ABSTRACT
Cultural criminology explores the many ways in which cultural forces interweave with the practice of crime and crime control in contemporary society. It emphasizes the centrality of meaning, representation, and power in the contested construction of crime—whether crime is constructed as an everyday event or subcultural subversion, as social danger or state-sanctioned violence. From the perspective of cultural criminology, then, the subject matter of any useful and critical criminology must necessarily move beyond narrow notions of crime and criminal justice to incorporate symbolic displays of transgression and control, feelings and emotions that emerge within criminal events, and the ideological foundations of public and political campaigns designed to define (and delimit) both crime and its consequences. This wider focus allows for a new sort of criminology—a cultural criminology—better attuned to prevailing social conditions, and so more capable of conceptualizing and confronting contemporary crime and crime control. This cultural criminology seeks both to understand crime as an expressive human activity, and to critique the perceived wisdom surrounding the contemporary politics of crime and criminal justice.
