Crime, Media, Culture recent issues

Subculture, style, chavs and consumer capitalism: Towards a critical cultural criminology of youth

Martin, G. — 2009-08-13

This article examines current controversies in youth culture studies and relates them to recent developments in ‘cultural criminology’. On the one hand, post-subcultural theorists argue the concept of ‘subculture’ is redundant and obsolete and should be replaced by less bounded or rigid concepts, such as ‘neo-tribe’, which supposedly better capture the essence of identity formation and lifestyle choices in postmodern consumer culture. On the other hand, critics argue postmodern subcultural theory is an apology for consumerism and posit the continuing relevance of social class as an analytical category. In the last decade or so, and unbeknownst to those working in youth culture studies, cultural criminologists have attempted to adapt ‘traditional’ subcultural theory to new experiences of ‘transgression’ which now emerge in the transition to late modernity. Cultural criminology nevertheless has poststructural tendencies. By examining the ‘chav’ phenomenon in Britain as well as research in youth transitions under ‘consumer capitalism’, this article argues that ‘old’ theories and concepts, such as subculture, ought not be so readily disregarded and discarded, and that the notion of ‘style’ remains applicable to some young people who are marginalized and disadvantaged. The article thus proposes a ‘critical cultural criminology’ of youth.

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann: Public drama and trial by media in the Portuguese press

Machado, H., Santos, F. — 2009-08-13

The extraordinary media coverage regarding the disappearance of the British 3-year-old Madeleine McCann emerges as an illustrative example of a ‘public drama’ and ‘trial by media’. This article presents a comparative analysis of the perspectives and narrative devices employed by two Portuguese newspapers in establishing a dialogue with their respective audiences. High-profile mediatized criminal cases have the potential to linger in the public memory and become cultural references which may affect long-term public representations of crime and justice. Our analysis is limited to a sample of representative Portuguese newspapers. We found a basic distinction between ‘quality’ and ‘popular’ press which may be related to inherent differences of their market and implicit audiences. A distanced, neutral and reflexive style of the quality press contrasts with the construction of a sensationalistic narrative by the popular press. The latter provided the audience with a daily dose of vicarious participation in a criminal drama which developed into a trial by media, sustained by a rhetoric that encourages the audience to ‘take sides’. Sensationalist media narratives can potentially undermine the principles of fair trial and the presumption of innocence. But they can also elicit relevant collective energies directed at starting processes of change.

Modern serial killers

Haggerty, K. D. — 2009-08-13

The study of serial killing has been dominated by an individualized focus on the aetiology and biography of particular offenders. As such, it has tended to downplay the broader social, historical and cultural context of such acts. This article addresses this lacuna by arguing that serial killers are distinctively modern. It highlights six modern phenomena related to serial killing: (a) the mass media and the attendant rise of a celebrity culture; (b) a society of strangers; (c) a type of mean/ends rationality that is largely divorced from value considerations; (d) cultural frameworks of denigration which tend to implicitly single out some groups for greater predation; (e) particular opportunity structures for victimization; and finally (f) the notion that society can be engineered. Combined, these factors help to pattern serial killing in modernity’s own self-image, with modernity setting the parameters of what it means to be a serial killer, and establishing the preconditions for serial murder to emerge in its distinctive contemporary guise.

Naming, shaming and criminal justice: Mass-mediated humiliation as entertainment and punishment

Kohm, S. A. — 2009-08-13

Shame has long been a dubious tool of criminal justice and has been carried on by state authorities in a variety of ways through the ages. However, since the latter part of the 20th century, humiliation has become amplified through the mass media in the name of crime control and entertainment. This article situates mass-mediated humiliation within broader trends in criminal justice and popular culture. While the enactment of humiliation via popular culture works powerfully within prevailing cultural beliefs about crime and criminality, there also exists a subversive possibility that threatens to disrupt the forces that attempt to invoke shame for purposes of profit or social control. The popular American tabloid news magazine, Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator, is used as an example to highlight the ambiguous cultural place of shame.

