ABSTRACT
This paper synthesizes recent trends in the development of critical criminology into a new theoretical direction in thinking about crime. It rejects approaches to criminological theory that reduce crime to an outcome of micro causes or macro contexts. It suggests instead that thinking about crime should be reconsidered as the coterminous discursive production by human agents of an ideology of crime that sustains it as a concrete reality. It argues that this coproduction occurs when agents act out criminal patterns, when others seek to control criminal behavior, and when yet others attempt to research, philosophize about, and explain crime. The paper argues that reducing crime will only come about with a reduction of investment by human agents in the ideology of crime production. Such a reflexive re-conceptualization requires the development of a replacement discourse, rather than an oppositional one, a peacemaking discourse rather than a conflicting one. We call this new theoretical direction constitutive criminology.
