Images of youth deviance in the Irish Republic: the case of the Bugsy Malones

Youth deviance, namely any appearance, attitude or behaviour which is considered outside the boundaries of acceptable social norms and is associated with youth as either a life stage or a state of mind, is a challenging phenomenon to capture. This article argues that in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon, a triangulated approach, capturing pop cultural, policy and personalistic images, is required. This approach is applied to the case of the Bugsy Malones, a delinquent youth subculture that emerged in 1970s Dublin. Drawing on archival and interview data, this article first examines the sensationalised press rhetoric that surrounded the subculture and the deeper symbolism it invoked on a societal level. It then delineates the intersection of moralistic, psychogenic, sociological and state security policy images in response to the subculture. The third section employs personalistic imagery (which places the individual at the heart of the analysis and sheds light on their motivations, emotions and beliefs) to generate an enhanced understanding of the Bugsy Malones. The final section considers resurgences and reverberations surrounding youth deviance over time, particularly in relation to a so-called Bugsy Malone ‘copycat’ gang, which allegedly surfaced in June 2001. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of a combined cultural historical criminology approach to the study of youth deviance.