The social dynamics of group offending
| Author | Beth Weaver,Alistair Fraser |
| DOI | 10.1177/13624806211030459 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806211030459
Theoretical Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13624806211030459
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The social dynamics
of group offending
Beth Weaver
University of Strathclyde, School of Social Work and Social Policy, UK
Alistair Fraser
University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract
Theoretical explanations of group offending have been hindered by a focus on rational
actor models of social relationships. One consequence of this has been a neglect of the
dynamics of social relations and their role in group offending and desistance. Drawing
illustratively on two studies conducted in the West of Scotland, this article advances
an integrated theoretical framework for the comparative study of group offending that
moves beyond either individualizing or ‘gang’ frames dominating existing discourse,
towards a thick understanding of situated social relations. By integrating Bourdieu’s
concept of habitus with Donati’s relational realist framework, this article theoretically
and empirically examines the dynamics of group offending relationships, what shapes
them and the way they can, in turn, shape and affect offending and desistance trajectories.
Keywords
Bourdieu, Donati, gangs, group offending, social relations
Introduction
The notion that offending, particularly youth offending, mostly occurs in groups is an
established ‘criminological fact’ (Schafer et al., 2014: 117). Yet, despite large crimino-
logical sub-fields devoted to the study of gangs, co-offending and desistance, there is a
Corresponding author:
Beth Weaver, University of Strathclyde, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences, 141 St James Road, Glasgow, G40LT, UK.
Email: beth.weaver@strath.ac.uk
1030459TCR0010.1177/13624806211030459Theoretical CriminologyWeaver and Fraser
research-article2021
Article
2022, Vol. 26(2) 264–284
notable lack of theoretical analysis devoted to the dynamics of social relations that sus-
tain these behaviours (see Goldsmith and Halsey, 2013; Weaver, 2015). Instead, aca-
demic and policy framings focus overwhelmingly on young people as individual rather
than collective actors. Where group categories are employed, it is predominantly in terms
of gang activity, which narrows recognition of the everyday human engagements and
relational dynamics underpinning group offending (Fraser and Hobbs, 2017). In this arti-
cle, we offer a theoretical vocabulary that reaches between and beyond existing
approaches by centring the concept of social relations. Rather than approaching group
offending through the lens of gangs, co-offending or desistance, we privilege the social
relations that underpin and sometimes undercut these categories, examining the dynam-
ics of group relationships, what shapes them and the way they, in turn, shape and affect
offending and desistance trajectories.
Informed by our secondary theoretical analysis of data from two distinct but overlap-
ping studies, we argue for the theoretical and empirical value of placing social relations
at the heart of studies of group offending, and situating those relations in the socio-cul-
tural contexts that shape them. In making this argument, we advance an integrated theo-
retical framework incorporating Bourdieu’s concept of habitus into Donati’s relational
realist framework and develop an innovative conceptual schema that adapts Archer’s
morphogenetic framework to illustrate the empirical application of our integrated theory.
This approach, we argue, transcends existing analyses focusing solely on the network as
a unit of analysis (as in gang or co-offending research), or on the individual (as in much
criminal careers research), by treating individual and collective offending trajectories as
fundamentally social activities, shaped by the historical and socio-cultural contexts in
which they emerge.
Humanizing the subject
Over three decades ago, Reiss (1988: 117) argued that ‘understanding co-offending is
central to understanding the etiology of crime and the effects of intervention strategies’.
Substantial research has demonstrated that most offending occurs in partnerships
(Carrington, 2009; McGloin et al., 2008), that both co- and group-offences often involve
more serious consequences than individual offending (Carrington, 2002; Sweeten et al.,
2013) and, especially for young people (Lantz and Hutchison, 2015), extend offending
careers. Yet, the relational dynamics of group offending remain largely neglected by both
research and policy (Van Mastrigt and Farrington, 2009). Instead, the study of group
offending has principally proceeded from an individualized or network perspective (e.g.
Haynie, 2001; Marti et al., 2021; Roman et al., 2021). The general over-reliance on posi-
tivistic methods in co-offending and gangs research with their attendant ‘aggregate
descriptive analyses’ (McGloin and Nguyen, 2012: 464), and the privileging of rational
actor approaches (Brotherton, 2015), has had the effect of decontextualizing the meaning
and texture of social relations as they pertain to individual experience. This has resulted
in an incomplete understanding of the significance of social relations in processes of
desistance (Rosen and Cruz, 2019; Weaver, 2015). The primarily US-based literature on
gang extrication (e.g. Decker et al., 2014; Pyrooz and Decker, 2011; Pyrooz et al., 2014;
Sweeten et al., 2013), for example, tends to draw on life course and social control
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Weaver and Fraser
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