Subjects in criminality discourse: On the narrative positioning of young defendants

• Published in: Punishment & society Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 477 - 497
• Main Author: Dollinger, Bernd
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.10.2018; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Classification; Criminality; Criminology; Defendants; Discourse; Discourse analysis; Interviews; Narratives; Perpetrators; Positioning; Youth; membership categorization analysis; defendants; positioning; narrative criminology; youth crime
• ISSN: 1462-4745; 1741-3095
• DOI: 10.1177/1462474517712977

This essay locates itself in the context of “narrative criminology”. By means of analyses of the categorization work performed by young defendants in interviews, it is reconstructed how they conceptualize themselves interactively as subjects and/or “perpetrators”. This categorization not only performs a location within the, respectively, told story and the interactive situation of the interview; the interviewees also position themselves in cultural criminal discourse. The analysis of corresponding narrations can therefore contribute to understanding the connection of individual and public narratives on criminality. This is described on the basis of three case examples. With a “sad story”, a heroic story and references to individual cases that received particularly great public attention, the interviewees each develop context-specific categorizations and cultural positionings of “their” criminality and biography.