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The Car and Crime: Critical Perspectives Nic Groombridge PhD 1997/98 IiI, The Car and Crime: Critical Perspectives A Thesis submitted for examination for a PhD at Middlesex University by Nicholas Brian Austen Groombridge BA (Open), MA (Middlesex) Submitted October 1997 2 The Car and Crime: Critical Perspectives Contents Acknowledgements and Dedication 3 Abstract 4 Tables 5 Introduction 6 Chapter 1 The Problem of Joyriding 11 Chapter 2 Current knowledge and findings about joyriding, 56 motor projects and masculinities Chapter 3 The Research Problem: Alms, Objectives and Scope 101 Chapter 4 Methodologyand Methods 125 Chapter5 Findings:Joyriding 154 Chapter 6 Findings:Motor Projects 178 Chapter 7 MasculinitiesIn Criminology 204 Chapter 8 Conclusionand Policy Implications 239 Appendices Appendix'I Questionnaireto agencies 270 Appendix 2 Questionnaireto TRAX members 272 Appendix3 Questionsfor TRAX interviews 274 Bibliography 275 3 Acknowledgements and Dedication The ongoing support of Hilary has helped me through many past problems and to the successful birth of this thesis -'my baby'- which is as much hers as our son, Rhys. He too deserves special mention for giving me further reason to explore issues of masculinity and car culture. With no encouragement from me he already says that, at age three, he is old enough to ddvel Tony Vass has shown enormous patience in his midwifery and has not let his enthusiasm for cars interfere with his supervision. The members and Staff of the liderton Motor Project and the TRAX Motor Project gave generously of their time. Thanks to all the staff and pupils of the schools I visited with Theatre Adad (and thanks to them for a lift and ddnks). Thanks also to my many running partners in the Trent Park Trotters, and to my one- time running partner, Tim Newburn, for developing my interest in masculinities. This thesis is dedicatedto my late mother,Yvonne. 4 This thesis criticallyexamines the literatureon joyriding,car crime, motor projectsand masculinities. Fieldworkin motorprojects combined with the methodsof cultural studies locatescar crime within a genderedcar culture. Thus motorprojects are seen to 'work'within that genderedcar culturebut a longerterm solutionto car crime is to be found in 'green' transport policies and changesin gender relations. Theoreticallyit recognisesthe reality of car crime and also the realityof the environmentalconsequences of car use but also the ideologicalcontext which placesthe car at the centreof transportPolicy and many men's dreams of transcendantpersonal freedom. It drawsas manyconclusions about criminologyas about car crime. 5 page Table Description 31 1.1 Thefts from and of vehicles in the Cowley section of Oxford Town, Thames Valley Police from 1986 - 1992 41 1.2 TRAX Motor Project Timetable 89 2.1 Comparingthe Ilderlonand comparisongroup adaptedfrom Wilkinsonand Morgan(1995) 108 3.1 Chronologyof car theft careeradapted from McCorryand Morrisey (1989) 188 6.1 Jones typologyof car thievesand their suitabilityfor Motor Projects (adapted from Jones, 1993) 6 INTRODUCTION The motor car is arguably the most criminogenic device yet invented (Bottomley and Pease, 1986: 12) Since the symbolic value and use of the automobile is central to American adolescent life-styles, it seems surprising that juvenile use of cars has not received more sociological attention. (Higgins and Albrecht, 1982:39) Schwendingerand Schwendinger(1985) note that general theoriesof delinquencyhave little to say about vehicle violations,yet disobeyingtraff ic codes may be the most commonoffence among older adolescents.As the quotes illustratethe car has been identifiedboth as criminogenicand central to the lifestylesof Americanyouth. Yet the crimesgenerated by, for and with the car remain rarely studied despite the centralityof adolescentlifestyles to criminology.In the UK, Lightet al are able to point out the "relativescarcity of significantwork on the subject[car crime]" (1993:1). One reason that the car and crime has not been studiedcritically before may be that the car is too close to the everyday experienceof researchersand therefore not worthy of the studythat more distant and exotic subjects are seen to merit. Closenessraises the issueof objectivity.It is the argumentof this thesis, that for most researchers- includingthis one - the way forwardis to acceptthe impossibilityof being objective about cars and to work with and on that subjectivity.As Naffine says: My further concern is the deleteriouseffect on criminologyof the conventional scientificgoal of value4reeresearch and, more particularly,how it has been interpreted(often tacitly, or unconsciously)by membersof the disciplineto mean that they need not considerthe effects of their own identitieson what they make of the work they do. (1997:26) Car ownership,car use, the desire for a car and the pollution,disruption and loss of public transport are also not equallyshared. They are skewedby class, 'race' and age. Cars continueto be owned and used disproportionatelyby white men over 17, and are only readilyaffordable by those older. As an industrialgood the car is profoundlymodern as are many of its problems.Indeed pollution, disruption and loss of public transportmay be seen as threateninga returnto the pre-modern.The car representsa 'risk' (Beck, 1992).Whilst the car is modernistits use today is iteratedwithin the discoursesof advertisingand masculinity. 