ABSTRACT
One of the oldest explanations for entrenched offending, identifying an area, locality or community of crime also signals neighbourly complicity and the family transmission of criminal values. This chapter argues that, because of the basis for fragmentation which lets in either an over-weaning sense of community or a vacuum is social and economic breakdown, crime as a social norm is a phenomenon capable of reproducing itself. It combines the social norm cases according to neighbourhood to analyse associations and differences between the places and offending behaviour. The chapter represents inner city areas such as Canonbury in London, old towns such as Bishop Auckland, industrial New Towns such as Peterlee and every type of council estate, such as in Middlesbrough. Although the London cases may mention unemployment, the casual and labouring job market there is undoubtedly easier than in the north-east, or even Nottinghamshire.