Coca no es droga: By Scott Brennan

Brennan, S. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: Deviance and Social Control in Sport: Michael Atkinson and Kevin Young Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2008. 267 pp. US$45.00. ISBN 9780736060424

Sefiha, O. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: Psychosocial Criminology: An Introduction: David Gadd and Tony Jefferson London: SAGE, 2007. 216 pp. {pound}20.99. ISBN 1412900794

Gelsthrope, L. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: Cultural Criminology: An Invitation: Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward and Jock Young London: SAGE, 2008. 240 pp. ISBN 9780412931264

Coyle, M. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-income Neighborhood (3rd edn): Jay MacLeod Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009. 537 pp. ISBN 9780813343587

Brisman, A. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: Russian Criminal Tattoo: Encyclopaedia Volume III: Danzig Baldaev, Sergei Vasiliev and Alexander Sidorov London: Fuel, 2008. 400 pp. {pound}16.95. ISBN 9780955006197

Antonopoulos, G. A. — 2009-08-13

Book Review: A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present: Pieter Spierenburg Cambridge: Polity, 2008. 274 pp. {pound}17.99. ISBN 0745643787

Hall, S. — 2009-08-13

I Hate it Here

Tunnell, K. — 2009-08-13

Editorial: Global collapse and cultural possibility

Ferrell, J., Greer, C. — 2009-03-17

Stencil graffiti in urban waterscapes of Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina

Kane, S. C. — 2009-03-17

Stencil graffiti is an illegal, multi-vocal, visual urban discourse that alters the texture of street experience through inventive juxtaposition of mass-mediated and local imagery. Like street artists and neighborhood assemblies working in a variety of genres, stencil-makers compose public evidence of powerful trans-boundary imaginaries that are at the same time part of a uniquely Argentinean cultural formation. This analysis is based on over 300 digital photographic examples collected by the author in 2007 post-crisis Argentina, where the flourishing of artistic dissent is shaped by vibrant immigrant traditions, widespread poverty, and the recent political history of military dictatorship followed by an economic collapse that radicalized youth and the middle class. Building on Gell's argument that art objects, and the places that form part of their causal milieu, share social agency with the artists that produce them, this article shows how stencils confront institutional power by expanding the semiotic range of two aquatic spaces: a neighborhood fountain in Buenos Aires and a national riverfront monument in Rosario. The focus is on developing an approach towards understanding the active role of public waterscapes in the cultural and political performance of collective memory and social change.

Displacement and stigma: The social-psychological crisis of the deportee

Brotherton, D. C., Barrios, L. — 2009-03-17

The phenomenon of forced repatriation for non-citizens has grown exponentially since the passing of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and the Patriot Act of 2001. This development is the `natural' result of the three wars on the globalized `other': the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, and the war on the immigrant (see Brotherton and Kretsedemas, 2008). Based on five years of ethnographic study (2002—7) with Dominican deportees in both the Dominican Republic and the United States we set out to answer two questions: how do Dominican deportees fare when they return to their `homeland' after living most of their lives in the United States? And how are deportees reacted to by different levels of Dominican society after being labeled by the public media as criminals and as anti-social elements? In our analysis of the data we found that the crisis of subjectivity of the deportee hinged around two prominent themes: the twin notions of place and displacement and the experience of stigmatization. We concluded that almost regardless of how long the deportee had lived in the United States the stain of a criminal past on his or her identity was permanent. Furthermore, the majority felt that despite their `freedom' they were still `doing time' in a world to which flock thousands helped by these same deportees to get the most out of their (tourist) time (Kempadoo, 1999).

Issues of gender and class in the Mirror newspapers' campaign for the release of Edith Chubb

Seal, L. — 2009-03-17

In May 1958, Edith Chubb was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of her sister-in-law, Lilian Chubb. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. She claimed to have accidentally killed Lilian by pulling on her scarf in a moment of `exasperation'. Edith was a married woman and mother of five children, whereas Lilian had never married. This article examines how the case was represented in the Daily and Sunday Mirror. In particular, it analyses these newspapers' persistent calls for Edith's release from prison. She was portrayed as an overworked, overburdened mother, who understandably snapped and killed her `lazy' sister-in-law. She was constructed as a respectable working-class woman who was undeserving of punishment. However, this construction relied upon portraying Lilian through negative stereotypes of the `spinster', as a `failed' woman of low social value. With reference to Innes's (2004a, 2004b) concept of the `signal crime', it is argued that Edith's case can be `read' by criminologists for mid 20th-century perceptions of gender, class, victimhood and the appropriateness of punishment.

Moral panic: From sociological concept to public discourse

Altheide, D. L. — 2009-03-17

This paper examines the nature and extent of news reports using the sociological concept, `moral panic' (MP). Qualitative content analysis reveals that moral panic is commonly used in news reports in the USA, UK, Australia, and other countries, but it is more likely to be compatible with print (e.g. newspaper) formats than television reports. It is also widely used in literary and art reviews, editorials and op-ed pieces, often by social scientists. Use of the concept has increased over the last decade, particularly in news reports as part of an `opposing' voice or the `other side' of articles about deviant behavior, sexual behavior, and drug use. It is suggested that moral panic as `opposition' fits the entertainment news format, and while this sustains its use by writers and familiarity to audience members, it also appears to be associated with certain topics (e.g. sex and drugs), but not others, such as terrorism in the mainstream media. Questions are raised for additional research.

