ABSTRACT
In this chapter Shadd Maruna and Michelle Butler explore the innovative use of narrative psychology in relation to crime and criminals that David first developed in the award-winning popular book Criminal Shadows. David’s thesis was that it would be through the offender’s narrative that we would really understand the underlying meaning of the criminal action. He argued that as narratives or stories, meaning and motivation takes a dynamic form becoming the direct and detailed intention to act that drives the drama. In this way, he opened up a perspective on crime that in contrast to general ideas about offenders’ personality or general background criminogenic factors, offers immediate and specific explanatory processes and an approach to interpreting particular patterns of criminal actions (Canter and Youngs, 2012a; Youngs and Canter, 2012).
