In Glasgow, street gangs have existed for decades, with knife crime becoming a defining feature.
More than a decade on from Deuchar’s original fieldwork, this book explores the transitional experiences of some of the young men he worked with, as well as the experiences of today’s young people and the practitioners who work to support them.
Through empirical data, policy analysis and contemporary insights, this dynamic book explores the evolving nature of gangs, and the contemporary challenges affecting young people including drug distribution, football-related bigotry and the mental health repercussions emerging from social media.
63 FOUR ‘We are hustlers’ – relationship with drugs As discussed in the previous chapter, The Boys sold illegal drugs and this chapter examines how they would go about their drug dealing [hustling]. Selling drugs was a risky business, so in order to evade detection from the police The Boys had to go about trading them discreetly. Drug dealing also involved shrewdness, activity in many ways being similar to running a business. This meant buying drugs as cheaply as possible and then trying to sell them on to make maximum profit, and this chapter examines
21 2 Drug Trafficking The nature and extent of the harm Drug trafficking is considered to be the largest revenue generator globally among the variety of transnational criminal markets (Reuter 2014), and despite the huge criminal justice infrastructure aimed at reducing drug trafficking, the problem is getting worse. The number of people using drugs worldwide was estimated by the World Drug Report to be 30 per cent higher in 2019 than it was 10 years earlier, in 2009 (UNODC 2019). Globally, 11 million people injected drugs in 2017, while 271 million people
143 Part 3 Chapter Three‘Therapeutic’ drugs As a student of medical care looking at therapeutics, I move in a world inhabited more by speculative thought and empirical social studies than by experimental science, quantitative measurement, and controlled trials in the laboratory and the hospital. This means that I shall have to take a broader definition of the word ‘drugs’ than a scientist might and a wider interpretation of what we mean by ‘our society’. I shall also have to draw attention to the fact that human beings do not (and cannot) live by drugs alone
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is the first to examine how female drug user’s identities, and hence their experiences, are shaped by drug policies. It analyses how the subjectivities ascribed to women users within drug policy sustain them in their problematic use and reinforce their social exclusion. Challenging popular misconceptions of female users, the book calls for the formulation of drug policies to be based on gender equity and social justice. It will appeal to academics in the social sciences, practitioners and policy makers.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is the first to examine how female drug user’s identities, and hence their experiences, are shaped by drug policies. It analyses how the subjectivities ascribed to women users within drug policy sustain them in their problematic use and reinforce their social exclusion. Challenging popular misconceptions of female users, the book calls for the formulation of drug policies to be based on gender equity and social justice. It will appeal to academics in the social sciences, practitioners and policy makers.
Social workers and other social care professionals regularly face the challenges of working with people with alcohol and other drug problems. Yet many receive little, if any, training for working with these issues. As substance use and its social impact on communities and families rises up the political agenda, this book offers a timely support for social workers and other social care staff working in this area.
Supporting people with alcohol and drug problems addresses the current gap in social work and social care education. It provides a combination of research evidence, policy frameworks, and practical hints and tips for good social work practice. Based around practice examples supplied by social workers from both adults’ and children’s social care, it combines knowledge with action. It also provides an important introduction to the evidence base on assessment, intervention and partnership working with specialist substance use colleagues. This book is for all those working in children’s and adults’ social work and social care settings who are working with people who use, or have problems with, alcohol and other drugs.
Robbery can be planned or spontaneous and is a typically short, chaotic crime that is comparatively under-researched. This book transports the reader to the streets and focuses on the real-life narratives and motivations of the youth gang members and adult organized criminals immersed in this form of violence.
Uniquely focusing on robberies involving drug dealers and users, this book considers the material and emotional gains and losses to offenders and victims, and offers policy recommendations to reduce occurrences of this common crime.
Drawing upon unique empirical data based on interviews with high-profile ex-offenders and experts, this book sheds new light on drug markets and gangs in the UK. The study shows how traditional methods of tackling gang violence fail to address the intertwined nature of those criminal activities which can overlap with other organised crime spheres. McLean sparks new debate on the subject, offering solutions and alternatives.
Policy & Politics vol 28 no 4 563 Just say no? Drugs, politics and the UK National Health Service Ruth McDonald English Over recent decades, UK government attitudes towards the pharmaceutical industry have been ambivalent, reflecting the conflicting aims of controlling drug expenditure and maintaining a strong pharmaceutical industry. Policy can best be characterised as a careful balancing act, with indirect regulation leaving drug producers free to set prices. However, recent policy developments suggest a shift towards a more directly interventionist approach
