Looking (back) to the future of interpretive criminology

Julien Grayer and Stacey Hannem

Chapter 5 in Handbook of Interpretive Research Methods in the Social Sciences, 2025, pp 73-89 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter considers the use of interpretive methods in criminology. We begin from Howard Becker's provocative question—“whose side are we on?”—to examine criminology's uneasy relationship with structures of power and social control. The goal of interpretive methods in criminology, emerging from the sociology of deviance, has traditionally been to better understand the lived experiences and realities of people who have been criminalized and marked as “deviant.” However, we increasingly see interpretive methods directed to the experiences of agents of the state, often in attempts to “humanize” or rationalize the exercise of power under conditions of neoliberalism. In this chapter we examine the history and the pitfalls of using interpretive methods to study power without considering the critical implications and argue that Becker's earlier question (and caution) is even more relevant in the contemporary context. We also offer some visions for a future interpretive and qualitative criminology that actively calls power structures into question.

Keywords: Interpretive criminology; Critical criminology; Cultural criminology; Interpretive research; Qualitative criminology; Intersectional criminology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803926384
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