Abstract
Dick Hobbs is a British sociologist known particularly for his ethnographic studies and his expertise in crime and criminology. In his 2013 book, Lush Life: Constructing Organized Crime in the UK, Professor Hobbs offers a distinctive analysis of organized crime in Great Britain, including its historical development, principal endeavors, and the social and economic forces that cause individuals to be drawn to a life centered on criminal activity. Interspersed throughout the text are ethnographic sketches of numerous residents of the United Kingdom whom Professor Hobbs has interviewed or studied as part of his research for this book.
The focus of Lush Life is perhaps best summarized in the author’s own words early in the first chapter: “…criminal collaborations generate chaotic sets of personal and commercial affiliations featuring fluid and often unpredictable interchanges that are ill suited to the sociometric analysis favoured [sic] by police and police science.” Professor Hobbs brings a sociologist’s perspective to his study and presents us with findings and conclusions quite contrary to the traditional concepts and rhetoric about organized crime generated by governmental authorities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. He chronicles the deindustrialization of the British economy and the migration of populations from primarily urban to suburban and semirural environs as major factors in the development of modern forms of organized crime in the British Isles. Also examined is the globalization of markets for both legitimate and illegitimate goods and services, which has led to a shift in the concentration of organized criminal activities from territorial to market dominance. The author posits that the development of organized crime in Great Britain and its uniquely British characteristics are therefore a natural and predictable response by both native-born British and immigrants to the political and economic climate of the United Kingdom.
Professor Hobbs is remarkably critical of British governmental authorities and law enforcement in particular, consistently portraying them as inept and corrupt. He argues that xenophobia, general incompetence, the influence of American law enforcement policies, and “domain expansion” have caused British authorities to invent and promulgate the belief that much criminal activity in the United Kingdom is the handiwork of large, organized transnational syndicates. A central theme of this book is that organized crime is in fact a “wraithlike concept” that defies definition and thus cannot be readily identified and controlled or eradicated by government efforts.
The book is not without its flaws, some minor, some more substantial. There are numerous references to persons, places, and activities that are uniquely British, with insufficient explanation for those outside of the United Kingdom to understand their significance. Perhaps the most notable example is the author’s frequent reference to residents of “Dogtown,” which apparently is Hobbs’ representative term for an economically depressed and racially and ethnically diverse area of London. The actual nature of this community and its role in the overall British crime picture is never clearly established.
The author’s use of ethnographic sketches, both within the text and in an appendix, is also troubling. Often, these sketches are simply inserted in the middle of a chapter, without introduction or transition, creating more of a distraction than a real contribution to the topic at hand. One is left with the notion that Professor Hobbs is trying to impress the reader with his ability to personally interact with denizens of the so-called underworld. In addition, the author consistently refers to English prejudice against Jews, Italians, and Irish as “racism,” a term both inflammatory and highly inaccurate, since neither religious belief nor country of origin can properly be defined as a characteristic of race.
Perhaps the most serious limitation of this book is its focus on domestic criminal activities that fall closer to what might be characterized as “street-level” crimes. Hobbs does discuss the history of the infamous Kray brothers and several other better known British gangsters, but too much of the text is devoted to discussions and descriptions of persons and activities that are either not connected or at best tangentially connected to any significant organized criminal endeavor. It is true that Great Britain has never been the spawning ground for any major international criminal organization. However, here the author seems unwilling to acknowledge the influence or even the existence in the United Kingdom of major transnational organized crime groups such as the Sicilian Mafia or the Japanese Yakuza.
In conclusion, Lush Life: Constructing Organized Crime in the UK is a broad exposition on the nature of the uniquely British version of the so-called organized criminal underworld. The author, a noted criminologist, challenges the very notion of the existence of a vast underground network of closely aligned individuals, separate and apart from the social and economic mainstream, who control virtually all organized criminal activity in Great Britain. However, the author does not address the political, social, or economic impact on the United Kingdom of well-established international criminal organizations that have preyed upon the people and the economies of many nations, including those of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, within its limited scope, this book is a valuable addition to the criminological literature on the worldwide phenomenon known as organized crime.