ABSTRACT
Exploring the relationships study participants had with Islamic belief and practices, we found that most participants conjured an idealised identity in the future for themselves as ‘being a pure Muslim’, and as a means of eventually turning away from crime, whilst ethnicity and religiosity as such had little perceptible direct influence on the course of young British Pakistani Muslim men’s offending. Although the influences on them and on their offending behaviour were similar to those seen among poor urban young White and Black men generally, Muslim religious identity remained a source of resilience and solidarity in the social life of the group. Further, as they got older, and the end of the study approached, these men struggled to find personal alternatives to their ‘lives of crime’, referring to the redemptive possibilities held by their ‘better’, ‘purer’, ‘Muslim’ selves that they may be redeemed from criminal pasts.
