Crime and Muslim Britain

Marta Bolognani completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Leeds. She is now Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan.

'This book merges together the study of criminality with diasporic studies, concerns with citizenship and multiculturalism. Building on the long standing tradition of academic work on 'race and crime' this book offers a more cultural studies approach to criminality within a specific community. In this sense, it is ground breaking work that moves the field of criminology out of its comfort zone and connects it with other useful traditions of thought. Based on an 'insider's informed account', the book presents rich data that analyses how practical concerns, cultural and religious beliefs and moral dilemmas play a part in the construction of the idea of crime in the community. The book will speak to those already immersed in studies in this area as well as anthropology, sociology and criminology in general. Such in-depth, long-term projects are becoming increasingly rare and 'Crime in Muslim Britain' is outstanding, both empirically and as a written piece of work.' - Teela Sanders, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Crime and Deviance, University of Leeds 'This is an anthropologically driven community story, underpinned by themes of ethnicity and criminality, about Pakistani Muslims in the particular locale of Bradford. Utilising a wide range of semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation the book provides a wealth of interview data, which is its great strength. This book will attract a number of audiences as it is rooted in a number of literatures, particularly crime and ethnicity, and is accessible. Showing how crime comes to be understood by participants as well as institutional actors, and offering an anthropological methodology towards the study, not so much of actual crime, but of its perceptions and effects, this book offers a counterpoint to the 'taboo' of talking about crime and race in cultural terms.' - Virinder S Kalra, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester

• Acknowledgements * Introduction * The Taboo of Criminological Research amongst Minority Ethnic Groups * The Origins of Interest in Race and Crime * Crime and Culture * Race and Crime in Britain: Discrimination, Policing and the Criminal Justice System * Taking Culture Out of the Picture: Alexander's Study * Colonial and Post-Colonial Criminology: Tatum's Theoretical Framework * 'Blacks Don't Have Culture': Pryce's Participant Observation in Bristol * De-Essentialising and De-Pathologising: Benson vs Werbner * The Structural Bias: Deprivationism According to Ballard * Conclusion: Towards a 'Minority Criminology' * Theoretical and Methodological Solutions to the 'Race and Crime' Taboo * Criminality as a migration stage: Mawby and Batta * Bringing religion into the picture: Macey's bold attempt * Islam and its 'betrayal': Qurash's transnational study The anthropological gaze: Len's ethnography of deviance * Masculinities and identity: Webster and Imtiaz * Attachment and commitment to the community: Wardak's approach * Ethnographic information as a working whole: the 'emic' approach * Access and multi-sited fieldwork as the key to the 'working whole' * The sampling and labelling of sub-groups * Breaking the taboo through methodology: criminology, minority perspectives and anthropology * Bradford as a case study * A 'BrAsian' city * Ethnic disadvantage The migration history * Ethnic resources and networks: the peculiarities of the biraderi system * 'From textile mills to taxiranks' (Kalra 2000) * Assertiveness, self-defence and political struggles in the 1980s * The Rushdie affair and vigilantism The climax of tension: 2001 * Local and global: Bradford post-9/11 A community caught between biraderi and the Umma? * Criminological Discourses: Labelling * Crime in the community: an endemic problem? The labelling process: crime within and without the community * Many problems, one name: drugs in the community * Drug-dealing, drug-taking and the chain of criminal activities * 'Poisoning the community' * Purity and contamination: haram, halal and makkru * Crime as a threat to community stability * Aetiologies of crime The Asian economic niche * Deprivation, discrimination and unemployment * 'The lure of big things': strain theory * Demography and education * The interplay of ethnic resources and networks: the 'out of place culture' * The erosion of ethnic networks: the generation gap, vertical and horizontal ties, and khidmat * The risks of excessive bonding and biraderism * Competing sources: culture, Islam and the West * Conclusion: theories of community criminologies * Criminological Discourses: Gender and Deviance Pathologising young men: subcultural studies in the British * Pakistani context * 'Double consciousness' or 'torn between two cultures'? * Women and deviance: unveiling the problem * Victimhood, agency and double deviance * Women as an indicator of the level of deviance in the community * Rude boys' lifestyles: appearances, locations and 'Sharifisation' * From self defence to heroes: the growth of a 'mafia mentality' * Conclusion: young people and moral panic * Criminological discourses: informal social control * Social control through the family: prevention for girls, retrieval for boys * Social control through the family: three case studies of parental strategies * The mother's roles * 'Home-made rehabilitation': 'village rehab' and the 'marriage cure' * Means of social control: gossip and scandal * Importing a communal system of social control * Between culture and religion: taweez * Religion as a protective factor * Purification, reintegration and 'reconversions' * Popular preaching: Sheikh Ahmed Ali - a case study * Conclusion: informal control as a partial solution * Criminological discourses: formal social control * Mosques: caught between the local and the global * Madrassas and the understanding of Islam * Mosques as community centres * Media * Local institutions * Schools * Prisons * Policing * Conclusion: complementarity of formal and informal social control * The politics of criminology: from biraderi to community * Breaking the taboo, through empirical considerations beyond anti-essentialism * Notes for researchers and funding bodies about breaking the taboo of race and crime * A 'community criminology' * Bibliography * Glossary * Index