Cultural Criminology: The Time is Now

Abstract

Cultural criminology understands crime and its control as products of meaning. It explores simultaneously the macro-, meso-and micro-levels of social life, sensitive to the operation of power, in order to produce critical analyses that are politically potent and germane to contemporary circumstances. The cultural criminological project is broad and inclusive, but focused and urgent. It relishes coalition and collaboration, clarity of thought and purpose, praxis and intervention. In its relatively short history, it has carved out a distinctive identity whilst contributing something to the development of a host of other perspectives. This article begins by offering a contemporary definition of cultural criminology, including some reflection on its antecedents and the responses that have recently been addressed to its critics. This is followed by a discussion of the concerns cultural criminology shares with a variety of complementary perspectives and how it can be used to address malign structures and discourses. Finally, the relationship that the sub-discipline might form with transformative politics is explored briefly. As truth and meaning have become the theatres of struggle between fundamentally opposed political positions promising radically different visions of crime, criminalisation, criminal justice and everyday life, never has cultural criminology been more prescient and necessary. The time for cultural criminology is now.

Criminal Thinking: Exploring its Relationship with Prosocial Behavior, Emotional Intelligence, and Cultural Dimensions

“…Regarding cultural dimensions, Link and Oser (2018) stated that criminal thinking can be a poorly adaptive way of facing social stressors. Ilan (2019) declared that the role of culture is fundamental both in the meaning of criminal behaviors and criminal thinking, and in their creation and control.…”

The Construction of Lithuanian Prison Sentence Assumptions in Critical Criminology Perspective: an Analysis of the Goals of Imprisonment

“…Kritinės kriminologijos idėjos lig šiol įžvelgiamos kultūrinės kriminologijos kontekste -analizuojamos klasinės kultūros, naujos klasinės tapatybės (Ilan 2019). Teigiama, jog klasė yra ne tik socialinės ir ekonominės stratifikacijos produktas, bet ir diskursų, patirčių ir reikšmių rezultatas (pvz., Charlesworth 2000).…”

A cultural criminology of “new” jihad: Insights from propaganda magazines

“…Cultural criminology is specifically concerned with the ways in which meaning is intertwined with issues of crime and its control (see, for example, Ferrell et al, 2015). It can analyze broad geo-political and socio-economic issues alongside the attribution of meaning at the group level and the ways in which criminal behaviors and images are subjectively experienced (Hayward, 2011; Ilan, 2019). Arguably, the somewhat limited cultural criminology of terrorism literature has tended to focus at the meso- and micro-levels, studying in that context the effects, more than the nature, of macro-level structures.…”

“…Utilizing cultural criminology, with its interest in the dynamic between powerrelations, meaning and experience (Ferrell, Hayward and Young, 2015;Ilan, 2019), this paper provides such an understanding. Analyzing a sample of propaganda magazines produced by ISIS and Al-Qaeda, we argue that these organizations appeal to potential jihadists along lines that resonate with the subcultural themes more usually associated with street culture (Ilan 2015, see also Andersen and Sandberg, 2018;Ilan and Sandberg 2019).…”