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This article maps the emergence of a risk–gang nexus in the Swedish correctional field. Using the concept of penal layering, the article analyses the configuration of risk-based practices to manage gang affiliates in the context of Swedish prison and probation services. By introducing the notion interludes of penal layering, this article stresses the synchronic/diachronic opposition in penal change processes and furthers ongoing discussions of the variegated, braided, and uneven patterns of penal change in and beyond Nordic penal institutions. Drawing on interviews with probation officers, prison staff, and other professionals working with gangs in Sweden, the study finds that new rules, practices, decisional hierarchies, and actors have been layered on top of or alongside existing institutional arrangements to manage gang affiliates. This penal layer enforces punitive conditions for incarcerated gang affiliates and creates tensions, agonism, and contradictions between the coexisting and multiple logics of rehabilitation, punishment, and risk in the penal field.

Summary Gangs are commonly presented in research as an attractive alternative for those who feel excluded and unrecognized in "ordinary" society. Gang life is volatile, however, and violence (open or suppressed) is more or less omnipresent. Exiting a gang seems to be motivated by both thoughts of a better life and disappointment in the gang's failure to meet hopes and expectations. Findings From an analysis of former gang members exit processes, this article investigates what about gang life was stressful and motivated participants dropout, how they coped with tensions, and elaborates how social work could use this tension productively to support people exiting gangs. The data consist primary of interviews with 20 former gang members and 42 professionals. Organizational theory was used in combination with theories on liminality and identity reformation to understand how tensions occurred in gang life, how they were managed, and what caused exit. Applications Social workers may help members exit from gangs by supporting and strengthening their motivations to leave, stimulating their self-reflection, and reminding them of their past transformative. Most important, gang members should be helped to recognize the positive urges that drew them towards gangs and refocus those wishes for community to general society.