"I believe that I understand gangs better than others. Because they're formed out of necessity. They're formed by people to keep from being suppressed"
About this Quote
The pivot is the real move. By insisting gangs are “formed out of necessity,” he’s trying to drag the conversation away from the usual moral panic and toward structural pressure: poverty, marginalization, policing, immigration status, neighborhood abandonment. “Necessity” is a sympathetic word, almost domestic. It doesn’t excuse harm, but it changes the angle from monster-making to survival-making.
The subtext sits in “suppressed.” He isn’t talking about youthful thrill-seeking; he’s talking about power. The sentence suggests gangs as informal institutions created when formal institutions fail or prey on you. That’s a politically savvy framing because it swaps individual pathology for collective self-defense, and it invites the audience to ask an uncomfortable follow-up: suppressed by whom? The state? Rival groups? Employers? The social order?
As an actor, Bowman is also managing perception. This is a bid to humanize characters (and by extension the people they’re modeled on) without sounding naive. He’s banking on a contemporary audience fluent in systems-talk, but he keeps it blunt and personal, making “understanding” feel like empathy rather than a lecture.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bowman, Jack. (2026, January 17). I believe that I understand gangs better than others. Because they're formed out of necessity. They're formed by people to keep from being suppressed. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-that-i-understand-gangs-better-than-55430/
Chicago Style
Bowman, Jack. "I believe that I understand gangs better than others. Because they're formed out of necessity. They're formed by people to keep from being suppressed." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-that-i-understand-gangs-better-than-55430/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I believe that I understand gangs better than others. Because they're formed out of necessity. They're formed by people to keep from being suppressed." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-that-i-understand-gangs-better-than-55430/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




