This paper aims to discuss the emergence of the contemporary Urban Street Gang (USG) on Merseyside. In terms of gang scholarship in the UK, Merseyside has been greatly neglected…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the emergence of the contemporary Urban Street Gang (USG) on Merseyside. In terms of gang scholarship in the UK, Merseyside has been greatly neglected despite regular reports in national mainstream media that suggest Merseyside USGs represent some of the most criminally active and violent members in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
A specific methodology has been omitted because the author while providing a viewpoint from Hesketh (2018), also wishes to encapsulate observations from the remaining two pieces of research conducted on Merseyside (Smithson et al., 2009; Robinson, 2018). For this reason, a summary of the methods used in each of the three studies is provided.
Findings
The paper will highlight observations drawn from all three research studies that were prevalent with USG members throughout the Merseyside county at the time of each study. They include aspects surrounding territoriality, belonging and identity through dress style as well as USG structures and motivation for joining. In particular, the paper will address also address the role of drugs which has transformed the structural make-up of many Merseyside USGs from relatively loosely knit-street corner groups involved in anti-social behaviour (ASB) to more structural-deviant entrepreneurial enterprises.
Research limitations/implications
The paper calls for more research to be carried out on Merseyside. Limitations would include the omission of young women in each of the three studies.
Practical implications
The practical implications are as follows: a need to focus on the impact of bridging within excluded communities; a need to focus on emphasising that drug dealing is a crime that carries serious consequences, and not a form of work (grafting); a need to focus on young women and criminal involvement; and a need to concentrate on developing strategies that counter the allure and attraction of risk-taking behaviour.
Social implications
The paper addresses the impact of social exclusion and the need for equality to counter young people becoming involved in criminality and gangs as well as adult organised crime groups.
Originality/value
The paper is based on what have been so far the only three in-depth studies carried out on Merseyside.
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Robert Francis Hesketh and Grace Robinson
The purpose of this paper is to attempt to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified young people’s perceptions between employment and criminality in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to attempt to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified young people’s perceptions between employment and criminality in areas of Merseyside becoming blurred. In particular, disenfranchised young males are turning to involvement with drug dealing street gangs as a substitute for employment.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved the use of a hybrid design using an adapted version of Wengraf’s (2001) biographic narrative interpretive method as the means for data collection with Strauss and Corbin’s (1995) grounded theory approach as the means of analysis.
Findings
Such is the demand for Class A drugs in night-time economies that street gangs in areas close to such economies are adding a dark business-like dimension for which Hesketh (2018) has termed “Deviant Entrepreneurship”. This can range from selling drugs on behalf of adult organised crime figures (known on the streets of Liverpool as “grafting”) to self-employment as sole trading deviant group enterprises having several “grafts” that recent research by Robinson, McLean and Densley (2018) has noted, has extended into the annals of Criminal Child Exploitation.
Research limitations/implications
Data were derived from a sample of young males, thus, no observations can be made about females involved in gangs.
Practical implications
The research highlights the need for more gang interventions that focus on building opportunities within marginalised areas. It also suggests as Andell (2019) points out a need for a fresh approach to countering gang culture.
Social implications
The paper concludes by suggesting that Merseyside is only one in many marginalised areas of the UK facing a similar problem as young people involved in street gangs attempt to realise their potential not through legitimate employment means but through dark entrepreneurial techniques learnt from older peers and adult figures.
Originality/value
The findings are taken from a PhD thesis by Robert F. Hesketh University of Chester.
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Robert Francis Hesketh and Rachael Box
This paper aims to disseminate previous street gang research by Hesketh (2018) and the ongoing practice of Box (2015) in countering network poverty as a precursor to gang…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to disseminate previous street gang research by Hesketh (2018) and the ongoing practice of Box (2015) in countering network poverty as a precursor to gang membership through bridging/social mixing.
Findings
The findings draw attention to the considerable amount of research, media reports and government policy that has intensified and pathologised the issue of gang membership and its causes in the UK. Moreover, they identify the effects of marginalisation and limited opportunity as the main protagonists and highlight how young disenfranchised people some more resilient than others cope with growing up in areas void of legitimate life choices and positive networks. In particular, the study finds evidence that bridging and the resulting social mixing as a result of temporary migration was highly significant in the decision to conform, desist or abstain from gang membership.
Research limitations/implications
Liverpool study involved males only (need to examine females within the Merseyside area) although London practice addresses both young men and women. The paper highlights the impact of bridging as an intervention in countering network poverty and friendship networks restricted to marginalised environments, leaving many young people vulnerable to gang involvement, knife and youth crime.
