Damaged hardmen: Organized crime and the half‐life of deindustrialization

Abstract

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.

Citizenship on probation: Understanding the labour market exclusion of criminalized people in Scotland

“…While those subject to community supervision in Scotland remain under the purview of statutory social work services, often these services are under-resourced and over-stretched, with individual practitioners lacking any meaningful powers to address the socio-structural and systemic issues faced by their service users (Weaver et al, 2021). We therefore suggest that while many of our participants strive for the full citizenship enjoyed by those with ‘conventional’ lives, they are encumbered by a criminal justice system which imposes and exacerbates stigma (in the form of a criminal record), while doing little to address harms engendered by structural issues such discrimination, an absence of secure and stable employment opportunities, and the ongoing violence of deindustrialisation which is felt by many Scottish communities (Fraser and Clark, 2021).…”

“…behaviour, personal identity) and social integration (e.g. social identity, social recognition, and a sense of belonging) (Power and Nolan, 2017; Weaver, 2015). Nonetheless, research has revealed a complex and contingent relationship between (un)employment, offending and desistance.…”

‘People just dae wit they can tae get by’: Exploring the half-life of deindustrialisation in a Scottish community

“…Deindustrialisation has played a significant role in Scottish society since its effects were first felt in the latter part of the twentieth century. Throughout the 1980s in particular, the west of Scotland’s experience of industrial decline was more brutal than most other areas of Britain (Fraser & Clark, 2021), which Phillips attributes to a failure of government policy in managing manufacturing closures. Between 1960 and 1975, 10,000 Scottish men were losing manufacturing jobs every year, and this doubled to 20,000 between 1979 and 1987 (Knox, 1999, p. 110).…”

Actors in the development of non-capital industrial cities of Tatarstan in the vision and assessment of their residents

“…В 2000-е гг. она оттесняется идеями деиндустриализации, в связи с чем анализируются положительные примеры её осуществления [39] и противоречия: сокращение рабочих мест [26], миграция, рост преступности [28], разрушение инфраструктуры [38], несоответствие индустриального образа современной реальности [31]. В итоге ряд авторов приходит к выводу, что промышленные города не обязательно отстают от непромышленных [24], признаётся важность государственных инвестиций в их развитие [23] и частной сторон [30].…”