Social exclusion, youth transitions and criminal careers: five critical reflections on 'risk'.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: MacDonald, Robert
• Date: 01 December 2006

This article draws upon recent youth research in some of Britain's poorest neighbourhoods (in Teesside, north-east England). It stresses the importance of a qualitative, biographical and long-term perspective in attempting to understand drug-using and criminal careers (and wider youth transitions) and points to some difficulties in applying--straightforwardly--influential models of risk assessment and prediction to individual biographies. In a context of deep, collective disadvantage, most research participants shared many of the risk factors associated with social exclusion in early adulthood. Yet the majority did not pursue full-blown criminal or drug-using careers and the research struggled to identify background factors that seemed to play a causal role in separating out more 'delinquent' transitions from more 'conventional' ones. Youth biographies were marked by flux; they did not roll on deterministically to foregone conclusions. Unpredictable 'critical moments' turned transitions in unpredictable directions; sometimes towards crime, sometimes away. The article concludes that there is danger in criminal career research--as in studies of youth transition--in prioritising individual level explanations at the expense of an assessment of the 'risks' presented by sociospatial and historical context.

**********

This article reports recent studies from some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Britain--in Teesside, north-east England--that sought to understand young people's biographies qualitatively, holistically and longitudinally. Their close-up description of the experience of growing up here enabled critical examination of popular, controversial theories that claim to capture these processes of transition (i.e., theories of 'the underclass' and 'social exclusion'). The research was, therefore, not designed to be exactly or solely a study of youth offending or criminal careers and even less so an assessment of important theories of risk prediction and management in respect of these. Nevertheless, it does suggest some useful, critical questions about the application of risk assessments and predictions to individual young people as their lives unfold.

The article begins by outlining our theoretical take on debates about youth transition and goes on to describe, in brief, our research methodology. The dominant, social scientific approach to understanding criminal careers and risk is then outlined. This is followed by a sketch of criminal and drug-using careers as uncovered in our research in Teesside. This is used to raise five, critical reflections on orthodox, risk-based paradigms.

A Note About Youth Transitions

The value of the concept of transition (and alternative metaphors such as 'pathway') has been hotly contested in youth sociology. Because the movement to adulthood has become more fragmented and unpredictable (Du Bois-Reymond, 1998; Cohen & Ainley, 2000; EGRIS, 2001), critics have distanced themselves from structurally oriented class-based analyses of youth transitions in favour of theories about individualisation and the risk society (Beck, 1992; Beck et al., 1994; Giddens, 1990, 1991).

It is true that since the 1970s youth transitions in the United Kingdom (UK) have become more complicated, extended and, apparently, less class-bound. This does not, however, invalidate the concept of transition (see MacDonald and Marsh, 2005, for fuller discussion). As Furlong and Cartmel (1997) and Roberts (2000) show, a young person's opportunities and destination are still strongly influenced by original class location, even though the choices and risks of restructured transitions tend to engender a greater sense of individual autonomy. Thus, summarising much more recent UK youth research in the UK, Jones (2002) stresses the hardening up of 'the youth divide'. Those (typically working-class) young people that make the speediest transitions into the labour market, to parenthood, and to independent living, face greater risks of the negative outcomes associated with social exclusion.

In drawing upon the sociological concept of 'career' (Becker, 1963; Berger & Berger, 1972), our studies in Teesside have explored the way that individual decision-making, informed by young people's cultures and sub-cultures, interacts with socially structured opportunities to create individual, and shared, paths of transition. Coles (1995, 2000) broadens the scope of transition studies to include 'family careers' (the attainment of relative independence from family of origin) and 'housing careers' (the move away from the parental home) alongside the study of 'school to work careers' (educational and employment experiences). In some contexts 'criminal careers', 'drug-using careers' and 'leisure careers' can also become important in shaping youth transitions (MacDonald & Marsh, 2005, explains these terms). These six 'careers' became the focus of our interviews with young people.

The Teesside Studies

This article is based on three studies that shared similar aims, research sites and methods. (1) The first of these was published as Snakes and Ladders (Johnston et al., 2000). It was interested in how 15- to 25-year-olds (n = 98) from the same neighbourhood (Willowdene in the town of Kelby, Teesside), and sharing the same class and ethnic backgrounds, evolved 'alternative' and 'mainstream' transitions to adulthood. The second study--Disconnected Youth? (MacDonald & Marsh, 2005)--examined controversial underclass theories and concepts of social exclusion and their connection with the lived realities of 15- to 25-year-olds (n = 88) who were growing up in the poor neighbourhoods of East Kelby.

In the late 1990s, the seven wards of these studies featured in the top 5% most deprived nationally (DETR, 2000) and two of them were in the worst five--of 8414--in England. Both projects involved periods of participant observation and interviews with professionals who worked with young people. At their core, though, they relied on lengthy, tape-recorded, biographical interviews (Chamberlayne et al., 2002) with a total of 186 young people (82 females and 104 males) from the predominantly white, (ex) manual working-class population resident in 'one of the most de-industrialised locales in the UK' (Byrne, 1999, p. 93).

There is not the room here to review these studies' findings. We note only that, whereas, at the level of the individual case informants described differentiated family, housing, leisure, criminal and drug-using careers, they were united by a common experience of economic marginality. The majority displayed highly conventional attitudes to employment but their late teenage years school-to-work careers struggled to progress beyond low paid, low skill, insecure 'poor work' (Byrne, 1999).

Our most recent study, Poor Transitions (Webster et al., 2004), carried out in 2003, was designed as a follow-up to the two, earlier ones. Where did such transitions lead individuals in their mid to late 20s? Were people eventually able to carve out more progressive transitions, even in unpromising circumstances? Or were longer-term problems of social exclusion cemented in place by early experiences of economic marginality?

We chose to re-interview 34 individuals (18 females and 16 males), drawn from the two original samples, who were now aged 23 to 29 years. We sampled theoretically so as to understand better the longer-term transitions of young women who, at last interview, had been committed to full-time parenting (n = 11); those with enduring but unrewarding commitment to education, training and employment (n = 11); and individuals seriously involved in criminal and/or drug-using careers (n = 12).

Our analytic approach combines standard, qualitative analysis of recurrent and divergent themes and responses across the sample(s) and longitudinal analysis of individual, retrospective biographical interviews from all three projects. In doing so, we present research that is relatively unusual in contemporary British social science. Not only are the nearly 200 participants often described as 'hard to reach' (Merton, 1998), they allowed a rare, close-up insight into the ways people at the sharp end live through conditions of social exclusion.

Young Adults, Risk and Crime

At a general, social theoretical level, theories of risk, individualisation and the Risk Society have had considerable impact on youth studies (e.g., France, 2000; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; Mitchell et al., 2004). More particularly, 'the risk factor paradigm dominates a range of policy developments and is seen by many agencies as the solution to the "youth problem"' (Crow et al., 2004, p. 73). Coles (2000) provides a useful critical summary of risk approaches to teenage pregnancy, unemployment, mental health and 'NEET' (i.e., young people who are not in education, employment and training).

One of the most influential examples of the risk approach in youth studies is the criminal career perspective. Its key exponent in the UK--and 'globally' according to Muncie (2004, p. 277)--has been David Farrington. The theoretical promise, and policy influence, of this type of criminology is that offenders and offending can be predicted, known and controlled. (2) Farrington concludes that a small...