Lifting The Lid on Redtown: A Replication Case Study, Which Investigates The Contribution of Engagement in a Local Criminal Network to Young People’s More Serious and Persistent Offending Patterns

By Naughton, Catherine and Redmond, Sean and O'Meara Daly, Eoin (2020) 

  The Redtown study aimed to replicate the Greentown study. The Greentown study was innovative in methodology and purpose. It examined the context of the minority of young people in Ireland who engaged in ‘atypical’ crimes (burglary and drugs1 for sale and supply), where criminal activity tended to be more serious and prolific. It identified the presence of a local criminal network and found that engagement in the network contributed to, or was plausibly associated with, repeat offending among certain vulnerable young people. Two replication case studies aimed to examine if the Greentown findings resonated in other locations in Ireland. The current study aimed to identify whether the Greentown findings could be generalised to another anonymised Garda sub-district, Redtown. The Twinsight methodology Redmond (2016) specifically designed the Twinsight methodology for the Greentown study. Local network maps constructed from PULSE2 crime data illustrated crime transactions (burglary and drugs for sale or supply) including transactions between adults and young people in Redtown during 2014–2015. The network map provided a framework to harness the expert knowledge of members of An Garda Síochána in Redtown, and facilitated confidential and anonymised discussions around key incidences, young people’s contexts and relationships. Key findings Garda narratives centred on three 16-year-old boys. They all came from chaotic backgrounds, including family histories of crime, problematic substance use, mental health concerns and social deprivation, and each had lost his mother at a young age. The three young people were early school leavers and, together with their older siblings and peers, were involved in repeat burglary offences in the Redtown area in 2014–2015. Gardaí described one young person, referred to as R5, as the leader who identified crime targets, sourced transport and organised the sale of stolen goods. Illicit substance use was commonplace and normalised among this group of young people. Indeed, Gardaí identified drug-related crime as an overarching concern in Redtown.

The Redtown findings suggest that the interaction between three factors – (a) young people’s experiences of childhood adversity, (b) involvement in problematic peer groups and (c) pro-criminal norms (held by both families and peers) – that drove expectations to commit crime contributed to the young people’s engagement in the Redtown criminal network. Membership of the network in turn may have provided additional opportunities for the young people to access illicit drugs, while their vulnerabilities (traumatic experiences) may have facilitated the development of problematic drug use and drug debt obligations. Drug debt obligations in turn drove further offending and this was identified as a key contributing factor to young people’s retention within the network and their atypical offending patterns. Conclusion While there were many similarities between the Redtown and Greentown findings, notably the chaotic backgrounds, familial/peer crime norms and sustained presence of the network within the area, there were also notable differences. The Greentown findings suggest the network was a hierarchical structure governed by a core family, which was sustained through a culture of fear and compliance. Although family was an important component of the Redtown network, as a source of pro-criminal norms and adversity, the families that dominated the Gardaí narrative were relativity low status. The Greentown findings suggest one cohesive network (with semi-autonomous clusters of members); however, the Redtown findings indicate differences in network structure dependent on crime type (burglary or drugs for sale and supply). While the combination of Redtown and Greentown findings indicates that the structure and dynamics of networks may be context-specific, both sets of findings suggest that engagement in the local criminal network may have contributed to the young people’s ‘atypical’ criminal activity    

Limerick, Ireland:  School of Law, University of Limerick , 2020. 60p.