The African Review Vol. 45, Supp. Issue, No.1, June 2018: 164-179 Persistence of Youth Gang Violence in South Africa Godfrey Maringira Senior Postdoctoral, University of Western Cape Email: gmaringira@gmail.com & Tyanai Masiya Lecturer, University of Pretoria Email: masiyat2008@gmail.com Abstract In South Africa, gang violence continues unabated particularly in black and coloured townships. The question addressed in this paper is why youth continue to be involved in gang violence despite South Africa being deemed the most developed African country. The response to this question goes just beyond economic reasons and includes young men and the expression of their masculine power. In this paper we reveal the ways in which young men continue to be involved in gang violence and their consequences. The paper is based on an ethnographic study from 2017 to 2018. It draws on two black townships of Gugulethu and Nyanga East in Cape Town South Africa. Keywords: South Africa, Gang, Youth, Violence, Masculinity Introduction Gang violence is not a new phenomenon. The United States is considered to be home to an estimated 33,000 violent street gangs, with a presence in all 50 states (Klein, et al, 2010). Further the author notes that in the last decade, the number of violent gang members has grown by over 40 percent and is 25 times higher than in 1975. What is particularly striking however is that in the United States, though gang members make up less than half a percent of the population, they commit 16 percent of the total homicides and a quarter of homicides in cities of more than 100,000 people. The World Bank’s statistics not only shows that youths between the ages of 15 and 34 account for the overwhelming majority of homicide victims but also they comprise the membership of youth gangs (see also Decker and Van Winkle, 1996). Even in more prosperous Europe, many of its nations face youth gang problems although researchers and policy makers have often hesitated to call them this because they compare their own groups to American stereotypes (Decker and Pyrooz, 2010).Most gang members, especially in the groups studied are juveniles or very young adults.