The Cambodian rail system: Part two

Ritchie, C. — 2009-03-17

Book Review: Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the United States Susan C. Boyd New York and London: Routledge, 2008

Rafter, N. — 2009-03-17

Book Review: Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture Claire Grant New York: Routledge, 2007. 182 pp

Yearwood, D. L. — 2009-03-17

Book Review: Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Crosses the Line Sudhir Venkatesh London/New York: Allen Lane, 2008. 302 + xiv pp. {pound}18.99. ISBN: 0713999934

O'Brien, M. — 2009-03-17

Book Review: Imaginary Penalities Edited by Pat Carlen Cullompton: Willan, 2008. 332 pp. {pound}25. ISBN 1843923750 (pbk)

Dearey, M. — 2009-03-17

Coda

2009-03-17

How material are cyberbodies? Broadband Internet and embodied subjectivity

Gies, L. — 2009-01-30

Internet use is commonly portrayed as a form of disembodied communication, that is, communication from which bodily performativity has vanished, leaving users free to indulge in identity play and even downright identity fraud. In this article, I seek to challenge this particular construction of cyberspace. I argue that in the broadband era, enhanced bandwidth is increasingly facilitating the exchange of bodily cues and creating stronger convergence with audio-visual media. Second, even in largely text-based online communications, bodily markers often emerge either unintentionally as part of the dynamics of discourse construction or deliberately to authenticate users' identity. Third, the material body is central to Internet use, which is to a considerable extent motivated by bodily needs and desires, as the popularity of countless health and lifestyle websites suggests. Finally, I also argue that constructing the Internet as virtual and disembodied obscures the material and embodied lived reality in which technology operates.

Transgressive decor: Narrative glimpses in Australian prisons, 1970s--1990s

Wilson, J. Z. — 2009-01-30

This article presents a number of examples of prison inmate graffiti photographed by the author in Australian decommissioned prisons. The images are examined with regard to aspects of the sociology and social psychology of the prison environment. Abiding themes of prison life are identified and discerned as factors contributing to the content of the graffiti. These include especially power relationships, sexuality, revenge, violence, boredom and the simple desire for some form of entertainment, however fleeting.

Growing up bad: Black youth, `road' culture and badness in an East London neighbourhood

Gunter, A. — 2009-01-30

This paper addresses the role and importance of badness within the youth subculture (`Road' Life) of young black Caribbean males growing up in an East London neighbourhood. The research that I have undertaken attempts to explore how the notion of badness particularly influences the young informant's attitudes, values, behaviour and dress wear. Adapting and integrating the concepts of `drift' (Matza, 1964), `code of the street' (Anderson, 1999), and the `seductions of crime' (Katz, 1988), I examine the way in which the majority of young black males involved with Road Life, look to appropriate and flirt with certain aspects of badness for reasons to do with survival, `money-making', and aesthetics (style and fashion). I will then go on to briefly focus on the small minority of young males whose lifestyles centre around the practicing of badness; where I am mainly concerned with detailing their values, attitudes and the types of activities that these `rude boys' might be involved in. This paper is based upon a much larger ethnographic study undertaken in an East London neighbourhood. Empirical data was gleaned via participant observation supplemented by semi-structured interviews.

Booing or cheering? Ambiguity in the construction of victimhood in the case of Maria Colwell

Butler, I., Drakeford, M. — 2009-01-30

This paper presents a microanalysis of the media representation of victimhood in key public narratives. It builds on Peelo's account of the `mediated witness' as part of the struggle for control of the crime agenda. To extend Peelo's analysis to other areas of public policy making, the paper uses the example of an iconic welfare `scandal' (the Maria Colwell case) and focuses particularly on the role of victims themselves in the struggle to own and exploit victimhood. The paper argues that ambiguity in the ascription of victimhood can reveal points of unresolved tension in the emerging public narrative that the scandal (or crime) is meant to signify, explain and incorporate.

