ABSTRACT
Crime is an ever present and pervasive characteristic of many inner city areas. Poverty, unemployment, bad housing, and high population density are also perennial ingredients in the inner city jigsaw. In such environments distinctions between legitimate, semi-legitimate, and illegitimate activities are often blurred; attitudes towards crime and offending are more complex than clear-cut distinctions between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ might suggest. Gorer Lane and Stanton, like many other inner city areas, have thrived on criminal activities for generations. Booth (1889) reported that the district was one of ‘ancient ill-repute’ at the end of the nineteenth century and this characterisation remains true to the present day, where some forms of crime are an institutionalised and unquestioned ‘way of life’. As one local CID officer explained:
Almost everyone in this area has a criminal record or associates with criminals. Petty crime and receiving is a way of life. There is nothing wrong in it as long as you don’t hurt anybody. Crime is almost inbred in generations here.
