Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Crime, Media, Culture
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Phillips, N. D.
Right arrow Articles by Strobl, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Cultural criminology and kryptonite: Apocalyptic and retributive constructions of crime and justice in comic books

Nickie D. Phillips

St. Francis College, USA

Staci Strobl

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA

The current study utilizes a cultural criminological approach to examine paradigms of justice portrayed in American comic books. Based on a review of the literature, we hypothesize that the dominant crimes depicted in comic books are violent street crimes and that the portrayed responses to these crimes are executed outside the rule of law by an avenging protagonist. According to the literature surveyed, comic book protagonists seek to restore public order as a means of returning the community to a constructed, nostalgic ideal. Moreover, the implied policy message in comic books is one of vigilantism, in which moral justice trumps legitimate criminal procedure. Based on a content analysis of 20 contemporary best-selling comic books, themes of organized crime, often involving complex transnational networks, are more prevalent than street crimes, contrary to our hypothesis. However, the response to crime remains focused on vigilante methods and on the restoration of a constructed utopic community that espouses the rule of law.

Key Words: apocalypticism • comic books • crime • cultural criminology • justice • retribution

Crime, Media, Culture, Vol. 2, No. 3, 304-331 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1741659006069573
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?