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DOI: 10.1177/1741659007078539 © 2007 SAGE Publications Background, foreground, foresight: The third dimension of cultural criminology?University of Southampton, UK, c.webber{at}soton.ac.uk This article evaluates cultural criminology and argues that despite its utility in overcoming narrow technocratic empiricism it needs, first, more ethnographic research to support its theoretical material, and second, a firmer foundation for its definition of culture. These issues will be elucidated with reference to an ethnographic study of young people, where it will be further argued that the tendency to glamourize deviancy requires tempering with a dose of realism at the outcome of transgressive activity. The two-dimensional approach of attempting to overcome and integrate the foreground with the background needs to be joined with that of foresight.
Key Words: cultural criminology ethnography youth crime
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