‘It’s a No-Win Scenario, either the Police or the Gang Will Get You’: Young People and Organised Crime – Vulnerable or Criminal?
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419843353 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Author | Naomi Thompson |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
843353YJJ0010.1177/1473225419843353Youth JusticeThompson
research-article2019
Original Article
Youth Justice
2019, Vol. 19(2) 102 –119
‘It’s a No-Win Scenario, either
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
the Police or the Gang Will Get
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225419843353
DOI: 10.1177/1473225419843353
journals.sagepub.com/home/yjj
You’: Young People and Organised
Crime – Vulnerable or Criminal?
Naomi Thompson
Abstract
The Serious and Organised Crime Strategy for England and Wales made a commitment to develop preventive
educational resources for use with young people on the topic of organised crime. This article presents
findings from a UK Home Office funded project, which was aimed at developing and subsequently evaluating
these resources, and explores their wider implications for youth crime prevention policy within the United
Kingdom and internationally. Based on interviews with youth practitioners and young people, the project
found that many young people with vulnerabilities (such as learning difficulties) were in turn vulnerable to
exploitation by criminal groups, that the reasons for young people becoming involved in organised crime
were complex including a desire to provide for their families in a climate of austerity and unemployment
and that positive relationships with professionals and long-term support were significant for youth crime
prevention.
Keywords
gangs, organised crime, prevention, serious crime, vulnerability, youth crime, youth justice
Introduction
In this article, I outline findings from a research project on young people’s involvement in
organised crime. The project was commissioned by the UK Home Office to respond to the
Serious and Organised Crime Strategy’s Home Office (2013) commitment to develop
educational resources about young people and organised crime (see Section 5.14 of the
Strategy). My role in the project was to facilitate consultations with young people and
practitioners, support the development of the educational resources and conduct an evalu-
ation of the associated toolkit.1 This article does not represent the official view of the
Corresponding author:
Naomi Thompson, Department of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, New
Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK.
Email: naomi.thompson@gold.ac.uk
Thompson
103
Home Office, but draws on my own analysis of the data collected, and is not focusing on
the toolkit itself but on some of the key themes that emerged from the research with prac-
titioners and young people and their implications for policy. These consultation and eval-
uation activities offer a contribution towards some much-needed research on the topic of
young people and organised crime, particularly in a UK context. The consultations
employed qualitative methods and the evaluation involved mixed methods (described in
more detail in ‘Part 2: The Home Office Project and key findings’). The themes outlined
here are primarily from the consultation activities with reference to the evaluation where
it builds on these themes.
The article is divided into two main sections. In the first, I explore international aca-
demic and policy literature that is relevant to young people, organised crime and youth
crime prevention. This includes the challenges in defining organised crime, what research
tells us about the scope of young people’s involvement and their motivations, and a criti-
cal review of policy approaches to tackling the problem of organised crime. In the second
half, I outline the methodology and discuss key themes arising from the research with
practitioners and young people. I argue that young people’s involvement in organised
crime is complex and not as simple as making a conscious choice to become involved. In
particular, I demonstrate that young people are vulnerable to exploitation by organised
criminal groups (OCGs) and that factors such as their sense of responsibility towards their
families and lack of alternative employment may add to the risk factors that make them
vulnerable. The article concludes with a review of the policy implications.
Part 1: Definitions, Research and Policy Contexts
Definitional challenges
One of the main challenges in understanding the causes of organised crime and evolving
policies for prevention lies in the very definition of organised crime itself. A review of the
literature highlights major variations within and between policymaker and academic usage
of the term, and a degree of conceptual blurring between ‘organised crime’ and ‘gangs’.
Organised crime is defined in the Home Office’s Serious and Organised Crime Strategy
as ‘serious crime planned, coordinated and conducted by people working together on a
continuing basis. Their motivation is often, but not always, financial gain’ (Home Office,
2013: 14). However, in the same document, serious crime is defined as ‘crime, which may
not always be “organised” but requires a national response, notably many aspects of fraud
and child sexual exploitation’ (Home Office, 2013: 13). Consequently, there is some over-
lap: organised crime is also serious crime, but serious crime is not always organised. Child
sexual exploitation (CSE), for example, is understood as serious but not necessarily
organised. The interpretation in the Strategy is that organised crime involves larger net-
works than something that operates at just the local level, and that it involves a number of
layers around the OCG at the centre and is usually national and often international in
reach. Therefore, organised crime as defined by the strategy is distinct from ‘gangs’ as we
know them at the local level (Home Office, 2013). A gang is not, in itself, an OCG as per
the Home Office definition. It does, however, recognise that existing gangs may be uti-
lised by OCGs, for example, to distribute drugs within a local area.
104
Youth Justice 19(2)
Academic research has challenged the policy definition of organised crime as highly
organised and carefully structured by a ‘mafia’ type group at the centre. Hobbs (2013), for
example, suggests that the networks are ‘messier’ with less of a clear hierarchy than popu-
lar definitions suggest and that the perpetrators have been over-glamorised. Based on
ethnographic research in East London, Hobbs suggests that what we typically view as
organised crime is usually more opportunistic than the term suggests. Similarly, Hopkins
et al. (2012) suggest the term is ambiguous and has generally been used to create catego-
ries around structures of association (who is part of the group) and to a lesser extent struc-
tures of activity (what they are engaging in).
Arguably, it is difficult to establish what constitutes organised crime and how it pre-
sents itself, due to the ‘moral panics’ and false assumptions that exist and are communi-
cated by the media, politicians and other commentators (Woodiwiss and Hobbs, 2009).
Von Lampe (2016) recognises that there is no consensual definition or understanding
even among academics. As such, there are varying forms of crime included in academic
discussion of organised crime but with some overlapping themes and interpretations. He
suggests that definitions of organised crime have drawn on three main categories: the type
of criminal activity, the particular criminal structure or organisation, or organised crime as
a form of illegal governance (Von Lampe, 2016: 27). Within these categories, there are
different interpretations and understandings. In terms of activity, there are different con-
ceptions of what forms of activity are, in fact, organised crime and the level of continuity
or sophistication of these activities. The understandings of organised crime that centre on
the group or structure differ according to how large or organised a group needs to be to
constitute organised crime. The forms of illegal governance that have been understood as
organised crime vary according to their motivations; for example, whether they are finan-
cial or political. Von Lampe proposes a conceptual framework for understanding organ-
ised crime that incorporates all three categories and the various interpretations that exist
within these, rather than attempting to find consensus on one specific definition.
The definitional challenges outlined above become further complicated when review-
ing the literature on gangs. As with organised crime, it is difficult to find a consensual
definition of ‘the gang’, and some academics suggest that the ‘gang problem’ has been
overstated with numbers overinflated (Hallsworth and Young, 2011; Muncie, 2015).
Similarly, academic research suggests that there is also no definitive answer as to how far
gangs overlap with organised crime groups. Pitts (2017) suggests that different forms of
gang exist in the United Kingdom, some of which do involve organised crime. However,
there is a lack of conclusive research determining whether youth gangs might evolve into
adult organised crime groups. Muncie (2015) argues there is little evidence to suggest that
they do – with youth gangs being fairly loose, unstable and temporary overall. Indeed, he
claims that in both the United Kingdom and the United States, those gangs which might
be more aligned with organised crime and those that engage in ‘serious violence and
threats to assert control locally’ are adult gangs rather than juvenile ones (Muncie, 2015:
35). Densley (2014), however, argues that gang crime is increasingly...
To continue reading
Request your trial