Understanding the nature of formal organisations such as bureaucracies and corporations has traditionally fallen within the remit of the sociology of organisations. This tradition, in turn, can be traced back to the preoccupations of sociology’s grand forefathers who, like Marx and particularly Weber, were interested in making sense of the distinguishing features and organisational structure of the rational bureaucracies that were remaking the modern industrial order in their image. They were particularly interested in studying the distinctive features of the new modern order and in so doing distinguishing distinctly modern social formations with those typical of the premodern.
Weber’s study of bureaucracy constituted the classic defining text articulating what was specific about modern organisations (Weber, 2009). His ideal type in many ways remains the most compelling account of how and why modern bureaucracies were efficient and successful in ways premodern could never be when it came to the task of solving problems and achieving the ends they established for themselves. He paid particular attention to their instrumental rational orientation and studied how rational processes and the application of a rational means to end logic played its way through the way modern organisations were structured. Modern bureaucracies were distinctive and efficient because they possessed organised hierarchies with a complex division of labour. They promote on the basis of merit and everyone within the organisation follow clearly articulated (rational) policies and procedures.
Though mindful of their limitations (for example a bureaucracy’s own tendency to reproduce itself) such organisations were successful because within them means are rationally allocated to ensure that clearly articulated objectives are met in the most effective and cost efficient manner.
While this tradition certainly provides a compelling account of the properties of modern formal organisations, questions can legitimately be raised as to whether the formal study of formal organisations can unquestionably be applied as a template to make sense of the kind of organisations and organisational form of the street world under investigation here and the radically informal organisations that inhabit it. Can we, for example, study informal organisations such as urban street gangs as if they are rational bureaucracies and, if not, what kind of sociology of organisations do we require to do so? This is the key question I seek to answer in the first paper introduced here ‘Arborealism and Rhizomatics: A Treatise on Street Organisation’.
The second question I pose and seek to address in the next paper introduced in this chapter, also addresses a question routinely posed in the sociology of organisations and this concerns less discerning the properties and orientation of modern organisations per se but discerning instead the different kind of organisations that might be found in a particular environment. This form of analysis often involves producing different organisational typologies.
Atkinson’s study of the difference between, for example, modern corporate organisations and late or post-modern flexible firms is indicative of one way that this question has been addressed in recent decades (Atkinson, 1984). The shift from more centralised Fordist business organisations into distributed Post-Fordist networks constitutes another. In terms of the paper presented here, my aim is to try and understand the nature of and difference between the kind of organisations that populate the informal world of the street. How might we label these organisations and what are their distinguishing features?
In addressing these questions my aim has not only been to provide answers to interesting sociological / criminological questions, my aim has also been directed at taking issue precisely with the way these questions have
typically been addressed by a number of contemporary criminologists who appear to believe that informal street organisations such as street gangs can be studied as if they are mirror images of modern organisations. This approach is certainly that used by academics such as Pitts and Harding (Pitts 2008; Harding 2016) who argue that the street world is populated by hierarchical urban street gangs who possess corporate features and behave in a corporate way. Control agents such as the police invariably concur to this corporatised model of the street as well.
In my paper I explicitly reject this approach. My conjecture if that if we are to understand informal organisations such as street gangs we have to embrace a completely different sociology of organisations. One grounded, moreover, on completely different ontological and epistemological assumptions.
I articulate the principles around which this alternative sociology might be based by exploring the work of the French philosopher Giles Deleuze, drawing specifically on his distinction between what he terms arboreal (or tree like) approaches to the study of organisation and the study of rhizomatic (or grass like) forms of structure as an alternative (Deleuze and Guaterri,1977; 1988). The former, explicated brilliantly in the work of Weber are precisely tree like; they have pyramid features and within them control moves downward from a commanding point. Deleuze contrasts these fixed, sedentary and territorialised formations with the de-territorialised and radically de-territorialising nomadic formations of the Eastern Steppes. These are not hierarchical, they are not sedentary, and they mutate in wholly unpredictable ways. Deleuze uses the image of the rhizome to capture their inherently nomadic form.
The point I make in the paper is that organisations such as street gangs are not corporate, arboreal formations but are, precisely, nomadic. To understand them we cannot therefore apply the categories of arboreal thought
and treat them as if they are. To study nomadic formations we require instead a nomodology and to understand this we need a different sociology. The paper concludes by trying to articulate what this alternative sociology might look like when applied to informal organisations which, like gangs, exhibit few of the properties of formal organisations – even when they try to appropriate them.
The second paper also takes issue with the way street organisations are studied and profiled. Against a criminological tradition that believes that the gang is the key street organisation and which then studies street organisation through the mechanism of producing gang typologies (see, for example, the Eurogang gang typology developed by Klein, 2001; 1995), I treat the gang as one street collective which sits alongside and often in close proximity to others which must be distinguished from it. The typology I present here I developed initially with Tara Young for the Metropolitan Police Service (Hallsworth and Young, 2005). I subsequently developed the typology presented here in a report for the Government for London, where it was written as a heuristic for practitioners.
In it I treat the gang as one form of street collective with its own distinctive properties and distinguish this collective from what we term the Peer Group, and Organised Crime Groups. What distinguishes each group from the other is their relationship to crime and violence. Peer groups are the basic building block of the street, composed of individuals who come together because they are, at heart, friendship groups. In a street context such groups can encounter ‘beef’ and have to be prepared to address it. Some competence in violence might be required. But these groups do not come together for the business of engaging in violence or crime. This is what distinguishes them from urban street gangs whose defining feature, we argue, is precisely that their identify as a collective is built around violence and engagement in crime. These
properties are, we argue, integral to their identity and purpose. This property defines, if you like, their ‘gangness’. What separates the gang from what we term an Organised Crime Group, is that the latter, populated by men for whom involvement in crime is again integral to their identify, is the way they address this business imperative through a more instrumental rational orientation towards criminal enterprise. Gangs, we argue, are often volatile and violence in which they engage is often motivated by personal more than business imperatives.
These groups, I contend, can often be found together and rather than seek to encompass the study of different groups within some reified gang typology, more can be gained by looking at the street ecology within any environment in its totality and through such analysis decipher what kind of grouping exists within it and study how these groups intersect together in distributed networks. The paper is also directed at driving home an important truth for practitioners: Be careful about the labels you apply because most street groups are not gangs and need to be treated very differently. Each street collective poses a different form and level of risk and these need to be addressed in any control effort. Peer groups are not systematically criminal organisations and should not be treated as if they are. Gangs are different than organised crime groups and need to be treated as such.