris2013: 69–70), whilst rural youth unable to subsist on farming or alluvial mining sought a living in urban areas, some forming groups resembling street gangs (Peters Reference Peters2011: 53). A 1989 study estimated Freetown was home to 10,000 street children, including gangs led by ‘Bras’ who provided younger members (‘Greens’ and ‘Ballheads’) with food and ‘shelter from the outside world’, acting as a ‘self-chosen ‘family’’ (PEA 1989: 7). It articulated contemporary concerns over urbanisation: ‘In the rapidly growing towns street life has its own rules and regulations. There is too little space, too little food, too little shelter needed to be shared by too many. The fight for daily survival imposes its regime: the stronger ones win, the feeble ones are crushed’ (PEA 1989: 8).

Civil war broke out in 1991. Much has been written about the recruitment of marginalised youth into the ranks of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) – who vowed to destroy the ‘rotten system’ – and how their grievances and hopelessness fomented conflict and shaped its brutality (Richards Reference Richards1996; Mitton Reference Mitton2015). For many, the war was a continuation of the ‘game’ – the struggle within and against the system – and some combatants wore gangster attire and quoted Tupac Shakur (Prestholdt Reference Prestholdt2009; Utas Reference Utas, Hazen and Rodgers2014: 179; Nuxoll Reference Nuxoll2015). After war ended in 2002, peacebuilding efforts were dominated by fears of ex-combatant remobilisation; averting another ‘youth crisis’ became the ‘master narrative’ of policy (Fanthorpe & Maconachie Reference Fanthorpe and Maconachie2010: 256; Boersch-Supan Reference Boersch-Supan2013: 25). Warnings that little had substantively changed for Sierra Leone's youth took on fresh urgency during elections in 2007, when ex-combatant ‘taskforces’ mobilised by rival parties clashed violently (Christensen & Utas Reference Christensen and Utas2008). Many ex-combatants had sought these opportunities but became disillusioned by the ‘betrayal’ of politicians as their violent labour failed to bring promised returns (Enria Reference Enria2015: 640). By the 2012 elections, some vowed they would leave the ‘game’ rather than risk being ‘used’ again; others found little demand for their violence and repackaged their services as the capacity to ‘silence violence’ for those willing to pay for peace (Mitton Reference Mitton2013; Utas & Christensen Reference Utas and Christensen2016). By 2018 elections, most ex-combatants had aged-out of what was considered a young man's game. But strikingly, a new generation of marginal youth came to play a central role in the fusion of politics and street violence: the cliques.

Despite only recently receiving attention, the cliques have been present in Sierra Leone since the early 2000s. The following sections chart their historical evolution in Freetown over three phases: a formative phase (2000–2007); a coalescing phase (2008–2015); and an ongoing institutionalising phase (2016–2021).

NEW PLAYERS, OLD GAME?

If Freetown's cliques are the new players on the streets, then in many respects the game they are playing is an old one. Just as rarray boys looked to the odelays and ex-combatants drew on their wartime networks, gangsters have used the cliques as a means to survive, if not escape, everyday insecurity. Like their predecessors, their members are drawn primarily from the poorest urban youth, who find in the cliques protection, a sense of belonging, and a way to become ‘somebody’ (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2017: 5). Just like rarray boys, students and youth from privileged families are also drawn to the cliques, but unlike their poorer peers, they tend to avoid the riskier aspects of street-life: ‘They like to pose. They will buy things for us, but they'll never go and fight like us. They join so that people are afraid of them. So that people won't try to take their money. It keeps them safe’ (KKK CO Int.).Footnote ¹⁰

The cliques have been forged by the same context of insecurity that spawned rarray boys, that fuelled RUF recruitment, and that was a continued source of frustration among ex-combatants in the early post-war years. They are likewise an expression of resistance and protest against the system. As such, the adaptation of US gang culture should not be mistaken as an importation of foreign violence or street culture.Footnote ¹¹ Rap lyrics from US cities speak to young people in Freetown due to common points of reference around violence and everyday insecurity (Utas Reference Utas, Hazen and Rodgers2014: 182), but Freetown's gang scene, and the conditions it reflects, is fundamentally local (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2017: 9). As a Black gangster explained: ‘We looked at the movies in America. We copied from there. But now the thing that we have is ours’ (KKK Gangster A Int.).

