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Building your own lifeboat: Working‐class male offenders talk about economic crime
Author(s) -
Willott Sara,
Griffin Chris
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1348/014466699164266
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , prison , rhetorical question , narrative , psychology , criminology , working class , social psychology , identity (music) , sociology , discourse analysis , social class , social identity theory , social group , law , linguistics , political science , philosophy , physics , artificial intelligence , politics , computer science , acoustics
This study examines the ways in which a group of working‐class men serving custodial sentences and probation orders for money‐related crimes talk about criminal activity and the implications of this talk for their gender identity. Using a critical social‐psychological approach, we carried out nine semi‐structured group discussions in probation centres and one open prison and then analyzed the transcripts using a combination of grounded theory and discourse analytic methods. The men critiqued dominant constructions of crime and argued that their criminal activity was justified in two related ways. First, they drew on a discourse of male breadwinning to argue that they were expected to provide for their families. Second, they argued that those now suffering under the broken promises made by the State should not be expected to conform to its rules. For the majority of men, earning through crime was talked about as a last resort and the parameters of ‘what they did to whom’ were informed by a Robin Hood‐type cultural narrative. Finally, the study contextualizes and critically explores these patterns of discourse and their rhetorical use from a historical and structural perspective.