At policy level, pervasive binaries can be argued to characterise the governance of young people’s lives, where young people are either constructed as ‘vulnerable victims’ or ‘dangerous wrong-doers’ in situations where they transgress (see Such and Walker, 2005; Fionda, 2005; Muncie, 2006). That this dichotomy is ill-matched with the complexities of young people’s experiences has been highlighted in research carried out with young offenders (Goldson, 2002a; Jacobson et al, 2010), and was underlined by the life stories of young people in the present study.
‘Vulnerable’ young people’s descriptions of their lives revealed a complex inter-relationship between patterns or instances of transgression and the presence of
‘vulnerabilities’ or multiple disadvantages (see 6.1):
In 2009, I was abused by my Dad and that was when I got my social worker.
They tried to get me a foster home, but because I didn’t want to stay there, my behaviour got bad. That’s when I was selling sex. (Jess, F, 15)
When I was home I’d get stressed out a lot cos I just I’d be either cleaning or babysitting. And it used – I used to get annoyed and that with myself and then I’d take it out in school. My temper out in school and that – (Stephanie, F, 16)
There were numerous other examples of this inter-relationship. 16 year old Alicia had been involved in selling sex, had been a Heroin user in the past and had been prosecuted for shoplifting. She discussed how she had got involved in some of these ‘transgressions’: “my Mum took Heroin so I wanted to know what was so good about it”. Keith (M, 15), who had spent time in a YOI for offences related to his heavy Cocaine use and theft, explained how his life started to move towards behaviours considered ‘anti-social’:
Because [Dad] were an alcoholic, he were beating me up every day, well not every day but it were like every time he didn't have a drink. So obviously I were roaming the streets ‘cos he were drinking all the time. (Keith, M, 16)
Jay Jay (M, 17) talked about his “anger problem” in the context of his experience of being sexually abused. He still had to see the perpetrator regularly, and no action had been taken after Jay Jay reported the abuse:
One day I will turn round and I will hit him because I’m... he doesn’t know how much it hurt me for him doing that ‘cos I thought he were really a good mate of my Mum’s and he’d never do nowt like that. And that’s what scares me ‘cos I know I’ve got a bad anger problem and that, and I will turn on him.
I know I will. (Jay Jay, M, 17)
Empirical evidence suggested that rather than ‘vulnerability’ and ‘transgression’
being mutually exclusive states, ‘vulnerability’ in the context of young people’s lives might be best be understood as symbiotically and intrinsically linked with
‘transgression’ in many cases.
Scott’s case seemed to illustrate this inter-relationship particularly vividly. Scott (M, 18) reported the greatest range of difficulties or ‘vulnerabilities’ in his childhood (see Table 6.1), but he was also the young person with the most prolific offending
history in the sample. Here he describes how he got involved in serious criminal activities at the age of nine years old. Readers may recall from earlier in the chapter (6.1.1) that Scott’s Mum had been a Heroin user and had frequently sold his
belongings to pay for drugs:
Scott: This guy that I know who was on the street was kind of a mate. I went to school with him and stuff. He said to me, ‘Oh, I can get you a job innit’
because I was moaning because he had fresh trainers on and I said, ‘They're boom, them trainers.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, I'm getting fresh clothes, me.’ I said, ‘Is your Mum buying them?’ He went, ‘Nah, nah, nah, me, I'm buying them. I'm buying them.’ I said, ‘How are you getting that?’ He said,
‘I'll get you a job if you want.’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’, thinking that it was just going to be something dumb or something. Obviously I'm nine, but I had the mind of a fifteen-year-old when I was nine.
Kate: In what way?
Scott: I had to grow up quicker than … quicker than anything. I don't know, he just said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ He said, ‘All you've got to do is...’ and he gave me these wraps. Obviously they’re wraps of Heroin. I didn't know they were Heroin. He said, ‘All you've got to do is, when the phone rings, go and meet them and tell them where, or they'll tell you where they want to meet you and you go and meet them.’ And I used to just put it in my mouth, walk round with it in my mouth, and then I'd spit it on the floor when they come, I used to just spit it on the floor and I'd be sly about it. I got away with it for a while and then the drugs squad came down on me…
Scott had recently assaulted a GP whilst intoxicated on the drug Mephedrone. He had repeatedly burgled houses, committed street robberies and also reported that whilst using steroids heavily he had assaulted a man “and proper nearly killed him and everything”. He disclosed during the interview that he continues to “work” or
“go out making money” (illegally) on the streets. At the age of 18, he had already been incarcerated twice. Alongside such transgressions he reported chronic and multiple disadvantages; recounting experiences such as abuse from his parents,
serious mental health issues from an early age, sexual abuse whilst in care, homelessness, parental drug use, parental criminality and growing up in poverty.
