Gangs, the Usual Suspects

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2018

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Brighton Rock and Goodfellas to the streets of Glasgow, London’s East End and Chicago, what’s it really like to be part of a gang and do gangs lead to organised crime? Matthew Sweet calls a meeting with Criminologist Alistair Fraser, journalist Symeon Brown and James Docherty of Scotland's Violent Reduction Unit

Symeon Brown describes himself as an ’activist/writer on youth, justice and urbanism’ and is a journalist for Channel 4 News. He was senior researcher for The Guardian’s investigation team on their in-house study, Reading the Riots about the English riots of 2011.

Alistair Fraser researches gang culture with a particular focus on youth ‘gangs’, street-based teenagers involved in criminal activity in Glasgow, Chicago and Hong Kong. His book Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City, was awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize.

James Docherty has worked with a leading children’s charity helping young people on the cusp of organised crime and with the ‘Violence Reduction Unit’ in Glasgow. He advocates for change in the way we address the hidden cost of untreated trauma in our communities.

Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.1	Hello, I'm Matthew Sweet.
0:33.5	Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate.
0:42.8	If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe. Search for the Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:48.3	And while you're there, please rate and review us. It'll help other people find us.
0:52.2	This is the BBC.
1:00.0	Thank you. Reviewers, it'll help other people find us. This is the BBC. In 1927, Herbert Aspery published a book called The Gangs of New York,
1:05.8	which offered a picture of Urban America,
1:08.5	defined by wars between groups such as the plug uglies, the Carrionians and the
1:14.3	dead rabbits. Look at it now, and it's easy to see how Asbury's reading of the streets were
1:20.2	shaped by his prejudice against the Irish. Some of the groups he describes are clearly part of the
1:26.1	economy of organised crime. Others,
1:29.0	not so much, but they're all gangs. The Atlantic Guard, says Asprey, had a membership that was
1:35.3	principally Irish, but they do not appear to have been as criminal or as ferocious as their
1:41.6	brethren of the five points, although many of them were gifted brawlers.
1:47.2	So when is a gang, not a gang?
1:49.6	And how does the way that we talk about such groups shape their behaviour and attitudes and ours?
1:55.9	Well, nobody from the plug uglies was available for comment,
1:58.5	but we do have three panellists with an expert eye
2:02.1	for the gang culture of contemporary Britain. Simeon Brown covers the subject for Channel 4 News.
	...

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