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.

Chapter 1. It’s the Scheme that Binds us.- Chapter 2. Growing Pains.- Chapter 3. The School Years.- Chapter 4. Breaking Through.- Chapter 5. Things Get Serious.- Chapter 6. Nightmare on The Street.- Chapter 7. Show Me the Money.- Chapter 8. All Things Must Pass.- Chapter 9. Back to the Future.- Chapter 10. Conclusion. 

"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 seeking a 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

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.  

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.

"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

Written in a compelling, narrative nonfiction style that forefronts the lives and voices of serious gang offenders Examines continuity and change in gang membership over time, from joining to leaving gangs Outlines the evolution of gangs and differential pathways to organised crime Offers an uncompromising look at gang violence, knife crime, and drug crime Discusses the implications for future policy and practice

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