Damaged hardmen

Organized crime and the half-life of deindustrialization

Bibliographic Data

ID5609682
AuthorsAlistair Fraser (0000-0003-1157-4379, Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research School of Social & Political Sciences University of Glasgow Glasgow UK, corresponding author), Andrew Clark (0000-0002-2983-4469, School of History, Classics and Archaeology Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne UK, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume72
Issue4
Pages1062-1076
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-4446.12828
PMID33641171
OpenAlexW3134704333
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited47

Despite frequent associations, deindustrialization features rarely in studies of organized crime, and organized crime is at best a spectral presence in studies of deindustrialization. By developing an original application of Linkon's concept of the "half-life," we present an empirical case for the symbiotic relationship between former sites of industry and the emergence of criminal markets. Based on a detailed case-study in the west of Scotland, an area long associated with both industry and crime, the paper interrogates the environmental, social, and cultural after-effects of deindustrialization at a community level. Drawing on 55 interviews with residents and service-providers in Tunbrooke, an urban community where an enduring criminal market grew in the ruins of industry, the paper elaborates the complex landscapes of identity, vulnerability, and harm that are embedded in the symbiosis of crime and deindustrialization. Building on recent scholarship, the paper argues that organized crime in Tunbrooke is best understood as an instance of "residual culture" grafted onto a fragmented, volatile criminal marketplace where the stable props of territorial identity are unsettled. The analysis allows for an extension of both the study of deindustrialization and organized crime, appreciating the "enduring legacies" of closure on young people, communal identity, and social relations in the twenty-first century

Criminology · Deindustrialization · Economics · Economy · Identity (music · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

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