During fieldwork, gang members were engaged in a range of licit and illicit activities. In the west an isolated but large group of Black gangsters practised enter shack (stealing from unlocked homes) and bulldozing – where those in land disputes pay gangsters to occupy land, intimidate tenants, and destroy structures (Give-a-damn Gaza CO Int.). Near the national stadium Black Street Family (Blood) gangsters were casual labourers and operated a car wash. Further east, an MOB CO was a jamba dealer with a trade spanning the entire Western Area. In the east end, members of KKK (Black) made money from manual labour and seeking donations from passing poda podas (minibus taxis), officially voluntary but close to a form of taxation. They disdained a nearby Blood clique's night-time cranking (robbery) of kekes (motorised tricycle taxis). This latter group also operated a protection racket in their community; local fishermen paid them to protect their stores, understanding to do otherwise would be risky (MOB CO A Int.). All of these were subsistence activities and far from lucrative. As Utas (Reference Utas, Hazen and Rodgers2014: 183) notes, Freetown's urban economy is not ‘“fists full of gold” but bare survival’, and gangsters understand their violence as a consequence, not a cause, of insecurity: ‘The violence is because anywhere there is an angry man, there is a hungry man. If we don't have skills how do you think we will get money?’ (KKK 5-0 Int.). For some older members, crime had become their only means of supporting families. While many gangsters explicitly distanced themselves from robbery, those involved justified it as a last resort forced by the lack of legal alternatives: ‘If I had a job I would focus on that, but there are no jobs for the youths. So whenever we see someone walking with money, we have to do what we need to do’ (MOB Gangster A Int.).

Given their similar profiles and activities, it is unsurprising cliques are often conflated with rarray boys and ex-combatants. However, while the conditions that produced street gangs suggest continuity in the marginalisation of urban youth, this latest expression of that marginalisation represents significant change. Cliques are not extensions of, nor significantly interconnected with, ex-combatant networks. There are few ex-combatant members among their number, with most too young to recall the war. An OG explained: ‘There were no ex-combatants involved with us when we started. It was [school] students. Gangsters and ex-combatants didn't mix’ (Bronx 105 CO Int.). When it comes to rarray culture, the comparison is considered an insult. A Crips CO explained: ‘It's the rarray boys who like to steal and thieve. But we are reppin the real game. We are the real gangsters’ (CCC CO Int.). This statement illustrates a widely shared understanding of unwritten rules of the game; to be an authentic gangster not only requires formal initiation into a clique, but also demonstration of fearlessness, loyalty to the colour (or ‘flag’), and love for the hood. To cliques, rarray boys are aimless and individualistic, preying on their own neighbourhoods. By contrast, cliques consider themselves protectors of their communities; those involved in theft and robbery frame these actions as necessities of survival and typically only target outside communities.

Several attributes further distinguish Freetown's cliques: they contest physical territories in defined hoods; they have defined colour-signifiers of gang membership, whereby wearing the wrong colour in a neighbourhood can get you killed; and they have formalised hierarchies of command and membership processes. As Abdullah notes, such rigid, militaristic hierarchy is ‘unthinkable’ in rarray culture (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2017: 23). These differences suggest cliques are not only new players; they are playing with new rules. In their words, ‘the game has changed’. The following section argues that escalating cycles of insecurity are hardwired into the rules of this new game, giving it internal momentum that has perpetuated cliques’ rapid evolution and suggesting that, if continuing on their current trajectory, cliques could pose an altogether more serious challenge.

THE VICIOUS CYCLES OF THE ‘GAME OF PAIN’

In the absence of a lucrative narcotics market, seen as intensifying criminal turf-wars in cities around the world, the polarising dynamics of intergang rivalry are a primary driver of clique-violence in Freetown.Footnote ¹² One gangster observed: ‘Money is not everything. For us here love is everything’ (KKK Gangster B Int.). In the early years, this love took the form of socialising in an environment which generally brought marginal youths together in shared appreciation of music and street culture. However, as different cliques cohered and rivalries between Bloods and Black, and between east and west Freetown, became more pronounced, that love was increasingly invested in a particular colour and hood, whereby loyalty to one meant animosity to another. This polarisation hardwired violent beefing into the game, with clique members viewing themselves as soldiers in a street war. As intergang violence tends to provoke reprisals, this created a vicious cycle that has changed the game:

A second cycle has developed from the way social status and gang promotions are tied to demonstrations of loyalty, fearlessness and strength. Enria (Reference Enria2015: 639) shows how marginal Freetown youth use ‘love’ to denote relations of reciprocity, particularly those sought with political ‘big men’ to whom their violence signals loyalty. Within cliques, beefing with rivals likewise acts as a signal to peers, demonstrating love, loyalty, fearlessness and strength. It is a primary way for gangsters to accumulate what can be termed ‘street capital’ (Sandberg Reference Sandberg2008: 161): ‘When you get mind to go and beef, that's how you get promoted. When you get mind to fight you have to hurt somebody, you can't let anyone resist you. That's when you are the leader. And you must have fame, a reputation’ (KKK Gangster C Int.). To make it to the top typically requires serving prison-time; it was widely claimed by members that to make 5-0 and CO required stabbing rivals, even killing. These qualifications are inked on the bodies of office holders; a 5-0 proudly explained his tattoo of 20 teardrops: ‘Each tear is for killing someone or for stabbing them’ (Stay Black 5-0 Int.). This means of acquiring street capital provides incentives for those at the bottom of the ladder, the youngest and newest members, to commit violence that is often at odds with the wishes of elders.