Tendencies for ‘vulnerable’ young people to be seen as less ‘vulnerable’ where they displayed transgressive behaviours (see 5.4) would appear to be particularly
significant in cases such as Scott’s. Due to his age (18) and also the seriousness of his offences, Scott would be unlikely to be considered as ‘vulnerable’ in some respects, even though his life story (see Appendix F) would indicate that his childhood involved dealing with problems which were amongst the most multi-faceted and extreme across the sample.
If taken as an independent subject of study, young people’s stories of ‘bad’
behaviour could be alarming, casting the story tellers as delinquent or even perhaps
‘amoral’, and as posing significant dangers for others in society. Seen in the context of the young person’s life story, accounts of transgressions might be understood differently. To draw on the example of Scott’s story again, parts of his narrative were troubling in terms of the risks he apparently posed to others:
Scott: Say you're trying to knock someone's teeth out, it's just a buzz. And then when they hit you back, I don't know, you just get that nice feeling. It's a good feeling. It feels good. It sounds weird that.
Kate: Can you say about why it feels good?
Scott: It lets out something. It lets out something that's inside you. It lets out a feeling that's been inside you for a long time. And when you fight, it's like more of that feeling is coming out. So it means that you feel fresher.
Even though you could be bruised and cut open the next day, you don't feel as angry because you're letting all that anger out and it just feels good...
sometimes... It's better than just keeping it bottled up. But, also, you can't keep fighting all the time. That's what I keep getting told. So I'm trying to stop.
Kate: So when I said, ‘Oh, you were lucky to get away with it’ [referring to superficial bruising and cuts rather than serious injury], you've sort of got a buzz from it so you sort of don't mind that you've got the ─
Scott: I've got big scars on my arms and that where I've been attacked with knives and stuff because, I don't know, I've been in [housing estate in city]
and I've been on my own and I’ve still looked for a fight. I don't know, I like being on the floor getting booted in the head sometimes. I don't know why it is. I think it's how my Mum ─ with my Mum, innit. My therapeutic team told me this. They said, “Oh, when you were a kid, they say you get used to violence because you brought up around violence”, and they said, “You get used to getting battered. So you still crave, sometimes, to get hit.” And because my Mum and Dad just hit me quite a lot when I was a kid and that, I don't know, I think that's why I still like to get hit sometimes.
Bottrell (2007) argues that for young people from inner city housing estates, transgressions function as resistances which are important to create a positive identity, and are seen by young people as necessary in the context of their marginalisation. Taken in isolation, Scott’s continued assaults on others and robberies constitute serious crimes, but set within the more detailed contextual picture of his ‘vulnerability’ and the adversity he had dealt with, these are perhaps less easy to dismiss as simple ‘wrong-doing’. Hayley (F, 16) had self-harmed
regularly in the past. A counsellor had helped her to develop strategies to stop hurting herself, but since this, her behaviour in school had become more difficult for others:
Ever since then I’ve just been angry ‘cos I don’t take it out on myself any more, I take it out on everybody else. So I suppose I’d rather be excluded from school than all cut up. (Hayley, F, 16)
Jess, who had been sexually abused by her father explained:
My behaviour was showing them because if I told them what had been happening, then it would all just kick off, like a big fuss. So I found my own way around it. (Jess, F, 15)
That young people might perceive certain ‘rewards’ as well as ‘risks’ as attached to behavioural transgressions has been noted by researchers (Hayward, 2002; Hagan, 1991; Bottrell, 2007). Appreciation of this view did not appear in the interviews with informants (Chapter 5), which may indicate a point of divergence in the views of young people and professionals. Chapter 5 highlighted that for professionals, resistance on the part of young people often led to them being seen as less
‘vulnerable’. Yet the current chapter has indicated that such resistances may be understood within a broader context of coping strategies, and that young people may see these as necessary in order to deal with the challenges and difficulties they face.