The Bluetown study aimed to replicate the Greentown study. The Greentown study was innovative in methodology and purpose. It examined the context of the minority of young people in Ireland who engaged in ‘atypical’ crimes (burglary and drugs for sale and supply), where criminal activity tended to be more serious and prolific. It identified the presence of a local criminal network and found that engagement in the network was plausibly associated with repeat offending. Two replication case studies, Bluetown and Redtown, aimed to examine if the Greentown findings resonated in other locations in Ireland. The current study aimed to identify if the Greentown findings could be generalised to another anonymised Garda sub-district, Bluetown.

[Note: There are also reports on the Redtown study, the original Greentown study and a prevalence study.]