Gangs, crime and music: Investigating the significance of music practices in criminal networks (CRIMUS)

The main objective of CRIMUS is to investigate the roles of music and music practices within networks associated with crime. This will be systematically explored by and from the perspectives of prisoners who self-identify as members of gangs to yield exclusive insights into the complex relationships between music and crime. 

CRIMUS will implement an innovative participatory research strategy involving arts-based methods, interviews, netnography and a community knowledge exchange hub in correctional settings across Norway, Sweden, the UK and Romania, to generate a rich basis for comparative analyses across a diverse set of populations and geographical locations within Europe. 

Through a focus on music-making and meaning-making within crime networks, the project identifies and analyses: (1) the lived experience of music/crime relationships for prisoners who are members of criminal networks; (2) music’s roles in their life trajectories; and (3) how they engage with, interpret and generate meaning from gang-related online media. 

CRIMUS is interdisciplinary in its scope drawing on cultural and narrative criminology and interdisciplinary music studies to generate new understandings about the significance of music amidst the notoriety and rise of criminal networks across many European countries.