Criminal careers, risk factors &
desistance
Some findings & observations from qualitative
research with young people growing up in poor
neighbourhoods
Robert MacDonald
University of Teesside
R.MacDonald@tees.ac.uk
Aims of the paper
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Report qualitative studies with ‘socially excluded’
young adults in some of Britain’s poorest
neighbourhoods
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Sketch the pattern of ‘criminal careers’ uncovered, in
comparison with orthodox risk factor approaches
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Focus on processes & questions of desistance from
criminal & drug-using careers
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Qualitative studies of youth transitions, ‘social exclusion’ &
‘the underclass’ (fieldwork 1998-2003)
In some of poorest neighbourhoods in England (Teesside, NE
England)
Biographical interviews; 186 white, working-class young
adults
…Recruited ‘theoretically’/ ‘opportunistically’ via agencies,
snowballing etc
‘Participant observation’ & ‘stake-holder’ interviews
Fourth study underway…
Snakes &
Ladders
JRF (2000)
Disconnected
Youth?
ESRC (2005)
Poor Transitions Two Steps
Forward?
JRF (2010)
JRF (2004)
Fieldwork:1998-9 1999-2000
2003
2009
Sample: n.98
Ages: 15-25 yrs
n. 34
23-30 yrs
(all drawn from
previous two
studies)
n. 60
30-55 yrs
(half drawn from
previous three
studies)
Following up:
young parenting,
long-term
criminality,
economic
marginality
‘Recurrent
poverty’ & ‘poor
work’; following
up some young
people, now in
30s
=
n. 88
15-25 yrs
→
186, white, working-class young
women & men from poor locales of
Teesside (core sample)
Focus on:
‘mainstream’ &
‘alternative’
careers in one
poor locale
Social exclusion,
youth transitions
& the underclass
debate
Teesside, North East England: ‘one of the most deindustrialised locales in the UK’ (Byrne, 1999)
Middlesbrough - most
concentrated poverty in England
Research in wards - all
top 5% most deprived
nationally
2 wards in worst 5 - from
8,414 - in England in 2000
Multiple deprivation
Understanding youth transitions
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The outcome of individual agency, local (sub)culture &
social structural constraint
Empirical/ analytical focus on interplay of:
‘school-to-work’ (e.g. training, jobs, unempl.)
family (e.g. becoming a parent, partnerships)
housing (e.g. leaving home, independent living)
[increasingly common in youth studies, but we add…]
leisure (e.g. peer associations, identities)
criminal (e.g. offending, desistance)
drug-using careers (e.g. rec. to dependent use)
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Cross-case & within-case longitudinal, ‘life-grid’ analysis
Criminal careers: some numbers…
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Not statistically representative…
186 interviewees in first two studies (167 provided
reliable/ usable accounts of criminal/ drug-using
careers)
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100 no criminal involvement
21 reported very short-lived (e.g. one-off) offending,
usually shop-lifting
47 reported recurrent offending, all had convictions
& 33 imprisoned (predominantly young men...)
26 of whom opiate users
The onset & establishment of criminal
careers
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Early teenage offending = ‘normal’, brief, petty,
short-lived (e.g. shop-lifting, vandalism)
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The longer-term criminal careers of a minority
shaped by two key processes in relation to ‘school
to work’, ‘leisure’ and ‘drug-using careers’
1. School to street…
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School disaffection becomes committed
disengagement
Simultaneous commitment to ‘street corner society’
(MacDonald & Shildrick, 2007, Leisure Studies)
Truant time (& evenings) spent in (often boring) street
corner socialising: ‘doing nothing’ (Corrigan, Resistance
through Rituals, 1976)
Sub-cultural attachment to tight, neighbourhood peer
groups
‘Leisure-time crime’, in structure-less, purpose-less
days
‘Leisure time’ crime
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‘I’m not a bad lad, a real thief. I’ve mooched [stolen
from] sheds’…when you pinch summat, like a barbecue
set you can sell on for £10, you can buy yourselves a few
bottles of cider, can’t you? You can cure your boredom
then’ (Richy, 17, Youth Trainee).
