Criminal governance in a large European city: The case of gangs in London

This study explores criminal governance among urban gangs operating in a large European city. It does so by introducing the Crim-Gov questionnaire, a novel survey tool purposely designed to systematically capture key governance-related dimensions of criminal groups’ activities, and applying it to the case of London. It identifies instances of criminal governance among gangs operating in the city and shows that governance activities are only carried out by a subset of groups, thus suggesting that a more complex set of skills is required to provide criminal governance, particularly beyond illegal markets. Governance-type gangs are spatially clustered and impact 4.7% of all London communities. Next, the paper explores the neighbourhood structural conditions associated with governance and non-governance gang presence. It shows that, while socioeconomic disadvantage increases all types of gang presence, barriers to local services, including affordable housing, only increase the probability of governance-type gangs. Criminal governance is more likely to emerge when services provided by local and central authorities are of lesser quality. Results also indicate a negative association between residential mobility and criminal governance, suggesting that a certain degree of residential stability is needed for criminal governance to emerge. These findings point to the importance of separating different types of gang activities, lending support for a broader theory that situates (some) urban gangs within the spectrum of organised crime governance. It is also crucial for law enforcement and local stakeholders to identify governance-type gangs and treat them separately from non-governance ones. When developing interventions to tackle the emergence and persistence of governance-type gangs, particular emphasis should be placed on improving access to and quality of public services.