James Treadwell

From the car boot to booting it up? eBay, online counterfeit crime and the transformation of the criminal marketplace

This article is based on research with men who have embraced the new technological opportunities offered by the internet to sell counterfeit products and engage in forms of intellectual property crime, specifically trading counterfeit items through internet websites. It examines case studies and qualitative material generated through interviews with professional criminal entrepreneurs who have made use of the web-site ‘eBay’ in order to distribute goods while minimizing the risk of detection and prosecution. This empirical material, it suggests, provides some initial evidence of how more traditional forms of working class male enterprise crime are now being mutated and superseded, and are shifting in light of the opportunities provided by new technology, moving from traditional local marketplaces to new online settings.

Beyond ghosts, gangs and good sorts: Commercial cannabis cultivation and illicit enterprise in England’s disadvantaged inner cities

This article focuses on the commercial cultivation of cannabis in England. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork with organised crime groups in disadvantaged locales, we argue that the rapid growth of cannabis cultivation is not the preserve of ‘ghosts, gangs and good sorts’. Rather, these new markets reflect significant socio-cultural and technological transformations and the involvement of independent entrepreneurial criminals who, for the most part, come from impoverished neighbourhoods that have experienced, in recent years, a significant decline in legitimate job opportunities. This article offers new empirical data that shed light upon the organisation of commercial cannabis cultivation. It also challenges dominant academic accounts of these markets.

The Forces in the Firing Line? Social Policy and the ‘Acceptable Face’ of Violent Criminality

This chapter considers the way in which the military and crime nexus is currently interpreted and understood, both theoretically at a social policy level. Considering former military personnel’s involvement in crime in England, it argues that within mainstream media, public and governmental circles there are only a limited consideration of offending by ex-forces personnel. In particular, it contrasts the assumed acceptance that violent offending by veterans is linked to combat trauma, with the more complex reality of some former servicemen’s seeming heightened involvement in serious sexual violence and violent crime. Drawing on empirical evidence from research with the Howard League (Inquiry into former armed service personnel in prison. London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2011) on former British military personnel in the English prison system, it provides a critical reflection on the veteran offender connection. It considers how little consideration has been given to the very term ‘veteran’ or the realities of this cohort’s violent and sexual crimes, and how frequently the very institution of the military is removed from any critical consideration of why they offend. It calls for greater empirical understanding of the complex motives and drivers of offending by veterans, including greater consideration of the role of the military as a backdrop to men’s future criminal violence.

Similarity and Difference: The Ethnographer, the Subject, and Objectivity

This paper is based on the experiences of two criminological researchers and their reflections of undertaking ethnographic study. We first set out and briefly discuss our methodological standpoint. Then, by examining the differences in our backgrounds and biographies, we begin reflecting on how these influences have impacted upon our motivations for studying and our choice of research areas. We then consider how our biographies have also influenced the fieldwork conducted. We argue that by viewing the researcher as a ‘subjective subject’ – and therefore an integral part of the research process (together with drawing upon the analytic realist concept of ‘reflexive accounting’ (Altheide and Johnson, 1994)) – it is possible to create a more accurate representation of ethnographic research findings. Furthermore, we argue that similar reflexivity might be employed by other researchers, as this process may in itself yield a rich source of valid data.

Talking Prada and Powder: Cocaine Use and Supply among the Football Hooligan Firm

The first time we published jointly it was to describe in detail the func- tionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. We suggested that cocaine use in this setting was habitually linked with quite extreme violent exchanges. Our ethnographic data suggested that for many foot- ball ‘lads’ involved in the more organised forms of football disorder, concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence, the acquisition of ‘time out’ and the construction of a (hyper-) masculine identity (Ayres and Treadwell, 2012). Furthermore, data suggested that these functions were not con- fined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the night-time economy more generally. Hence, there was some blurring of boundaries between football spectator violence and more general per- vasive violence of the nocturnal leisure scene (e.g., see Finney, 2004; Winlow and Hall, 2006).

‘If There Is a God I Will Be Allowed to Enter Heaven as All Other Martyrs’: Anders Behring Breivik and Religiously Inspired ‘Righteous Slaughter’

We do not know for sure whether Anders Breivik did visit a church before he began the killing spree. What we do know is that Breivik, a native Norwegian, perpetrated the worst terrorist atrocities in the history of his nation when, on 22 July 2011, he killed eight people by setting off a van bomb in the middle of the government district in Oslo, before he travelled a short distance and shot dead 69 participants of a Workers’ Youth League (AUF) summer camp on the island of Utoya. In August 2012, he was convicted of mass murder and causing a fatal explosion and terrorism, temporarily reminding those in Europe that terrorism need not necessarily always be thoughtlessly prefixed with the term ‘Islamic’. Of course, the very problem above is one that many would immediately, and quite understandably, take issue with. For the vast majority of practicing Muslims, it is deeply insulting to make the values of Islam synonymous with violence, as it would be for any religion. For the majority of adherents of most religions, the association between violence and religious faith juxtaposes elements that appear to be wholly contradictory. Christian spree killers are certainly not normal representatives of a faith encompassing some 2.2 billion people worldwide. Rather, more characteristically, religious adherents generally derive positive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their belief system. Yet the extent to which criminology ought to consider the role of religion in the commission of crime remains quite peripheral, even in the contemporary contexts. In doing this, it is necessary to engage in speculation, and there are few certainties and much can be contested, but I offer up this attempt at considering Breivik precisely because as Zizek’s notes, ‘Anders Behring Breivik’s ideological self-justification as well as in reactions to his murderous act there are things that should make us think’ (Zizek 2011).

Bars, drugs and football thugs: Alcohol, cocaine use and violence in the night time economy among English football firms

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork, the aim of which was to explore the functionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. The study was originally concerned with the use of violence associated with cocaine use among football fans on match days but, like much ethnography, the research evolved beyond its original remit to include the extension of football firm violence within the night time economy (NTE). The study is unique in giving a voice to this group of individuals and permitting them to be active interpreters of their own world. It included 20 interviews with members of football firms who habitually took part in violent exchanges and found that concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence; the acquisition of ‘time out’; and the construction of a (hyper-)masculine identity. These functions were not confined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the NTE. The findings from this explorative study also contribute answers to the under researched question of whether those ‘who are violent in the NTE are also violent in other contexts’ (Finney, 2004: 5).

Bars, drugs and football thugs: Alcohol, cocaine use and violence in the night time economy among english football firms

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork, the aim of which was to explore the functionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. The study was originally concerned with the use of violence associated with cocaine use among football fans on match days but, like much ethnography, the research evolved beyond its original remit to include the extension of football firm violence within the night time economy (NTE). The study is unique in giving a voice to this group of individuals and permitting them to be active interpreters of their own world. It included 20 interviews with members of football firms who habitually took part in violent exchanges and found that concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence; the acquisition of ‘time out’; and the construction of a (hyper-)masculine identity. These functions were not confined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the NTE. The findings from this explorative study also contribute answers to the under researched question of whether those ‘who are violent in the NTE are also violent in other contexts’ (Finney, 2004: 5).