Scotland’s Gang Members

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. It’s the Scheme that Binds Us

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 1-27

3. Growing Pains

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 29-49

4. The School Years

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 51-70

5. Breaking Through

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 71-88

6. Things Get Serious

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 89-108

7. Nightmare on The Street

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 109-126

8. Show Me the Money

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 127-153

9. All Things Must Pass

   • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

   Pages 155-162

10. Back to the Future

    • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

    Pages 163-175

11. Conclusion

    • Robert McLean, James A. Densley

    Pages 177-184

12. Back Matter

    Pages 185-188

    PDF

Drawing on extensive life-history interviews with serious violent offenders, this book offers a unique socio-historical analysis of gang membership and gang evolution in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. The book chronicles the lives of young men in and around Glasgow from early childhood to present day and examines the lived experience of family, friendship, community, and crime. It demonstrates how street reputations are won and lost and how gang membership is not a single event but an experiential process of offending, victimisation, consensus, and conflict. The book follows the young men’s descent into knife crime and street violence and the impact of imprisonment on their life chances. Detailed narratives capture how they individually and collectively transitioned from street violence to profit-driven organised crime, before eventually disengaging from gangs and desisting from offending. The book concludes with an in-depth discussion of the evolution of gangs and organised crime in the 21st century and in the inner-workings of Scotland’s marketplace for illegal goods and services, with implications for police, practitioners, and policymakers. A page-turner from start to finish, Scotlands’ Gang Members is a truly unique contribution to knowledge about gangs and crime, written to high academic standards but readable and accessible to all.  

• Policing
• Social Work
• Organised Crime
• Knife Crime
• Drugs
• Youth Justice
• Paisley Drug Wars
• Gangs and Drugs
• Policing Gangs
• Social Policy
• Gang Policy
• violence and crime

"Scotland’s Gang Members successfully harmonizes gang research and narrative criminology. McLean and Densley defy convention by interweaving in-depth life history accounts with core substantive themes in the literature. They expertly situate people within places and institutions, groups and networks. The challenges young people face in navigating family, school, neighborhood, and imprisonment are laid bare. The evolving gang landscape, including its territoriality, relationships, and conflicts, is captured excellently. Readers will depart with a new understanding of gangs and violence and hope for the future of young people in Glasgow and beyond."

—David C. Pyrooz, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder

"This is a first rate text, carefully researched, refreshingly creative and innovative in approach. It is accessibly written not only for academics and practitioners but also for the general public. A must-read for anyone seekinga deeper understanding of the structural backdrop of gang violence and its relationship with organised crime in the West of Scotland."

—Ross Deuchar, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of the West of Scotland

• Interdisciplinary Research Unit on Crime, Policing and Social Justice, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

  Robert McLean

• School of Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul, USA

  James A. Densley

Robert McLean is Lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Research Unit on Crime, Policing and Social Justice at the University of the West of Scotland, UK.


James Densley is Professor and Chair of the School of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University, USA, part of the Minnesota State system.

Policies and ethics