Gang violence must be addressed by doing "more than simply punishing" the perpetrators, according to Marilyn Clark who conducted considerable research on criminal careers.
While every effort should be made to make people feel safe in their communities and to compensate victims of violence, society also had to analyse what was leading to antisocial behaviour and how to provide alternative activities for youths, she said.
A recent spate of gang-related incidents in Gżira, which led to seven men, aged 15 to 25, being given suspended sentences or placed under probation, resulted in calls for compulsory military training, harsher sentences and community service.
Dr Clark, head of the University Department of Youth and Community Studies, said media reports about violence committed by young people served to reinforce pre-conceived ideas and add weight to calls for state intervention and control.
However, this could lead to "moral panic", which made people miss the root of the problem and focus on the perpetrator as a threat, something that might serve to amplify the problem rather than solve it.
"Research has shown that crime is often a response to several nefarious social, economic, familial and environmental circumstances," she said, adding that, through simplistic explanations, the root of the problem was seen in the antisocial character of these young people as something inherent.
"The fact that gangs provide identity and social relationships for some young people who feel marginalised by the dominant social, economic and cultural environments in which they live is ignored."
Such delinquent activities provided youths with excitement, adventure, easy money and respect from their friends, she said.
"Policymakers need to seriously address the lack of opportunities for certain groups of young people in society to effectively negotiate the transition to adulthood and make provisions for their personal, social and civic behaviour," Dr Clark said.
Maltese society had to learn to deal with offenders as people in their communities: people who think, feel and act and not simply as problems.
"How are our educational institutions serving these young men? What opportunities for meaningful employment, leisure and personal development are available to them? Is this the only response available to them to express their emergent masculinities in a society that denies them full status?"
She argued that policymakers tended to favour the "individualistic explanations" for violence and crime instead of analysing and changing social structures.
Criminologist Saviour Formosa said this new and rare form of "random" acts of delinquency was a result of the post-modern society that lacked social cohesion.
He said that, in the past, many youths were involved in religious, political or band clubs and had strong guardians but today many stayed in the streets without any link to society.
By taking them to court and making them feel they got away with it they might emerge as heroes among their friends.
Dr Formosa said that in some cases a "short, sharp, shock" in the form of a prison sentence would give them a cold shower to make them realise the error of their ways but it could also make them worse.
Other alternatives could be military training, boot camps or special schools that help them reintegrate into society.
"I think community service will reduce the 'hero' element and teach them to contribute to their environment while not having the same adverse effects that prison may have on them."