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‘No, not bad crimes, not bad stuff. Just jumping in cars
which were nicked. Not nicking them. Just jumping in
with the lads for a spin round. Looking back, I can’t see
why I did it. Daft stuff. Just the buzz. Like these two
bottles of pop I nicked – and a can of after-shave – that’s
my two shoplifting ones. I didn’t really need them. I just
did it. For the buzz I suppose’ (Gazz, 20, YOI inmate).
2. ‘Enter the dragon’…
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For a minority of these, second key process was move
from ‘recreational’ (e.g. alcohol, cannabis, speed,
ecstasy) to ‘dependent’ drug use (heroin and more
recently crack cocaine)
Dramatic impact of ‘second-wave heroin outbreak’
(Parker et al, 1998) in Teesside in mid-90s, as many in
samples progressed through mid-teens
These ‘poverty drugs’ appealed to young people with
troubled lives; ‘blanking out’ problems & guilt
More committed, acquisitive offending
‘Drug-driven crime’ =
increasingly frequent,
desperate, chaotic
The drugs-crime nexus
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‘Heroin came into Kelby in about ’95, didn’t it? I had a go
at it in ’96. I didn’t even know it was heroin. It was just
brown powder on a bit of foil. Like tack. No one was
bang on to it then. Didn’t know it was heroin or what the
risks were’. (Richard, 23, unemployed, in bail hostel).
‘That’s the way it goes. Start off smoking a bit of ganga,
breaking into cars & pinching car radios & then you end
up on heroin and that & it fucks you up’ (Jason, 21, YOI).
‘Prior to 16 I’d had a few cautions. It just got worse as I
was getting older. Went from E to heroin. I started doing
it daily to feed my habit so I was robbing everything in
sight. Whatever I could sell, I’d rob. It did for me, heroin.
Shoplifting, thefts, then burglary and robbery’ (Barney,
20, YOI).
Social networks, identities & transitions
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Cumulative, contingent processes of leisure & school to
work careers fed deepening criminal/ drug-using careers
Across all aspects of all young people’s lives, informal
leisure & social networks (‘bonding social capital’)
shaped identities & transitions – ‘positively’ &
‘negatively’
Social networks hardened up & narrowed down as the
years passed
Thus, allegiances & associations with other young men in
‘street corner society’ reinforced transition pathways,
auto-biographical possibilities & social identities
Progressively closing down already limited legitimate
social & economic opportunities
Criminal careers & ‘social exclusion’
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So, broad, qualitative view of youth transitions identified
 committed disengagement from school
 teenage ‘street corner society’ & peer allegiance
 concomitant development of dependent drug-using
(heroin) careers…
…as key processes in shaping longer-term criminal
careers of minority; here, at this time, for these people
Criminal careers & ‘social exclusion’
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Sceptical about the literal fit of ‘social exclusion’ to these
lives (given strong sense of social inclusion generated by
neighbourhood-based social networks of friends &
family)
But, these young men’s accounts were those most
redolent of deepest ‘social exclusion’:
family estrangement, homelessness, recurrent/ lasting
joblessness, ill-health, bereavements, failed desistance,
relapse to heroin, successive imprisonment - loss, regret,
shame.
The fit with risk factor approaches?
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‘Hyperactivity at two may lead to cruelty to animals at
six, shoplifting at 10, burglary at 15, robbery at 20 and
eventually spouse assault, child abuse and neglect,
alcohol abuse and employment and accommodation
problems in later life’ (Farrington, 1994: 512)
Risk factor theory
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Individual psychopathology in childhood ‘predicts’ later
forms of anti-social behaviour & crime
Small group of offenders responsible for a large
proportion of crime and ‘these chronics might have been
identified with reasonable accuracy at age 10’
(Farrington, 1994: 566).
