Having (inadvertently) sparked some of the debate in GQ, I’ll be foolish enough to wade back into the fray.
There may be a legitimate point in considering whether Travellers (qua Travellers), or Roma, play a distinct role in certain types of criminal behavior. The issue comes up at all only because there certainly does appear to be a problem with rings of tricksters (of whatever origin or persuasion) repeatedly performing roofing scams and driveway scams and sweetheart scams and shoplifting scams.
Anyone who is part of such a continuing criminal enterprise ought to be pursued, I suggest, as a matter of criminal policy – not because of who they are but because of what they do (and surely some of those doing it are non-Traveller even if some are Traveller).
The issue of there being a familial/clan relationship in these crime rings, or common membership in a self-defined group, comes up only because understanding the way members of a conspiracy or CCE operate is a key to understanding the “organized” part of “organized crime,” and to understanding how the “criminal enterprise” remains “continuing.” Put differently, the cops probably ought to know that Joe Bloggs has eight brothers in law who run the same pigeon drop scam as he, or that Joe is a member of a secret hierarchical crime ring with an oath of silence and a language of its own, when they arrest Joe in a particular (perhaps comparatively petty) crime, or else they’ll miss the opportunity to catch his cronies, or track down the big fish – and this is true regardless of whether Joe and his confreres are linked by their allegiance to common identity as Travellers, or instead as non-Traveller Irish (see the Whitey Bulger gang in Boston), Sicilian Americans, or members of Skull & Bones. I’m sure some Italian Americans have been less than thrilled by Sopranos stereotypes, but I don’t hear many people seriously questioning whether the FBI ought to be promulgating the charts it uses in court showing interlocking family (and “Family”) relationships among capos, or hiring Italian speakers for monitoring wiretaps or undercover work, or studying the code of omerta, when they try to tackle La Cosa Nostra (oops! unfair stereotype!) crime.
Kal about has me convinced that looking for statistical proof that would meet his rigorous standards for establishing any disproportionate participation by Travellers in recurring scams is difficult (among other things, Kal would want statistics showing that Travellers/Roma were offending at a rate higher than another group with “same socio economic status,” which makes a comparison nigh impossible since no other group really shares the distinctive social patterns of the Travellers/Roma). As someone who daily has to make economic and other decisions with experiential evidence similarly falling short of scientific-standard completeness, I tentatively believe from my experience and the admittedly-anecdotal evidence, that those who discern or refer to a pattern of Traveller participation in scams are not out of their heads. Assuming, arguendo, that there is some basis for perceiving such a pattern, the interesting (and I believe valid) questions that arise are “Why might this become a workable way of life for such people?”
I’ll skip over any moral questions, and certainly won’t assert Travellers are innately wicked, lazy, etc. (and hope we can in turn skip over the no doubt valid, but equally impossible to “prove,” issues of root causes of poverty, exclusion, racism as possible explanations for anti-social behavior) – I’m more interested in the practicalities. It certainly does seem that members of a group that (for whatever quite possibly innocuous reasons) finds itself with a culture based on multi-generation, close-knit clans and families, sharing a common language and moral code, prone to being itinerant, economically disadvantaged and alienated, would find that they were pretty well positioned to be very successful criminals. Opportunity is not destiny, and many would choose not to take advantage of the criminal opportunities that these circumstances (innocent enough in themselves) offered – but some would, and would find the practical advantages of applying their unique traits in this way could lead them to prosper in a continuing, multi-generation business. I’d view it as like finding yourself seven feet tall. You may hate basketball, but at some point you’re at least going to consider it as a career because the advantages are so obviously there.