ABSTRACT
In looking more closely at crimes of violence, this chapter will begin by shifting the analysis away from a search for distal causes of crime (such as the backgrounds of the offenders) toward looking at what we can learn from examining the immediate circumstances of violent incidents. Katz (1988) was critical of criminological approaches that were too ‘preoccupied with a search for background factors, usually defects in the offender’s psychological backgrounds or social environments’, and argued that more attention needed to be given to the immediate event of the criminal act itself, in particular ‘the positive, often wonderful attractions within the lived experience of criminality’ (Katz 1988: 3). There is a body of work that, while not quite following Katz’ suggestion of exploring what it ‘feels, sounds, tastes, or looks like to commit a particular crime’ (1988: 3), has looked in detail at who harms whom in what particular circumstances. It will be argued that an examination of the detail of violent events can actually lead us to a better understanding of the wider context and give us fresh perspectives on the motivations for violent crime.
