‘Just give up the ball’: In search of a third space in relationships between male youth workers and young men involved in violence
| Author | Pete Harris |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895820933929 |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820933929
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(2) 254 –269
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895820933929
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‘Just give up the ball’: In
search of a third space in
relationships between male
youth workers and young
men involved in violence
Pete Harris
Newman University, UK
Abstract
This article critically examines the employment of male youth workers in the field of youth crime
prevention. It focuses on how their relationships with young men involved in violence might (or
might not) support young men and promote desistance. It does this via the presentation of a
single psychosocial case study that examines the relationship between a Black male youth worker
and a young Black man who becomes involved in violence and then falls victim to violence to
other young men in his neighbourhood. It illuminates how some male workers’ resources of
masculine and street capital may be advantageous in terms of reaching some young men, but may
also create barriers to reaching others. The study focuses on how both men in the case struggle
to ‘give up the ball’ – a metaphor the article adopts for the act of conceding masculine capital in
the street field. I suggest that for the relationship to provide the support this young man needed,
it required the creation of a third space between him and his youth worker, that is, a vantage
point from where they could both examine their masculinity and how this was related to their
respective psychic vulnerabilities. I argue that the two men’s investments in different discourses
of masculinity were more significant (in terms of the desistance-promoting potential of their
relationship) than the similarity in their racial or class backgrounds. The case highlights the need
for a more nuanced understanding of youth work relationships and for provision of adequate
support and supervision for all male workers that incorporates thorough consideration of their
personal and professional identity formation, especially the most heavily gendered aspects.
Keywords
Desistance, masculinities, psychosocial, relationships, youth violence, youth work
Corresponding author:
Pete Harris, Newman University, Genners Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham B32 3NT, UK.
Email: p.harris@newman.ac.uk
933929CRJ0010.1177/1748895820933929Criminology & Criminal JusticeHarris
research-article2020
Article
Harris 255
Introduction
The foregrounding of older men as solutions to rising rates of youth violence and knife
crime, especially within socially excluded, working-class and Black communities, has
recently found support within the media and political arenas in the United Kingdom.
Some schemes promote older Black men as positive role models (see Home Affairs
Select Committee Report, 2007; the Mayor of London’s plan to pair 100 Black or dual
heritage NEET (not in employment, education or training) young men with 100 Black
men: http://100bml.org). Other schemes valorise the employment of older men with a
history of some involvement in violence (see, for example, Bryant, 2011; Keeling, 2016;
Taylor, 2007). Such schemes are arguably premised on the hope that these older men
may be at an advantage in terms of engaging with young men involved in violence. The
hope expressed in such schemes is that young men involved in violence will psychically
identify with the older male workers (see parts of themselves in them) and follow their
pathways towards desistance. This promotion of workers who are seen as streetwise and
‘down with the kids’ is coming to the forefront of youth social policy at a juncture when
public concern about levels of serious youth violence and knife crime in the United
Kingdom is rising (Dodd, 2019; Harris, 2019).
The changing professional context of youth work in the recent past (austerity and cuts
to services) raises questions as to whether the professional development and managerial
structures will be able to provide the financial and ideological sustenance for the intensive
support and supervision that these workers may require (Harris, 2019). Practice literature
across the fields of youth justice, social work and probation often highlights the crucial
importance of worker/client relationships (e.g. Burnett and McNeill, 2005). Drake et al.
(2014) express concern that ‘The relationship between young people and practitioners is
the centrepiece of youth justice provision, yet little research-based knowledge has accu-
mulated on its minutiae’ (p. 22). They argue that this absence calls for a research agenda
aimed at delineating a more nuanced understanding of practice relationships.
This article seeks to provide such a nuanced understanding and critically examine the
rhetorical trope of the older youth worker/mentor via a single psychosocial case study of
a young Black man and his older, Black, male youth worker. The case deliberately seeks
to counteract dominant discourses that often position young Black men from working-
class backgrounds as hypermasculine perpetrators of violence. It does this by choosing
as its focus a young, working-class Black man struggling to live up to a street-styled
tough masculinity who reluctantly engages in violence but then falls victim to violence
at the hands of other young men in his neighbourhood. The study focuses on the young
man’s relationship with his older Black, male youth worker who has his own experiences
of violence as both perpetrator and victim. It utilises the psychoanalytic concepts of
identification and ‘third space’ in tandem with sociological concepts of field theory,
street social capital and intersectionality to develop an integrated psychosocial analysis
of the intersubjective dynamics of their relationship. It does this in order to highlight
those features of the relationship and of youth work practice in this context that may (or
may not) have desistance-promoting potential.
The analysis specifically and intentionally focuses on some of the more gendered ele-
ments within their relationship and the struggle both men have to ‘give up the ball’ – a
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