Gangs of Bangladesh

Sally Atkinson-Sheppard is a criminologist and strategist from the UK. She was awarded her PhD from King’s College London in 2015 following the completion of the ethnographic study discussed in this book. Sally began her career as a researcher for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in London, where she represented the MPS in a collaborative study with the British Prison Service which explored the psychology of gang related violence. She went on to advise for a variety of criminal justice reform projects in Bangladesh, including leading the Bangladesh Prison Directorate and the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission through the development of their first strategic plans. Sally has recently returned to the UK after living and working in Beijing where she led the first study into migrant children’s involvement in gangs and organised crime in China.

“This book is a very important contribution to organized crime research as well as development of southern criminology. This book is also a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners who work on issues pertaining to child protection. Ethnographic fieldwork to a foreign country is exciting, yet always fraught with challenges and uncertainties. Reading this book, I can see Sally Atkinson-Sheppard’s devotion to research on hard-to-reach population in an impoverished Asian country.” (Weidi Liu, Asian Journal of Criminology, Vol. 17, May 20, 22)

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Bangladesh.- 3. Theorising Organised Crime, Gangs and Street Children’s Agency.- 4. The Bangladesh Mafia’: Mastaans and the Market for Social Protection.- 5.  ‘Illicit Child Labourers’: Exploring Street Children’s Involvement in Organised Crime.- 6. Street Children and ‘Protective Agency’.- 7. ‘Illicit Labour’ and Children’s Culpability: Implications for Penology and Criminal Justice Responses.- 8. Implications for Research, Policy and Practice.- 9. Sharif.- 10. Conclusion.