Where poverty and marginalisation are felt as acute daily humiliations, gangs offer members a route to status and self-esteem that otherwise seem inaccessible. Similar to how wartime groups became conduits of individual shame and pride (Keen Reference Keen2005; Mitton Reference Mitton2015), gangsters’ self-esteem and status are tied to the collective pride of the clique, which must be defended above all else. Accordingly, intergang violence is less about markets or territory than about tit-for-tat defending of honour of the self or group: ‘We're fighting just for the colour. Everybody has his own team. I'll do it for my flag. It's an oath. There is no other reason, not for money, not for women’ (MOB Gangster A Int.).

Polarisation manifests in the territoriality of gangs; cliques have made Freetown spaces ‘no go zones’ to their rivals (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2020: 48). Those entering enemy territory risk their lives, as do civilians inadvertently wearing gang colours. This insecurity feeds clique recruitment in a third vicious cycle: the more gangs grow, the greater the incentives for young people to join for protection. A senior MOB gangster recounted being a ‘nice Krio schoolboy’ attacked by Black gangsters for wearing red in the East Hood; he subsequently joined the Bloods seeking protection and revenge (MOB Gangster B Int.). Ironically, he then experienced greater insecurity across Freetown. Gangsters feel unable to traverse the city safely unless in large numbers: ‘I want to go to the west end peacefully. I want to go to Lumley Beach. But if I go, a west end boy sees me – an east end boy – they are going to stab me. … The boys in Black cannot go anywhere in the west end’ (KKK Gangster A Int.). For those who try leaving the gang, shaking their association proves difficult:

The growth of Freetown's gangs has severely limited the mobility of many urban youth, leaving members feeling trapped while creating strong incentives for non-members to join. Incentives are strongest for the most vulnerable in communities, as illustrated by a group of more than 20 homeless teenage girls in Susan's Bay. Most had arrived from provincial towns and villages, fleeing abusive or broken domestic relationships, and were engaged in prostitution to survive. They decided to join the local Bloods to prevent daily harassment by that gang. This strategy had worked, but they were now being violently targeted by rival Black gangsters (MOB female members Int.).

These cycles have been exacerbated by policing and criminal justice responses. The more cliques are targeted by zero-tolerance policing, the more they consolidate and grow. Rather than deterring gangsters from gang life, arrests and incarceration boost their street capital and chances of promotion. Furthermore, incarceration acts as an accelerant of gang growth. Interviews with clique members in correctional centres underlined how prisons act as gang incubators and networking hubs. Inmates reported that prisoners were increasingly segregated by gang allegiances (Give-a-damn Gaza CO Int.; MOB CO B Int.). As in many cities around the world (Lessing Reference Lessing2017), young people entering prisons for a range of offences were liable to join a gang.Footnote ¹³ Some sought physical security during their time inside; for others, joining gave access to new networks that could prove advantageous when returning to the streets. Bringing together gangsters from across Sierra Leone, thanks to inter-regional transfers due to overcrowding, prisons also helped spread cliques nationwide (Black Gangster A Int.).

To date only low levels of clique violence affect Sierra Leone's prisons, but street-rivalries do play out in prison yards. In January 2020, Yayo – a Black OG – was moved blocks within Pademba Road prison after fighting with Skull, an MOB rival with whom he had a long-standing beef (Skull Int.; Yayo Int.). A more severe incident occurred in April 2020, when Pademba made international headlines as at least 30 prisoners and one correctional officer were killed in what was officially labelled a riot (SLCS 2020). Rumours connected events to the presence of Palo Conteh, the former Minister of Internal Affairs who once declared war on cliques and was now awaiting trial in Pademba on treason and gun-possession charges. In videos widely circulated on social media, soldiers and prison officers interrogated Skull and Emperor, a Blood gangster, over their alleged involvement. Shown tied-up and bloodied, Emperor died from his injuries weeks later. An official briefing claimed ‘rival prison gangs clashed, attacking one another’ and this ‘may have caused the number of casualties to rise’ in a prison built for 324 inmates but housing well over 1300 (The Sierra Leone Telegraph 2020). Given the deployment of soldiers using live rounds and the politicised nature of this incident, these findings are contested. For gangsters they are an attempt by elites to scapegoat cliques. Nevertheless, the incident underscores that cliques have become dominant in prison life.