Practical implications
Impact of bridging on young people in the development of good social capital is as follows: it highlights actual practice of findings in deterring young people away from gangs and criminality; it highlights the need for more interventions aimed at bridging communities; and it identifies the need for interventions around young disenfranchised people (social intelligence).
Social implications
The evidence suggests that interventions involving bridging both internally and externally can be instrumental in developing policy that aims to deter young people away from street crime.
Originality/value
The paper attempts to provide originality in highlighting a process that has not been fully implemented within current policy involving young disenfranchised people, gangs and violence.
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The purpose of this paper is to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking. The study which sought to identify differences between those who joined street gangs compared to those who abstained on Merseyside.
Design/methodology/approach
Two samples were taken from locations within the five boroughs of Merseyside, the first comprising of 22 participants (18–25) involved in street gangs as active and ex-members with a second sample consisting of 22 participants (18–25) who had completely abstained from street gang membership. Data were collected through adoption of biographic narrative interpretive method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001), with analysis taking the form of Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) version of grounded theory.
Findings
Of the many findings that surrounded what was identified as the core category/central phenomena of “coping with limited opportunity” it emerged that marginalisation and austerity were contributing to increasing inequality and institutional constraint on young people on Merseyside. As a result, many of the 18–25 year young men felt powerless, lacking identity and aspirational drive. Joining a gang thus became not only a way in which control was seized back from such constraint through criminal risk-taking behaviour, what Lyng (1990) has termed “edgework”, but also a means in which many of the young men interviewed gained an identity of being “bad” from which intrinsically pleasurable seductive and criminally erotic sensations were derived (Katz, 1988). Moreover, a relatively new version of edgework was also identified, even though by way of male testimony. Called “vicarious edgework”, the phenomena sees young women drawn to male gang members (“bad boys”) to derive the excitement of risk indirectly while remaining law abiding. In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation.
Research limitations/implications
Study samples were all male. Thus, any observations on the vicarious edgework aspect of risk taking requires further research involving both young men and women.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the need for more understanding of the allure of risk-taking. The paper identifies a new form of female edgework. The paper draws attention to gang membership and non-membership on Merseyside, an area that has been greatly neglected by gangs’ studies in the UK. The paper describes a novel way of data collection using an adoption of BNIM.
Social implications
In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation. This, the author contends has been largely neglected by risk factor focussed interventions that largely concentrate on the idea of rational choice theory and sociological positivism.
Originality/value
The paper attempts to disseminate original street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking.
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In 1899 the medical practitioners of Dublin were confronted with an outbreak of a peculiar and obscure illness, characterised by symptoms which were very unusual. For want of a…
Abstract
In 1899 the medical practitioners of Dublin were confronted with an outbreak of a peculiar and obscure illness, characterised by symptoms which were very unusual. For want of a better explanation, the disorder, which seemed to be epidemic, was explained by the simple expedient of finding a name for it. It was labelled as “beri‐beri,” a tropical disease with very much the same clinical and pathological features as those observed at Dublin. Papers were read before certain societies, and then as the cases gradually diminished in number, the subject lost interest and was dropped.
Hannah R. Marston, Linda Shore, Laura Stoops and Robbie S. Turner
IN this issue we conclude our symposium on Modern Library Planning, and although it is not as complete as we could wish, it has certainly proved to be one of the most interesting…
Abstract
IN this issue we conclude our symposium on Modern Library Planning, and although it is not as complete as we could wish, it has certainly proved to be one of the most interesting subjects we have been able to deal with in recent years. We regret that lack of space has prevented us from including some interesting details about new libraries, and that we have laid ourselves open to the criticism of over‐crowding. We hope, however, that we shall be able, from time to time, to add further material as the occasion warrants. We had hoped to obtain a description of the Central Library Extension of the Hull Public Libraries, but this has, unfortunately, proved impossible. Lancashire County Library, too, is constructing four new branch libraries, an account of which we should have liked to include. Plymouth may be mentioned as still another library of which the material was not ready in time for our symposium. Also, we are sorry to have had to omit some of the illustrations which librarians have been kind enough to offer us for reproduction. In spite of these omissions, however, we have been able to gather together much that is new and interesting in modern planning, and one of the points that is well worth notice is the willingness of librarians to experiment in new ideas, even if conservatively.
THE proposition that British library schools should examine their own students is not a new one. As long ago as 1954, Roy Stokes put the question bluntly to the profession. In…
Abstract
THE proposition that British library schools should examine their own students is not a new one. As long ago as 1954, Roy Stokes put the question bluntly to the profession. In those days his was a voice crying in the wilderness. The profession at large was not ready for such a development, and continued to adhere to its long held view that the Library Association should examine the products of the schools, while the schools confined themselves to teaching.