My Criminal Friend: Maneuvering Friendships and Abstaining from Crime in High-Risk Areas in Denmark

Abstract

This article highlights the perspective of 39 young men who live and have friends in a Danish high-risk neighborhood. We look into their use of microlevel tactics to socialize with crime-involved friends while managing to abstain from crime. Maintaining this balance was a constant everyday processual negotiation of friendship relations, moral obligations, and risk assessment. However, the most severe consequences of having criminal friends were to endure police control and potentially be known and registered by the police as criminals or ‘gang-affiliated’. In that way, the criminal justice system was deeply entangled in the social lives of these young people.