In recent years, British drug policy has undergone a transformation: tackling 'drug-driven' crime through criminal justice interventions has arguably become the central priority and focus. The 'criminal justice turn', as the authors refer to current UK drugs policy, is based on three simple and linked assumptions: drug-driven property crime is a major driver of local area crime rates, especially in deprived neighbourhoods; the criminal justice system can be used to target these drug-motivated offenders and direct them into treatment; and treatment can lead to significant reductions in their offending. Tough Choices: Risk, Security and the Criminalization of Drug Policy explores a series of questions about the 'criminal justice' turn in British drugs policy, from why it happened at all to what led policy to unfold in the way that it did, by analyzing policy documents and over 200 interviews conducted with key players in the policy development and implementation process. At the practice level, the authors explore how the strategic vision of the drug-crime 'problem' has shaped the ways in which drug-using offenders are identified, targeted and managed - in other words, why the implementation of the Drug Interventions Programme on the ground has taken the forms that it has. This is addressed through a detailed examination of practice in three local areas. Both the emergence of this new policy direction and its implementation in practice can best be understood as part of a wider transformation in governance in which risk-based thinking has become central to the ways in which we seek to address our contemporary insecurities. The book is based on a 30-month ESRC-funded research project on the Drug Interventions Programme and draws on the extensive empirical data generated during the project.

University Of Iowa Studies, New Series, No. 321.

This book describes the results of over two years in the field conducting ethnographic research on youth gangs in an English city. It traces the emergence and evolution of street gangs in various areas of the city, with a particular focus on the features of these groups (including ethnicity and the role of women), the role of violence and territoriality in their dynamics and processes of identity formation, as well as the role of drug selling and other earning activities. The life courses of gang-involved individuals are also examined, as well as community responses to these gangs. This book fills a gap in the literature by critically assessing the 'problem' of youth gangs in the UK context: for academics, for empirical researchers, for politicians, for policy makers, for practitioners and for community members. This book examines the political and economic context of the street gang phenomenon in the UK, and in doing so, addresses key theoretical and substantive issues facing sociologists and criminologists today.