The Criminal Entrepreneur: Case Study of an Organised Criminal Family

This chapter reports on a study of a criminal family with a history of armed robbery, drugs, security, fraud and tax evasion. Our family ‘the Baxters’, and specifically one of their sons, ‘Jack’, operated in a city in the North of England. Data was obtained from individuals who were familiar with his career as it unfolded and was captured through interviews held with key respondents providing us with six hours of interviews that produced 89 pages of transcript. Studying a criminal over their working life is not new, indeed such ‘life-course criminology’ (van Koppen et al, 2010:102) has been used in the analysis of different career trajectories. Others have focused on the personality characteristics of criminals, exploring their pre-disposition to a certain type of criminal activity and on the persistence of life-long criminal careers. This chapter argues, however, that it is not only the type of personality that the criminal has developed but also their entrepreneurial business acumen that has responded to, and been shaped by, the socio-economic background within which they operate. It is these dimensions that have most influence on their subsequent career progression.