Theoretical/ policy promise
 predict & control offenders/ offending
 combat crime & social exclusion via early intervention
Five critical reflections on risk & criminal
career: 1. Indeterminacy
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Common risk factors were associated with but did not
determine, nor predict ‘negative’ activities & outcomes
e.g. the majority with sustained criminal careers had
been ‘frequent truants’ but many of the latter reported
zero offending
e.g. low educational qualifications & school ‘failure’
shared equally across offenders & non-offenders
2. Weak prediction from risk factors
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The vast majority burdened with socio-economic, family
& educational risk factors - but only a minority
developed criminal careers.
Impossible to differentiate those with/ without criminal
careers by earlier, childhood factors (but we cannot say
much about parenting style)
e.g. ‘conventional’ & ‘delinquent’ siblings
e.g. longer-term commitment to ‘street corner society’ a
necessary but not sufficient condition for sustained
criminal career
3. Which of the multiple risks is most
significant?
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Difficult to know – same ‘risk’/ experience had different
meanings/ consequences for different individuals and for
the same individual at different biographical moments
e.g. extensive truancy had multiple causes & different
meanings (peer loyalties, institutional rejection, physical
escape from bullying - not just school disaffection)
e.g. family bereavement catalysed stronger work
commitment (for Martin) versus heroin relapse (for
Micky, in teens) - and second family bereavement
triggered ‘desistance’ (for Micky, in twenties)
4. The contingency & unpredictability of
transitions
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Youth, not just childhood, experiences important.
‘Criminal’ & ‘conventional’ destinies not set in stone in
childhood, nor teenage years
‘Stuff happens’ & more ‘stuff happens’ as years pass
Traumatic, single ‘critical moments’ apparently led to reorientation away from (& towards) crime:
Lisa (23) used to be ‘in with a crowd getting into
trouble and doing drugs’ until she was raped by one of
them.
Zack (24) said that ‘the turning point’ in his life was
when ‘my best mate hung himself’. He had now
‘calmed down’ and given up ‘all sorts of mad stuff’
5. Above & beyond individual-level risks
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Risk factor orthodoxy downplays the historical,
geographic, economic contexts (in which these cohorts
grew up):
 Massive, rapid de-industrialisation, structural
unemployment, welfare state retrenchment, rising
‘poor work’ & collective downward social mobility
 Influx of a booming local heroin market - since mid-90s
only – & associated criminal economy; victimisation,
fear, neighbourhood decline, family trauma
These consequences of global-local change transformed
‘the structure of opportunities’ (legal & illegal) facing
local youth – creating new risks & making possible new
forms of ‘socially excluded’ transition
Desistance from criminal & drug-using
careers
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Poor Transitions follow up study contained surprises
Apparently sustained, serious, effective (but fragile?)
desistance by majority with criminal/ drug-using careers
Causes/ correlates/ factors in desistance, similar to
criminology of desistance from UK, US, Aus, NZ:
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Parenthood (new fatherhood)
‘I’ve done every single drug you can name…//…I’ve done heroin
as well. I’ve done it all. I stopped because Angela fell pregnant
with the baby. So I stopped it because of the baby’ (Curtis, 21).
Partnerships (new, loving, trusting, ‘straight’ partners)
Employment (i.e. insecure ‘poor work’ typical of samples)
Other aids to desistance, from our studies:
drug treatment & housing moves
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Speedy access to reliable, therapeutic, non-punitive
heroin treatment with proper prescription rates
(relatively rare locally at the time of study)
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Housing moves away from home neighbourhood
(sometimes allied with new partnerships)
Other aids to desistance: disconnection
from social networks
Heroin users unanimous that their
lives since mid-teenage lived in
peer networks that reinforced
crime/ drug use.
Escaping these networks crucial to
going straight.
Other aids to desistance: disconnection
from social networks
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Imprisonment often welcomed as opportunity to do their
‘rattle’ (albeit under a harsh regime).
