Contesting criminality
Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: As a field, criminology has paid insufficient attention to societal processes that obscure the distinction between legality and illegality, decriminalize formerly objectionable behavior or redefine law-breakers as deserving members of society. An analysis of undocumented immigrants’ efforts to redefine themselves as legal residents highlights ways that the category of the criminal is rendered unstable, suggests that logics of social control create opportunities to challenge exclusion and shows how law and illegality are entangled. For instance, individuals who are deemed socially dangerous can argue that they are low risk, or can redefine risk, highlighting the social costs of situating offenders exclusively in a domain of illegitimacy. Through such arguments, the licit can seep into and reconstitute the illegal, and vice versa
Source: Theoretical Criminology
Author: Susan Bibler Coutin
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1972821167