International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 75

The "Criminal Gang," a French Ectoplasm?
drugs were repackaged into “commercial”
quantities in a dedicated apartment in the
town.
Buyers came from the entire Parisian
region—Shitland had a reputation for
the quality of its merchandise. Up to five
hundred “clients” a day could be handled,
and sometimes queues formed at the foot of
the buildings.
The junkies, Shitland’s “consumers”
in a sense, were escorted from the ground
floor of the tower blocks, and led toward
the dealer of the day, situated, for strategic
reasons, on the sixth or seventh floor of the
twenty-story blocks. According to investigators,
upon entry, the consumers could
read the inscription “Welcome to Shitland.”
Higher up there was another, reading “Prepare
and show your banknotes.” Further
on, there was a warning: “Fake banknotes
= down to the basement for punishment.”
The clients were then searched, before finally
meeting the person who would hand
over the precious product for which they
had gone to so much trouble. This individual
was hooded up and hidden behind (stolen)
street furniture to protect him against
potential aggressors.
On the upper floors were the wet
nurses—that is, residents of the building
who kept stocks of drugs in their apartments,
and were paid around two thousand
euros per month for doing so. And higher
still, “squatted” apartments that could serve
as a backup in case of a raid by the police.
Gangbangers, usually kids, positioned
on mattresses on each floor, were
paid around three hundred euros a night to
keep watch and tip off about any possible
police activity. And to make access difficult
and hold up the progress of “invaders,” the
traffickers had painted the windows in the
communal areas black, and wrapped the
lights in dark duct tape; there was even a plan
to tip oil down the staircases, just in case.
As for the residents of the area, they
had to pay ten euros if they wanted to use
the elevator, or else hand over a part of their
shopping in order to be allowed into their
own homes.
During the trial of some members of
this Shitland gang in April 2013, 3 the prosecuting
attorney recounted “a system of terror”
when describing the life of the inhabitants,
speaking of an area “where threats
and violence were an everyday occurrence.”
And then there was the trafficking, which,
according to police informers, generated a
“turnover” of around thirty thousand euros
a day.
Can we still say that this is not a
matter of organized crime, when we see
coming together here all the symptoms of a
true criminal organization?
Recipe for a Criminal Genre
The “street gang” is a primitive, collective,
and organized criminal genre
that has manifested itself with varying
intensity throughout history. The gang
has been known since way back, from ancient
Rome to seventeenth-century London.
In Europe, the contemporary version
of this criminal phenomenon, inspired by
the US model, first began to affect France
around the middle of the 1980s.
Since that time, comparable phenomena
have been observed in Spain, in
Great Britain, in Belgium, in the Scandinavian
countries, and in the north of Italy.
And with current means of communication
and circulation, the genre continues to extend
itself.
3
In fact there were two trials, a week apart. Sentences of up to six years of imprisonment were passed for “traffic
in narcotics” and “criminal conspiracy.” The general atmosphere was confused, because the general opinion
was that the main ringleaders were absent.
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