This article explores urban men’s involvement in the drug economy, examining the conditions in which they become ‘trapped’ in difficult lifeworlds and identities. Through an ethnographic exploration of what disadvantaged urban men term ‘trap life’, this article demonstrates how different ‘trapper’ identities, enacted to manage economic, social and psychological vulnerability, allows an understanding of the varied motivations to take part in criminality and violence. Whilst the terms ‘dangerous’, ‘pathological’ and ‘criminal’ are deployed to account for street lifestyles, such stereotypical imagery with roots in history, media, political discourse and policing practices, downplays the humanity of men living on the margins of society and neglects their version of reality. Far from being exclusively violent perpetrators, urban men are especially vulnerable as they are trapped in a never-ending existential crisis, which prevents successful transitions into mainstream life. I demonstrate that the issue of violence and the 21st century drug business must be placed in broader psychosocial contexts to provide a better understanding and perhaps one-day inform therapeutic and other practice interventions specifically tailored for those seeking to exit ‘trap life’.

This article presents ethnographic and media analysis that explores how Islam has come to shape conceptions of the material, sacred, crime and redemption in contemporary English street culture. Islam’s clear dichotomy between the mundane ‘Dunya’ and sacred ‘Deen’ shape how socio-economically marginalised, ethnic minority men make sense of the world around them. Stark inequalities have tainted the material world for the UK’s most disadvantaged, prompting them to seek redemption entirely outside it – in the world of the sacred where they can experience warmth. In analysing their experiences we highlight how paths to desistance have arguably been overlooked where analyses of Islam in street culture have focused on questions of radicalisation.