Cultural Criminology: Exploring Crime, Culture, and Control Methods

This essay provides an overview of cultural criminology, a theoretical and methodological approach to studying crime and its control within the context of culture. It traces the origins of cultural criminology, drawing from the Chicago School of Sociology and Marxist criminologies, and highlights its focus on viewing crime and crime control agencies as cultural products. The essay discusses the methods used, primarily ethnographic and qualitative research, and explores the benefits of this approach, such as highlighting the role of power in constructing crime. It also addresses criticisms, such as the perceived lack of economic analysis, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of cultural criminology in understanding crime through theoretical, methodological, and interventionist lenses, referencing key scholars and their contributions to the field.

CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY
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Author Note

CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY
• A theoretical, methodological and
interventionist approach towards the
crime studies (Ferrell, J. (2014)
• Places criminality and the control of
criminality squarely in context of
culture
• Views crime and all the crime control
institutions and agencies as creative
constructs and cultural products.
• Ways for highlighting the effects of
power towards crime constructions are
sought

• Should be including not
just only ‘crime’ and
‘criminal justice’ but all
the phenomena diverse
and in relation to it.
• Examples:
uncriminalised deviance
of the financial and
political elites, public
display of emotions by
the victim of the crime
and media
representations of crime

• Can be traced back to the
mid-90s
• drawing heavily on the
principles of Chicago School
of Sociology and the Marxist
and neo-gramscian
criminologies of the 1970s
• The theories in the cultural
criminology can be seen as
taking into account the
space roles in construction
of crime (Hayward, 2017)

METHODS OF CULTURAL
CRIMINOLOGY
• Utilized two of the main researches of
ethnographic and fieldwork techniques
• Used the main technique of qualitative research
associated with the scholarly readings
• In recent times cultural criminologists employ
research methods like the participative action
research
• In the rejection of abstract empiricism remained
constant.
• The study of the role of emotional affecting
crime (Presser & Sandberg, 2015)

BENEFITS OF CULTURAL
CRIMINOLOGY
• Both crime and it agencies of
control are seen as cultural
products.
• The methods of effect of the power
in constructing crime are
highlighted significantly
• The theory of cultural criminology
has developed in both USA and UK
since the mid-90s with writings that
can be seen as having cross-
national impacts(Muzzatti & Smith,
2018).

BENEFITS OF CULTURAL
CRIMINOLOGY
• Cultural criminology is an emergent orientation in criminology,
sociology, and criminal justice, exploring the convergence of
criminal and cultural processes in the contemporary social life
• The views of the cultural criminology theorists are dynamic
(Ferrell, 2013).
• The cultural criminologists focus mainly on the sensual nature of
the crime, the adrenaline rushes of edgework.

CRITICISMS OF CULTURAL
CRIMINOLOGY• Cultural criminology is seen to have
foregone hard-nosed economic analysis
in the interest of a cultural focus that has
been subjective or narrow
• In response the cultural criminologists
were seen as to be of the opinion that
they strive for the creation of a
sociologically inspired criminology that
would be attuned towards the distinctive
dynamics of the contemporary economy
• The expansion of the global market has
brought new forms of crime, crime
control, and political resistance.

CONCLUSION
• Thus from the above discussions it can be
concluded that there have been criticisms for the
theory of cultural criminology
• However the cultural criminology theory can be
seen as important for helping an individual to be
understanding crime and crime control by
analyzing the methodological, theoretical and
interventionist approaches

REFERENCE
• Ferrell, J. (2014). Cultural criminology (pp. 904-
913). Springer New York.
• Hayward, K. (2017). Cultural Criminology:
Theories of Crime. Routledge.
• Presser, L., & Sandberg, S. (Eds.).
(2015). Narrative criminology: Understanding
stories of crime (Vol. 17). NYU Press.
• Muzzatti, S. L., & Smith, E. M. (2018). Cultural
criminology. In Routledge Handbook of Critical
Criminology (pp. 107-119). Routledge.
• Ferrell, J. (2013). Cultural criminology and the
politics of meaning. Critical Criminology, 21(3),
257-271.

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