Cultural Criminology: The Time is Now

Cultural criminology understands crime and its control as products of meaning. It explores simultaneously the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of social life, sensitive to the operation of power, in order to produce critical analyses that are politically potent and germane to contemporary circumstances. The cultural criminological project is broad and inclusive, but focused and urgent. It relishes coalition and collaboration, clarity of thought and purpose, praxis and intervention. In its relatively short history, it has carved out a distinctive identity, while contributing something to the development of a host of other perspectives. This article begins by offering a contemporary definition of cultural criminology, including some reflection on its antecedents and the responses that have been addressed recently to its critics. This is followed by a discussion of the concerns cultural criminology shares with a variety of complementary perspectives and how it can be used to address malign structures and discourses. Finally, the relationship that cultural criminology might form with transformative politics is explored briefly. As truth and meaning have become the theaters of struggle between fundamentally opposed political positions promising radically different visions of crime, criminalization, criminal justice and everyday life, never has cultural criminology been more prescient and necessary. The time for cultural criminology is now.