THE HOODS: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN BELFAST
by Heather Hamill.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. 200pp. Cloth. $29.95. ISBN:
9780691119632.
Reviewed by Jason R. Jolicoeur, Department of Criminal Justice, Cincinnati
State Technical and Community College. Email: jason.jolicoeur [at]
cincinnatistate.edu
Heather Hamill’s The Hoods: Crime
and Punishment in Belfast attempts
to examine the role and purpose of informal and formal social control sanctions
as applied to a specific group of antisocial and criminally persistent West
Belfast youth commonly referred to as “hoods.” Hamill is aptly able to achieve
this objective through the creation of a text that is exceptionally well written
and the development of a narrative that is both engaging and illuminating. The
scope and depth of Hamill’s investigation provides for a remarkably detailed and
rich evaluation of the motivations and rationalizations employed by the hoods.
The excellence of Hamill’s investigation extends to her assessment of both the
impetus for and consequences of the informal and formal sanctions exercised
against the hoods by members of the formal criminal justice system and elements
of local police paramilitary units. The clarity of Hamill’s writing and the
lucid and vibrant depictions that she is able to provide make the text appealing
and well suited to both introductory and sophisticated audiences. The text
provides both an excellent introduction to the groups and processes being
studied and an outstanding progressive theoretical analysis of related group
processes and outcomes.
Hamill begins with a brief overview of the key political and cultural factors
that shaped the recent development of Northern Ireland in general and West
Belfast more specifically. This review, while cursory, is certainly sufficient
to provide the inexperienced reader with the background necessary to appreciate
the unique environment in which the events depicted by Hamill transpire. The
historical analysis provided by Hamill serves to illuminate the unique set of
factors that collectively gave rise to both the hoods and the informal social
controls intended to control the social harm that they cause. Subsequent
sections provide an overview and introduction to the group of antisocial youth
for which her text is entitled. These initial depictions underscore what is
arguably the greatest strength of Hamill’s text, an unparalleled ability to
immerse her readers in the environment in which her investigation was
undertaken. Readers are left with a substantive depth of knowledge and a
sincere appreciation for both the events being studied and the individuals that
are at the focus of the analysis. Hamill’s ability to provide readers with vivid
and comprehensive representations of the events, environments, and groups
profiled is a consistent strength that is common to each of the remaining
sections of the text.
After providing an insightful depiction of the hoods, the text continues with an
exhaustive examination of the punitive [*705] sanctions that have been used as a
means of controlling and suppressing the group’s antisocial behavior. Hamill
provides an overview of both informal and formal means of social control, but
her analysis tends to disproportionately focus on the former. While formal
sanctions are not covered in substantive detail, their analysis is still
significant because it provides readers with the insight necessary to understand
the need for the informal sanctions that are examined in greater depth. The
examination of the informal methods of social control practiced by elements of
local paramilitary groups is exceptional. Hamill provides
a detailed exploration of the various punitive sanctions employed, many of which
involve extreme violence, and the motivations commonly associated with these
punishments. Additionally, she presents evidence that undermines existing
assumptions regarding the adversarial nature of the relationship between the
hoods and the paramilitary groups responsible for administering punitive
sanctions. Hamill presents a convincing argument that the relationship between
the hoods and the paramilitary groups, while certainly contentious and troubled
at times, is also symbiotic and perhaps even reciprocal in at least certain
respects. Perhaps most importantly, Hamill is able to underscore the widespread
failures of informally practiced sanctions in spite of the frequency with which
they occur and the severity with which they are practiced. One
of the most enduring questions that ultimately emanates from Hamill’s text
pertains to why the hoods would continue to engage in antisocial activities in
spite of the ever present threat of the severe informal punishments that are
meted out by local paramilitary groups.
This question lies at the very center of The
Hoods. Hamill
advances a thoughtful and well-reasoned theoretical analysis which encompasses
the origination of the hoods as a distinct social force, their involvement in
antisocial and criminal activities, and the effectiveness of the informal and
formal methods of social control implemented against them. The theoretical
assessment is exceptional for both its complexity and scope. Hamill is able to
advance an explanation based on the signaling and the search for social status
which incorporates various aspects of structural, peer, and individual models.
Arguably, one of the most interesting aspects of Hamill’s theoretical
explanation is that it is able to use the very violence perpetrated by
paramilitary groups against the hoods as a means of explaining the hood’s
disproportional propensity for involvement in antisocial and criminal behavior.
This is a critically important factor as the relationship between informal
paramilitary sanctions and the antisocial behavior of the hoods is one of the
most central themes of the book.
Hamill concludes The Hoods: Crime
and Punishment in Belfast with an
exploration of the political, social, and economic factors that will likely
shape the future of West Belfast. In doing so, Hamill brings her narrative full
circle. Hamill began her
text with an overview of how many of these very same factors shaped the
historical development of West Belfast and gave rise to both the hoods and the
informal paramilitary punishments used to control them. Hamill’s conclusion
provides the same sort of insightful overview that was contained in her
introduction, and goes further by introducing a number of [*706] intriguing
questions. Perhaps the most important of these questions pertains to the future
of the hoods in an era that will likely be characterized by reduced paramilitary
group influence and control. Hamill addresses this final question with a depth
of analysis that is truly exceptional, and with a clarity that surpasses the
convoluted nature of the issues being examined. Perhaps we should expect no less
in the concluding paragraphs given the extraordinary quality of the preceding
sections of the text and the remarkable and groundbreaking inquiry that they
depict.
*********************
© Copyright 2011 by the author, Jason R. Jolicoeur.