ABSTRACT
Cultural criminology uses everyday existences, life histories, music, dance and performance as databases to discover how and why it is that certain cultural forms become criminalised. Ferrell and Sanders (1995) observe that it is the intention to expand and enliven criminology and to push back the boundaries of accepted criminological discourse and it is in this context that Katz (1988) writes about the ‘seductions of crime’ in which disorder becomes in itself a ‘delight’ to be sought after and savoured and where the causes of crime are constructed by the offenders themselves in ways which are compellingly seductive. ‘Hot-blooded’ murder is thus described in terms of a triad of conditions: interpretive, emotional, and practical. Interpretive conditions include the defence of morality, the role of teasing or daring the victim, the role of a supportive audience, and the role of alcohol in casual settings of last resort, for example, in the home. Emotional conditions involve a process of transcending humiliation with rage via the intermediary of righteousness. Practical conditions are a marking, or desecration, of the body of the victim, for example, when offenders can recall precisely the number of stitches it took for a victim to survive. The key term is ‘humiliation’ which is defined as a ‘profound loss of control over one’s identity, or soul’ (Katz, 1988: 24).