A few sought a prison (rather than community) sentence
– and all viewed release with trepidation – because of
the drug temptations of ‘the street’.
‘You’re just going back to the same place, the same
group of people and it’s easy to get back into it’ (Stu, 20).
Questions about desistance
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Why did some (with apparently similar profiles) persist?
Why desistance now, for others?
Difficult to disentangle cause/ effect, in retrospective
narrative accounts; from social to psycho-social
processes…
? Significance of contingent & chance ‘turning points’,
‘critical moments’, ‘wake-up times’ (Williamson 2004)
across samples’ biographies (but not found in Barry, 2006
study, nor significance of employment...)
Critical moments often catalysed dramatic &
unpredictable consequences for youth transitions
e.g. parental separation, housing moves, family revelations, illness,
bereavement, interventions by professionals
Biographical re-orientation, desistance &
purposeful activity
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Importance of contingent coming together of:
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critical moments
disconnection from previous peers, identities, ‘the street’
new ‘narrative’, auto-biographical possibilities & purpose
Typically associated with ‘normal’ youth transitions to
adulthood (employment, partnerships, parenthood)
But imprisonment decelerates processes of desistance,
stalling transitions back to ‘normal life’
Difficulty of ‘growing out of crime’ here, now, for them
Unattractive as partners, fathers, employees
Thus, the necessity of other ‘purposeful activities’beyond employment – for biographical re-orienation (cf:
Jahoda, 1982): e.g. youth work projects, courses
Biographical re-orientation, desistance &
purposeful activity
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Purposeful activity to replacing the busy-ness of drugdriven crime (and, earlier, the drift into crime from
structure-less ‘truant time’)
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‘It’s ‘cos I don’t occupy myself. No job to keep me busy. It
does me head in just wandering around. Nothing to do. I
end up knocking around with me old mates. I just get
back into it. I don’t have enough to do. I just hang around
here [bail hostel]. Play pool. I need more purpose. I want
to go to college. I wish it would come around quicker’
(Richard, 23, in bail hostel; explaining heroin relapses…)
Summary & conclusions
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Entwined criminal & drug-using careers generated the
most ‘socially excluded’ transitions in youth & outcomes
in early adulthood
…but only minority involvement, even in place &
populations beset by extreme social & economic
hardship & ‘risk’
Some general association, but ‘risk factors’ largely unable
to explain or predict:
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those with/ without criminal & drug-using careers
the onset & maintenance of criminal careers
the timing of desistance; desistance v. persistence
Summary & conclusions…
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Perhaps in times/ places/ populations awash with risk,
explanatory power of individual-level factors is lost?
Our research argues for broader, sociological analysis of
non-offenders lives & lives of offenders beyond crime
(e.g. leisure & drug careers, social networks, school to
work careers)
…and, crucially, situation of these biographies in broader
panoramas of history & economy of the place
References
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Barry, M. (2006). Youth offending in transition: The search for social recognition, Abingdon:
Routledge
Byrne, D. (1999) Social Exclusion, Milton Keynes: Open University press.
Corrigan, P. (1976) ‘Doing Nothing’ in Hall, S., and Jefferson, T., (eds.) Resistance Through Rituals,
London: Hutchinson.
Farrington, D. (1994) ‘Developmental Criminology’, in Maguire, M. et al (eds.) The Oxford
Handbook of Criminology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jahoda, M. (1982) Employment and Unemployment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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MacDonald, R. (2006) ‘Social exclusion, youth transitions and criminal careers: five critical
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Parker, H., et al. (1998) New Heroin Outbreaks Amongst Young People in England and Wales, Police
Research Group, Paper 92, London: Home Office.
Shildrick, T., Garthwaite, K, MacDonald, R and Webster, C. (2010, in preparation) Two steps
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Webster, C., et al (2006) ‘Predicting criminality?’, in Youth Justice, 6, 1: 7-22
Williamson, H. (2004) The Milltown Boys Revisited, Berg.