ABSTRACT
The heartfelt outpouring of emotions from victims, public outrage and indeed the provocative media campaigning after some crimes are impossible to ignore, as are the implications and effects of these emotional moments on the police, judiciary and general public more broadly. One of the key questions for criminologists pursuing the 'emotional' in their research is the question 'What leads offenders to offend'? So rather than considering the social background of the offender, or indeed the type of offence itself, these academics have turned the traditional criminological paradigm on its head, focusing on the emotional enticement and response felt by the deviant in the commission of a criminal act – in other words, how these acts are experienced. Alongside Jack Katz's concept of excitement as an enticement to acts of deviance, Braithwaite (1989) highlighted the emotional effects of shame on the offender within the criminal justice system.
