Emily Good
CJ 340 Module 5 Journal
Southern New Hampshire University
Module 5 Journal
The term cultural criminology can be defined as the placing of crime and its control in the
context of culture; that is, viewing both crime and the agencies of control as cultural products-
as creative constructs. As such they must be read in terms of the meanings they carry (University
of Kent, N.A) Culture plays a very significant role in the basis of criminal behavior as it can be
dated to the early teens of an offender. This cultural behavior can describe a basis of how they
were raise and under which circumstances may have led to the criminal act that was enacted.
When the environment that a teen is continuing to develop in is surrounded by drugs, gangs and
other illegal acts there can be a conscience that this is of the norm. As described in one of our
resources, the example of a not atypical street drama and the affective states of gang youth who
often thrive on the "highs" and "lows" and unpredictability of their lifeworlds and on the
challenges that come from the expected and unexpected (Young, J. & Brotherton, D.C, 2014)
When researching and understanding the criminal behavior within distinct cultures one
must divulge into the subcultures. These subcultures can give more of a proper insight as to the
reasoning behind teens committing illegal acts. In the environments in which these teens are
being raised there is the primary culture that exists and the direct subculture. Within this
subculture is where the harmful, unseen and ideally positive delinquency. The deviance of the
subculture often emerges and sets the values for those teens to follow. A subculture is not always
comparable to that of criminal laws and creates a different meaning to the group in which the
learned values are being shared. Theorists that focus primarily on that subculture can explain
these behaviors from the societal norms that are broken off from these groups.
Resources
University of Kent. (n.d.). Cultural Criminology. https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/culturalcriminology/
Young, J., & Brotherton, D. C. (2014). Cultural criminology and its practices: a dialog between
the theorist and the street researcher. Dialectical Anthropology, 38(2), 117--132
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-014-9339-0