The Unusual Suspects: An Educated, Legitimately Employed Drug Dealing Network

This article challenges the mainstream discourse that is often used to conceptualize illegal drug supply. In particular, it questions the assumption that drug dealers and the markets they inhabit are a social aberration, restricted primarily to social outsiders operating in socially and economically marginalized communities. Drawing on 6 years of ethnographic fieldwork with 25 “conventional” working-class “lads,” the article makes two overarching arguments. First, that the illegal drug trade is by no means confined to a subset of violent or marginalized drug distributors. Second, that the organization and structure of drug distribution networks can often be entwined into the fabric of conventional routines. The article concludes that criminological research must move toward better conceptualizing the so-called silent majority of drug dealers if we are to accurately reframe the current reductionist drugs discourse

The Paradox of Parkour: Conformity, Resistance and Spatial Exclusion

Drawing upon two years of ethnographic research into the spatially transgressive practice of parkour and freerunning, this chapter attempts to explain and untangle some of the contradictions that surround this popular lifestyle sport and its exclusion from our hyper-regulated cities. While the existing criminological wisdom suggests that these practices are a form of politicised resistance, this chapter positions parkour and freerunning as hyper-conformist to the underlying values of consumer capitalism and explains how late capitalism has created a contradiction for itself in which it must stoke desire for these lifestyle practices whilst also excluding their free practice from central urban spaces. Drawing on the emergent deviant leisure perspective’s interest in issues of infantilisation and adultification, this chapter explores the lifeworlds of young people who are attempting to navigate the challenges and anxieties of early adulthood. For the young people in this study, consumer capitalism’s commodification of rebellious iconography offered unique identities of ‘cool individualism’ and opportunities for flexibilised employment, while the post-industrial ‘creative city’ attempted to harness parkour’s practice, prohibitively if necessary, into approved spatial contexts under the buzzwords of ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’. Therefore, this chapter engages in a critical criminological reappraisal of issues of transgression, deviance and resistance in urban space under consumer capitalism

Planning to Succeed: Teachers Discuss Their Beliefs and Planning Methods Regarding English Language Learners

Our study examined pre- and in-service teachers’ attitudes towards English Language Learners in the mainstream classroom. We present the findings of surveys and focus groups with these professionals who serve students in an increasingly diverse community. The results of our study may be valuable to anyone seeking a starting point to help teachers better serve English Language Learners and incorporate them into their classroom communities

Staying Current: Teachers Respond to Recent Research on Bullying

All stakeholders responsible for creating a positive and safe school environment must stay current on the most recent research on bullying. Our study sought to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with some of the most recent and compelling research on the topic and to add their voices to current discussions of bullying in academia. Attendees will join the presenters in contributing to this bridge-building dialogue

Taxing Times:Inter-Criminal Victimization and Drug Robbery Amongst the English Professional Criminal Milieu

This article considers the oft hidden instances of inter-criminal victimisation in illegal drug markets amongst serious criminals in the North of England. Focusing on proto-criminal activity known in regional argot as ‘taxing’ (drug dealers robbing one another) it draws on ethnographic material and suggests that contrast to literature on the subject from the USA (Contreras 2012; Jacobs 2000) ‘taxing’ in England rarely leads to cycles of retaliatory violence. Yet against a more general climate of precariousness in disadvantaged communities in England, ‘taxing’ as a deviant behaviour is a gainful, relatively low risk activity for a minority of established, professional violent criminals

‘The customer is always right’? Consumerism and the probation service

The probation service of England and Wales has faced ongoing change to its structures and challenge to its theory and value base throughout its history. Recent years have seen an acceleration in the scope of this change with sizable budget cuts alongside the threat of competition and subsequent privitisation of probation services. This article explores whether the more fundamental but subtle challenge to practice may yet come not from explicit governmental policy, but the underlying consumerist social structures at play that operate not only in governance, but also in the mindset of the public, practitioners and probationers alike.</p