Out of Sight: Crime, Youth and Exclusion in Modern Britain

210 Pages·2007·2.89 MB·English

by  Robert McAuley

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Out of Sight O
Out of Sight
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Crime, youth and exclusion in modern Britain
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ROBERT McAULEY Crime, youth and exclusion in
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g modern Britain
Youth crime is simultaneously a social problem and an intrinsic part of consumer
culture: while images of gangs and gangsters are used to sell global commodities, h
young people not in work and education are labelled as antisocial and susceptible to
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crime.
This book focuses on the lives of a group of young adults living in a deprived housing
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estate situated on the edge of a large city in the North of England. It investigates the r

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importance of fashion, music and drugs in young people’s lives, providing a richly m
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detailed ethnographic account of the realities of exclusion, and explaining how young de
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people become involved in crime and drug use. Young men and women describe e y
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their own personal experiences of exclusion in education, employment and the public n
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sphere. They describe their history of exclusion as ‘the life’, and the term identifies Bt
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how young people grew up as objects of suspicion in the eyes of an affluent majority. i a
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While social exclusion continues to be seen as a consequence of young people’s n
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behaviour, Out of Sight: crime, youth and exclusion in modern Britain examines how x
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stigmatising poor communities has come to define Britain’s consumer society. l
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The book challenges the view underlying government policy that social exclusion is a
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product of crime, antisocial behaviour and drug use, and in focusing on one socially io
deprived neighbourhood it promotes a different way of seeing the problematic n

relationship between socially excluded young people, society and government.
The author R
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Robert McAuley studied for a doctorate in criminology at the University of B
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Cambridge, and was formerly a research Fellow at London South Bank University. He R
is currently writing a book about young people’s experiences of higher education. T

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A
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ROBERT McAULEY
www.willanpublishing.co.uk
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Out of Sight
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Policing and Society Series
Series editors: Les Johnston, Frank Leishman, Tim Newburn
Published titles
Policing, Ethics and Human Rights, by Peter Neyroud and Alan Beckley
Policing: a short history, by Philip Rawlings
Policing: an introduction to concepts and practice, by Alan Wright
Psychology and Policing, by Peter B. Ainsworth
Private Policing, by Mark Button
Policing and the Media, by Frank Leishman and Paul Mason
Policing, Race and Racism, by Michael Rowe
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Out of Sight
Crime, youth and exclusion in
modern Britain
Robert McAuley
Ethnic minorities in the
criminal courts
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Publishedby
WillanPublishing
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(cid:2)RobertMcAuley2007
TherightsofRobertMcAuleytobeidentifiedastheauthorofthisbookhavebeenasserted
byhiminaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsActof1988.
Allrightsreserved;nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval
system,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,
photocopying,recordingorotherwisewithoutthepriorwrittenpermissionofthe
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Firstpublished2007
ISBN101-84392-196-0
ISBN13978-1-84392-196-7
BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData

AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ProjectmanagedbyDeerParkProductions,Tavistock,Devon
TypesetbyTWTypesetting,Plymouth,Devon
PrintedandboundbyTJInternationalLtd,TrecerusIndustrialEstate,Padstow,Cornwall
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Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Masking poverty 2
Twenty-four seven society 4
Outline 5
1 A mugger’s paradise 8
The unusual suspects 8
Working poor 9
Growing up in a poor community 10
Through the looking glass 11
Being poor in an affluent society 13
Nova’s local service economy 15
Ordinary world 16
Crime as status 18
Welfare and workfare 19
Poverty, culture and crime 20
Too much too young 22
Social exclusion 23
Stitched up: exclusion at school 24

Compulsoryyouth training 25
Working in a service economy 26
Room 101 27
Crime and consumption 29
2 Nova 31
The Project 32
Uncle Sean 34
Born and bred 35
Spirit of a community 37
The rule of the street 41
Linden’s 42
Nova: it’s me; it’s who I am 45
Survival of the fittest 45
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Outof Sight:crime,youthandexclusionin modernBritain
Elements of a culture 47
Orpheus 49
Going under 55
Work and leisure 56
Working in Nova 57
A bit of business 58
Like a big tree 59
3 Work 61
Life or death 61
Children under a shadow 63
Just thievin’ 71
Racism 72
Gender and crime 74
Youthful aspirations 76
Shit Street 82
4 Respect 86
Gangsters 86
Drugs and crime 87
Poverty and drug use 88
Inside out 92
Social exclusion in action 93
Achieving respect 94
Floetry 96
Exclusion through style 97
Hip Hop culture 100
Watching communities 101
Risk and defeat 103
Maintaining respect 105

The enemy within 108
Feeling for one another 112
Faith in the future 113
5 Education 114
Problem youth 114
Ghetto heaven 117
Do-gooders 118
A new initiative 119
Learning to labour 121
Escape attempts 124
You got no hopes: working on workfare 126
Urban regeneration 127
The workfare carousel 129
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Contents
Been here before: repackaging the Project 131
Behind the scenes 132
Making history 133
The Breakfast Club 134
Demonising community 136
6 Community 138
Living with poverty 138
Stigmatising poor people 140
Changing times 141
Thinking about society 142
Fatal strategies 143
People power 146
Township community 149
They think you’re bad 151
War on community 154
The last frontier 155
Stayingalive 157
7 Society 158
A doll’s house 158
Heroes and villains 161
Imagining crime 163
Search and destroy 164
Consumer protection 165
Faith in the city 166
The golden years 169
Law and order 170
Back to basics 172
Intel: crime in an information society 174

Being human 177
Bibliography 179
Index 194
vii
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List of illustrations
Map of Nova and Gemini Park 3
Respondent groups 38
‘The Four Times Of Day – Noon’. William Hogarth (1738).
Hood Museum of Art, DartmouthCollege, Hanover, NJ 173

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Acknowledgements
First,respect to theyoungmen and womenwhotookpartinthis study,
plus the staff at the Project, Gateways, and the Nova Centre. The world
istheirs.ThankstomysupervisorDrJanetFosterforherthoughts,ideas,
support and tolerance. Thanks also to the Cambridge sisters of mercy:
Belinda Brookes-Gordon, Nina Cope, Amanda Matravers and Alison
Wakefield. Dr Loraine Gelsthorpe, Professor David Downes, Dr Ben
Bowling, Dr Graham Steventon and Dr Allison Liebling all helped me
through the writing process, as did all the staff at Warwick Sports,
’specially Greg. I am also indebted to Maureen at the Institute and Julie
Powley, David Thomas and Dr Padfield at Tit Hall. Thanks also to the
Economic and Social Research Council, Trinity Hall and the University
ofCambridge,InstituteofCriminologyfortheirassistanceandguidance.
FinallytoBrian Willan,and everyoneat WillanPublishing, I thankyou.

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