The Criminal Entrepreneur: a case study of an organised criminal family

The study is focussed upon one criminal family operating in a city in the North of England embracing a history of armed robbery, drugs, security, fraud and tax evasion. Information was gathered from individuals who were familiar with his career as it unfolded. Data was obtained through interviews held with key individuals and makes use of some six hours of interview producing 89 pages of transcript. The approach of studying a criminal over his working life is not new, indeed such ‘life-course criminology’ (van Koppen et al p 103) has been used in the analysis of different career trajectories, with others focussing more on the personality characteristics of criminals suggesting their pre-disposition to a certain type of criminal activity (Boverkerk 2000). This paper argues, however, that it is not the type of personality that the criminal has developed but their entrepreneurial business brain that has responded to and been shaped by the socio-economic background within which they operate and that that is influential on their career progression.