Cliques have also rapidly spread in schools. On the streets of Freetown, gang graffiti that is meaningless to older generations is instantly understood by schoolchildren, among whom Sierra Leonean rap is popular. A police officer remarked: ‘They can sing all the local rap songs, but not a single verse of the national anthem’ (SLP officer B Int.). But the influence is more direct; cliques have established younger teams of schoolchildren who can graduate to full gang membership based on good ‘performance’ (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2020: 41). This presents an extra challenge for parents seeking to keep their children away from cliques, particularly as joining these teams makes some students feel safer (SLP officer B Int.). This trend suggests the new game in town has potential to increasingly draw in younger members, connecting them to incentives for violence as they seek membership and promotion, and rendering schools hubs of gang recruitment.

Finally, Sierra Leone's political system is a catalyst for gang growth and institutionalisation. It has demonstrated its capacity to fuse street violence with party politics, imbuing electoral violence (and non-violence) with socio-economic value whilst simultaneously deepening cliques’ sense of marginalisation. As gangsters sought profit from ‘election business’ they also became frustrated about being used, receiving short-term payments rather than long-term assistance in the form of jobs and education. Emperor recalled being paid to cause trouble in 2007 elections, complaining: ‘The honourables used us. Give us money, we will waste it. But give us jobs and we can change’ (Emperor Int.). The story was much the same in 2018, with frustrations compounded by the perceived duplicity of politicians publicly condemning cliques for violence they had privately sponsored. One gangster stated: ‘We are suffering here, but they use and dump us. They abuse us and accuse us’ (KKK Gangster C Int.). Another added: ‘During the elections people will come to us. But after the elections they don't even want to know about us. They say that we're smoking weed, that we're useless and senseless. That's the philosophy of the politicians’ (KKK Gangster B Int.).

Where cliques have departed from the experiences of ex-combatants is in seeking immediate payment from political sponsors rather than investing hope in promises of future employment. As De Bruijne (Reference De Bruijne2019a) argues, this contrasts with ex-combatants who typically built up ‘debt’ of long-term service that was rarely paid by their patrons (see Enria Reference Enria2015; Utas & Christensen Reference Utas and Christensen2016). This may reflect the broad reluctance of elites to build closer relationships with gangs, limiting cliques’ access to patronage networks and debt-building opportunities.Footnote ¹⁴ During both 2012 and 2018 elections, pressure on parties to ‘say no to violence’ made such public associations politically costly. For cliques, it also reflects their determination not to be used and a more realistic understanding of what could be obtained from politicians, even if jobs were preferable. As his members made placards for a rally in 2018, a Blood CO in Moa Wharf, East Freetown, said: ‘The APC paid us in small money and this rum to go rally, to go and cause trouble. After the election we won't get anything. This money won't last long, but a job would last’ (MOB CO A Int.).

Despite involvement in elections, cliques generally considered themselves politically unaligned, with many claiming the nature of this new game, in which loyalty to the gang is paramount, precludes their deeper politicisation. Indeed, though it is commonly assumed gang colours align with party support (such as Bloods supporting the red APC), there was no such straightforward relationship in 2018. Receiving payment from a political patron rarely bore relation to the sympathies of gangsters, and members of the same clique often professed support for rival candidates without fear of censorship or reprisal. Demonstrating agency and resistance to the ‘system’, gangsters seized opportunities for immediate gains of cash and goods but frequently subverted the process. Many took payments from both sides, and in a twist on ‘watermelon politics’ (Utas Reference Utas2007), wore their gang colours – their true loyalty – under the shirts they were paid to wear (MOB Gangster C Int.).

Whether cliques will continue to sell their violent labour to patrons, but not their long-term allegiance, remains unclear. Their rapid growth and nationwide membership of thousands makes them significant players on the street that political parties may be unwilling or unable to ignore. Based on their current trajectory, cliques may accumulate political capital as self-proclaimed ‘governors’ of their hoods, rather than just as muscle-for-hire. While claims of governorship are often overstated and vary across neighbourhoods, such an eventuality raises the prospect that patrons may seek to co-opt cliques to sway voters in their communities. Gang leaders may look to leverage this influence to secure greater concessions than immediate pecuniary rewards, unable to pass on such opportunities amidst the daily struggle to survive. Such politicisation would surely intensify intergang rivalries, injecting them with the zero-sum logic of political party competition.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS: CHANGING THE GAME

This article has argued that the conditions that shaped Freetown's youth gangs of the past – poverty, exclusion and insecurity – are the same driving youth into cliques today, yet the ‘game of pain’ they play is significantly different. The logics of intergang rivalry, territoriality and social hierarchies have created escalating cycles of violent growth surpassing those of rarray boys and ex-combatants. These cycles are accelerated by their interaction with the criminal justice system, schools, and the political system, placing cliques on a trajectory towards deeper institutionalisation. Recognising this challenge is the first step towards addressing it. Consideration of next steps is the focus of ongoing collaborative work,Footnote ¹⁵ but several key points can be made here.