The Cambodian rail system July 2008

Ritchie, C. — 2009-01-30

Things like that don't happen here: Crime, place and real estate in the news

Wallace, A. — 2009-01-30

This article investigates the construction of place in crime reporting through bystander quotes in recent crime stories in newspapers from the north-eastern US. These quotes are part of a larger pattern of reporting that highlights environmental features of serenity and peacefulness as antidotes to crime. Against claims that crime in the media is always exaggerated, this research demonstrates how the impact of crime is moderated by declaring it unlikely and by discursively shifting it to other geographic locations. It is argued that crime reporting shares a structural similarity with fictional representations of place found in film, and that this pattern of crime reporting helps to reinforce a suburban consumption ethos.

Crime's family tree: Conflating race, criminality and family in New Zealand

Gannon, S. — 2009-01-30

This paper produces a critical reading of discourses of criminality, family and racialization circulating in an interrelated set of feature articles published in late 2006 in a major New Zealand newspaper. Through images, diagrams and written text, local crime is mapped as a familial aberration that threatens a whole city and region. Rather than demonstrating a novel approach to reporting crime, this paper argues that the representation of crime in these texts puts the body politic of the state, and good governance, at risk in ways that resonate with the new modes of subjectivity and responsibility that Nikolas Rose (2007) traces from contemporary biomedicine into populist discourses.

Review: Lifting: Theft in Art: Fort Worth Contemporary Arts/The Art Galleries at TCU, Ft. Worth, USA. Curated by Atopia Projects [www.atopiaprojects.org]/Gavin Morrison and Fraser Stables April--May 2008 In different forms at Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, August--September 2007; and at Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto, Canada, April--June 2008

Ferrell, J. — 2009-01-30

Book Review: The Vertigo of Late Modernity Jock Young London: SAGE Publications, 2007. 240 pp. {pound}21.99. ISBN 1412935741

Crewe, D. — 2009-01-30

Book Review: Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre Douglas Kellner Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008. 232 pp. {pound}15.99. ISBN 1594514933

Hollohan, S. — 2009-01-30

Book Review: Regulating the Night: Race, Culture and Exclusion in the Making of the Night-Time Economy Deborah Talbot London: Ashgate, 2007. 180 pp. {pound}50.00. ISBN 0754647528

Jayne, M. — 2009-01-30

Book Review: Law and Order: Images, Meanings, Myths Mariana Valverde New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (2006) 172 pp. $22.95. ISBN 8135-3880-7

Campbell, A. — 2009-01-30

Book Review: The Politics of Antisocial Behaviour: Amoral Panics Stuart Waiton Routledge: New York/Abingdon, 2008. 193 pp. {pound}57.00. ISBN: 0415957052

Yar, M. — 2009-01-30

Coda

Ferrell, J. — 2009-01-30

Gang talk and gang talkers: A critique

Hallsworth, S., Young, T. — 2008-08-11

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of interest in the phenomenon of the gang both in the UK and across Europe. Such concern has been driven forward by growing reports of gang activity reported in the media, circulated by populist politicians as well as by academic researchers convinced the European gang has been ignored for too long. This anxiety has coalesced in a perception that the gang is a serious and growing problem, that the rise in lethal violence, as seen recently in inner cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, is connected to the proliferation of the gang, and that the solution to the problem of urban gang violence lies in its suppression. This article takes a critical standpoint against these statements and challenges attempts to interpret urban violence in the UK as a problem of gangs or a burgeoning gang culture. It argues that the problem of street-based violence is not always reducible to the gang and suggests that the solution to preventing urban violence will not be found by sanctioning crackdowns or gang suppression programmes. It concludes by offering an alternate perception of the gang and urban violence and signposts areas that research on urban violence might need to address.

Suitable vehicles: Framing blame and justice when children kill a child

Green, D. A. — 2008-08-11

This article presents the results of a comparative analysis of English and Norwegian newspaper coverage of two child-on-child homicides from the 1990s. Domestic coverage of the English case of James Bulger presented it as alarmingly symptomatic of deep-seated moral decline in Britain that only tough, remoralizing strategies could address. Coverage of the Norwegian case of Silje Redergård constructed it as a tragic one-off, requiring expert intervention to facilitate the speedy reintegration of the boys responsible. Four sets of plausible explanations are offered to account for differences in the ways the two cases were constructed. First, different cultural constructions of childhood endure in each country and these condition the responses deemed appropriate for children who commit grave acts. Second, the dominant claims makers were very different in each jurisdiction with consequences for the quality of the discourses readers encountered. Third, while the legitimacy of elite expertise appears to survive in Norway, it appears to ail in Britain, and addressing this absence of public confidence has become a political priority. Fourth, a consensual political culture obtains in Norway and this makes Norwegian politicians less susceptible to the temptations experienced by adversarially acculturated English politicians to politicize high-profile crimes.