7 As a modernist discourse criminology has had difficulty in theorising the postmodern elements of the discourses around both cars and men. Both cars and criminology remain stalled within the modern but R is not enough to simply abandon modernism by the roadside and hitch a lift with postmodemism as cultural studies might suggest because as experience, and much criminology insists, the 'reality' of crime and cars persists. Paradoxically therefore both modernist and postmodern concerns, theory and method have to be used to bring a critical gaze to bear on cars and crime. The material, modernaspects of car culture combinedwith the developingpostmodern discourses around it combinedwith both the modem realityof men's lives and the discoursesof gender constitutea numberof potential(often temporaryand overlapping)car-related gendered positions such as: the joyrider; road rage assailant;anti-roads protestor and, even the 'carefullady owner' belovedof car salesmen. JoyridingIs seen as relatedto aspectsof both cars and masculinitieswhich are both obscuredin criminologyand car culture.This study thereforeinitially concentrates on a specific crime committed againstarid with the car - 'joyriding'- but arguesfor a relationshipto 'car culture'(hereafter to appear without scare quotes). It will be arguedthat such theorisingas there has been aboutcar theft has ignored both the specificityof joyriding and the wider issuesof class, 'race', gender, environmentand culture. Whilst many theories and findings aboutwhy joyriders 'joyride' are discussedthe purpose here Is less to set out an alternativeproposition but to morefully understandjoyriding as a practice which is deeply embeddedin societywith a historyand meaningwhich cannot easily be separated f rom other crimes nor f rom legitimatedactivities. Like Ruggiero(1996) the 'aetiologyof deficit' is challenged.Indeed what is presentedhere is a mundanecriminology. This study therefore investigatessociety, the car culture of that society,and the differing masculinities contendingfor dominancewithin society and car culture.Those masculinities,with their cross-cutting class, 'race' and sexualityaspects, make use of cars in 'legitimate'and 'illegitimate'wayswhich tend to reproduceboth dominantand subordinatemasculinities. Joyriding is an exampleof ways in which subordinatemasculinities (wheher by reasonof age, class and accessto legitimatemotoring 8 opportunities) share dominant masculine assumptions. Joyriding also offers the dominant masculinity opportunities to dominate that subordinate masculinity - through both punishment and rehabilitation. Seen in this way joyriding and joyriders are the narrowest focus of the research. In short this thesis is not about 'crime' as studied by positivist, administrative and correctionalist criminology. It is about the cultural practice of car use - legitimate and illegitimate - and the relations of masculinities which influences responses to illegal use. It is in part an 'outlaw' or'border' text (Young, 1994:25). Joyriding too is a text. It is a text that can be read but it is written on the palimpsest of the streets. Its interpretation competing and combining with other texts written on the same streets, each seeking to erase each other - the joyfider, the drunk driver, the motorway madman, the sunday ddver, the travelling sales-rep. And, as anti-motorway protestors remind us, the very roads themselves are wdtten on the land. In order to fully understandjoyriding, its history,the legal sanctionsagainst joyriding, non-legal definitionsof joyriding, its prevalenceand seriousnessand the methodsused to combat it are set out in Chapter 1. Particularattention is drawn to motorprojects and the programmesthey run as they seek a remedywithin car culture and predominantconceptions of masculinity.The chapterdraws on a numberof sourcesto establishthat there is a problemof joyridingbul that it is not a new problem. Chapter 2 reviewsthe literature- criminological,official and popular- on joyridingand car theft more generallyand solutionsproposed for dealingwith it - particularlythe motorprojects introducedin Chapter 1. As considerableemphasis

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