The narratives of offenders

Abstract

Although criminologists have long used the offender's own story to shed light on crime and its possible causes, they have not plumbed its potential as an explanatory variable. This article considers the way narrative has been conceptualized in criminology and the way that it might be re-conceptualized, following scholarship in other social sciences and in humanities, as a key instigator of action. The concept of narrative is useful for the projects of contemporary criminology because it: (1) applies to both individuals and aggregates; (2) applies to both direct perpetrators and bystanders;(3) anchors the notion of (sub)culture; (4) circumvents the realism to which other theories of criminal behavior are bound; and (5) can be readily collected by researchers, though not without confronting the problematic that is the socially situated production of discourse.

Jovens, violência e escola: um desafio contemporâneo

“…A denominada "violência sem sentido" ou "violência gratuita" deixa de sê-lo quando se compreende a vertente imaginária dos atos, que são acessíveis por meio das narrativas ou de seus símbolos (Presser, 2009;Duck, 2009). O imaginário relaciona-se com as aparências, os cenários, as representações de imagem, os estereótipos.…”

Suç Soruşturmalarında Psikolojinin Rolü

“…A new understanding of narrative has emerged with a claim that "offending is the enactment of a narrative rather than the narrative being an interpretation of the context out of which the offence has emerged" (13). The narrative has started to be perceived as a script prepared before the staging rather than a critic, or a review of the play (11,3,13,14).…”

“…In that sense it draws psychology closer to law (2) Through the new interpretations of narrative and its application to criminology, the temporal relationship between crime and narrative has shifted dramatically (11,12). A new understanding of narrative has emerged with a claim that "offending is the enactment of a narrative rather than the narrative being an interpretation of the context out of which the offence has emerged" (13).…”

On Narrative and Green Cultural Criminology

“…Narratives or stories can reveal how we have instigated or sustained harmful action with respect to the environment, and can portray a world suffering from the failure to effect desistance from harmful action. Drawing inspiration from Cronon (1992Cronon ( : 1368, who suggests that '[w]e narrate the triumphs and failures of our pasts [and] tell stories to explore the alternative choices that might lead to feared or hoped-for futures', this paper suggests that we explore stories about what environmental harms are occurring or might transpire-a project somewhat akin to Wilson's (2014: 111) (Presser 2009) and has typically studied the stories of offenders'. But why focus on the stories of offenders?…”

“…But, they assert, '[t]he idea that narratives or stories themselves shape future action has not been exploited for the sake of understanding criminal behavior ' (2015: 1). Building on their previous work (see, for example, Presser 2009Presser , 2010Presser , 2012Sandberg 2010Sandberg , 2013, they propose a narrative criminology-'an inquiry based on the view of stories as instigating, sustaining, or effecting desistance from harmful action ' (2015: 1). Presser and Sandberg (2015: 11) argue that:…”