The subversion of Eros: Dialectic, revolt, and murder in the polity of the soul

Walsh, S. N. — 2008-08-11

The political is most often conceived in terms of being exterior to the individual. Yet, if capitalism represents a kind of ubiquitous horizon, one that succeeds in conforming the unrestricted desires of the individual to the burdens of `reality', as Marcuse suggests in Eros and Civilization (1966), then the political can easily constitute the interior as well. The unified self becomes the projection of an interior polity composed of conflicting interests struggling for control. In this article I explore the phenomena of self-destructive sexualities through a reengagement with Marcuse's performance principle. First, I argue that Marcuse's concept of performance requires an elaboration that prohibits discrete boundaries for when an individual is performing and when they are purely governed by the quest for pleasure. I suggest that only in the briefest instances is pleasure free from the strictures of ideological performance. Consequential to the expansion of Marcuse's performance principle, I examine the dialectic reversal of Eros and Thanatos that suggests self-destructive sexuality as a struggle against endogenous political repression. Finally, I suggest that a self-destructive sexuality is a political act where the body of the individual intersects coextensively with the site of the performance principle.

Mediating crime, mediating culture: Nationality, femininity, corporeality and territory in the Schapelle Corby drugs case

Lambert, A. — 2008-08-11

This article uses the arrest and conviction of Australian Schapelle Corby (for smuggling drugs into Indonesia) to articulate and explore the mediation of criminal `events' across borders, bodies and technologies. As such, connections are drawn to the resurgence of nationalistic and neocolonial discourses within the contexts of globalization and the `war on terror'. Working at the intersections of gender, race, border control and national identity, the Corby phenomenon is taken as a political drama of visuality and nationality that equates bodily security with regional integrity. Thus this article necessarily tracks the persistence of the body of the white female as a unit of currency in the aggressive adherence to historical tropes of nationalism. The mediation of Schapelle's `criminal' body is shown to deploy a corporeal lexicon of terror through which the celebrity prisoner articulates tensions and changes in bilateral relations with Indonesia.

Wild pigs and outlaws: The kindred worlds of policing and outlaw bikers

Librett, M. — 2008-08-11

What are the similarities and differences between police officers and gang members? From a largely cultural and thoroughly critical perspective it is logical to develop a comparative analytical design that focuses on outlaw motorcycle clubs and police motorcycle fraternal organizations. Outlaw motorcycle clubs arose following the Second World War, and across the past 50 years have been targeted by law enforcement for their increasingly sophisticated involvement in violent criminal activity. They are characterized by hierarchical command structures, initiation rites and socialization processes, oaths of loyalty, codes of silence, a uniform mode of dress, and outwardly symbolic accoutrements of rank and achievement. Police organizations and cultures are not much different in these aspects of signification; comparative analysis based on naturalistic inquiry may hold the key to greater understanding of both subcultures.

Bad, mad or sad? Mothers who kill and press coverage in Israel

Cavaglion, G. — 2008-08-11

Israeli scholars have found that a lenient and paternalistic perception of violent mothers has been characteristic of Israeli court decisions over the last few decades and the general public. Mothers, in comparison to fathers, are perceived as being more influenced by mental disorders and therefore deserving of cure and care rather than punishment.

As part of a wider research that compares the construction of fathers and mothers who kill, this article analyzed 19 articles from the three most popular secular Israeli daily newspapers that covered six notorious cases of filicide by mothers between 1992 and 2001. The coverage during the first few days, at the significant initial stages of the process of covering the events, received more in-depth examination.

This research shows that the local press tends to stress the psychopathological etiology for the rare Jewish married mother who kills. It also suggests that this attitude is not present in cases of marginalized `criminal' women: women from ethnic minorities (e.g. Arab women), and mothers who do not fill the traditional role of wife inside the `well ordered family', as is true of young and unwed girls.

Lethal rejection

Johnson, R. — 2008-08-11

Book Review: Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs Norma Mendoza-Denton Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. 360 pp. $34.95. ISBN 063123490X

Garot, R. — 2008-08-11

Book Review: Football `Hooliganism', Policing and the War on the `English Disease' Clifford Stott and Geoff Pearson London: Pennant Books, 2007. 345 pp. {pound}17.99. ISBN 1906015058

King, A. — 2008-08-11

Book Review: A review of Richard Quinney: Post retirement

Schaefer, D. — 2008-08-11

Coda

2008-08-11