First, clique leaders themselves possess the knowledge and authority to help ‘change the game’; they are also among the most determined to end vicious cycles of gang-related insecurity.Footnote ¹⁶ Like their predecessors, clique members seek ways out of marginality; the oldest among this first generation have an eye on the next: ‘We don't want our children to join gangs. I know that no good comes from being in this gang. I always tell them that it's dangerous. I tell them “Don't follow me!”’ (MOB Gangster A Int.). A CO commented: ‘We are the ones who need to stop this, because the younger ones who are coming up are doing the same thing’ (KKK CO Int.). Nevertheless, he lamented that so long as the conditions that led him to gang-life remained in place, appeals to the next generation would have little effect. This strikes at the heart of the challenge: Sierra Leone no more has a ‘gang problem’ than it ever had a ‘youth problem’. The problem, in the parlance of gangsters, is the ‘system’.

The system represents the social, economic and political structures that have maintained an inequitable status quo and marginalised Freetown's youth for decades. As such, responses to cliques should not focus exclusively on them or their communities, but on these wider conditions. In this regard, piecemeal cash donations and short-term programmes are inadequate: ‘They [the government] don't provide us with options for us and our family, to help us find a way out, so that we don't have to become gangsters. If you give us 100 million [Leones], it does not solve our problems. Give us one million dollars and it will not solve the problem’ (KKK Gangster B Int.). Another commented: ‘This flag we are fighting for would make no sense if there are jobs. Of all the problems, the only problem that has created this flag is joblessness’ (KKK CO. Int.). East Hood gangsters cited a timber yard on the outskirts of Freetown that employed Bloods, Crips and Black-affiliated youths as an example of how gangsters quickly put aside ‘beefs’ given the opportunity to earn. A 5-0 in the west of Freetown made a similar argument: ‘We need some big employment. Some factories. If we had that there wouldn't be no trouble, no drama, and no clique’ (Give-a-damn Gaza 5-0 Int.).

Clearly, poverty and unemployment alone cannot explain the growth of cliques and their violence; the majority of young Sierra Leoneans contend with these conditions but do not join gangs. Yet this article has shown that such conditions deepen incentives to join gangs for the most marginalised – those on the fringes of poor communities who lack social status, education, or a roof over their heads, and who find in cliques a sense of family, security and respect.

The economic transformation gang members seek, as ex-combatants discovered after the war, may be an unrealistic prospect in the short term. Nevertheless, their eagerness to find a ‘way out’ denotes a constructive energy that can be directed towards reforming gangs as pro-social organisations, an approach that has precedence in other contexts (see Brotherton & Barrios Reference Brotherton and Barrios2004; Hagedorn Reference Hagedorn2017; Brotherton & Gude Reference Brotherton and Gude2020). Some have already undertaken initiatives. During the Covid-19 outbreak, cliques in the East Hood organised a local awareness-raising programme, handing out masks to residents and disseminating information on sanitation precautions. Whilst this could be interpreted as an attempt to deepen the local legitimacy of the gang, the CO framed it as an attempt to demonstrate the productive potential of the clique to both residents and gangsters themselves. This potential is recognised in an internal report by the SLP's Freetown East Region, which recommends assisting gangs in transitioning to ‘Community Development Associations’ (SLP 2020). Such efforts must contend with the vulnerability of youth associations to co-option by patronage networks (Boersch-Supan Reference Boersch-Supan2013; Datzberger Reference Datzberger2015) and avoid reproducing the very marginalising dynamics that created gangs. This points towards the need for change in a political system that has tended to exploit cliques rather than offer viable routes for their transformation. Practical steps in many other areas that could ameliorate cycles of clique violence – such as policing and criminal justice reforms – cannot succeed without political will to not only enact them, but to ensure politics does not subsequently undermine them. It is clique members themselves who argue that a truly inclusive system, which offers marginal youths equal opportunities for education and employment without political conditions, would remove the raison d'etre of the ‘game of pain’.