Criminal Identities and Consumer CultureCrime, exclusion and the new culture of narcissismSteve Hall (Northumbria University), Simon Winlow (University of York) and Craig Ancrum (University of Teesside) |
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'For over two decades now cultural commentators have played around with the fashions, fads, and foibles of consumer culture. Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture is a much needed corrective that strips away the decorative gloss of identity politics to reveal the brutal demands of life in the wastelands of late capitalist society. This is a world far removed from the sanitised bubble of the metropolitan cultural elites. Read this and wake up.'
- Dr Keith Hayward (Director of Studies for Criminology, University of Kent)'Hall, Winlow and Ancrum analyse the psycho-social adaptations of young men embroiled in criminal lifestyles, amidst the detritus of collapsed economic and community structures and the triumph of consumerism. While not categorised under the heading of the newly fashionable 'cultural criminology', to me this thesis brings psychology and culture back into the heart of criminology and challenges the theoretical and methodological orthodoxies of state sponsored perspectives and the squeamish reluctance of radical criminologists to explore the destructive, narcissistic patterns of thought and conduct among the marginalised, a counterpart to the anti-social narcissism endemic among the rich.' - Kevin Stenson (Professor of Criminology, Middlesex University)'Crime is an ever-increasing focus of public, political and media debate. Yet this remains superficial, trapped in an auction of penal promises, systematically evading any engagement with the sources of criminality and violence. Hall, Winlow and Ancrum's outstanding new book is a sophisticated and penetrating analysis of the root causes of crime, combining the intellectual resources of political economy, social theory, and cultural criminology. It moves from original ethnographic data about young offenders to a strikingly cogent and convincing account of the historical and economic roots of the all-pervasive consumerism that in contemporary neo-liberalism traps us all into a psychodynamic vortex of compulsive acquisition. It should be compulsory reading for policy-makers and pundits, as it will doubtless be for criminologists.' - Robert Reiner (Professor of Criminology, London School of Economics) 'Combining a trenchant and relentless analysis with insightful case studies, this work is an important landmark in criminology. It presents a sophisticated view of the way so much of today's dismal and brutal crime scene is locked within the consumerist motivations of an amoral globalized capitalism. Rejecting and flattening any romantic notions of crime as rebellion or indeed exclusion, this book offers a realistic political economy of contemporary identity that puts crime at the very heart of consumer society.' - Colin Sumner (Former Professor of Criminology and founder of the international journal Theoretical Criminology) 'This book is a tour-de-force that analyses criminogenic tendencies inherent in late capitalist consumerist societies. Based on evidence gleaned from criminal groups, it offers a refreshing, intellectually exciting and internally consistent theoretical reengagement with the social, political and economic roots of crime in the contemporary period. Moving beyond the minutiae of criminal justice processes and policies, it provides the reader with a thought-provoking and deeper understanding of the underlying causes of criminality. It explores the loss of human solidarity and support in social life and the psychological consequences of this loss found in "infantile" and "narcissistic" solutions... a major theoretical contribution about how we might begin to think about criminality in new ways.' - Dr Colin Webster (Reader in Criminology, Leeds Metropolitan University) |
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This book offers the first in-depth investigation into the relationship between today’s criminal identities and consumer culture. Using unique data taken from criminals locked in areas of permanent recession, the book aims to uncover feelings and attitudes towards a variety of criminal activities, investigating the incorporation of hearts and minds into consumer culture’s surrogate social world and highlighting the relationship between the lived identities of active criminals and the socio-economic climate of instability and anxiety that permeates post-industrial Britain. 
