Subjects in criminality discourse: On the narrative positioning of young defendants
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517712977 |
| Author | Bernd Dollinger |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
2018, Vol. 20(4) 477–497
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474517712977
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Article
Subjects in criminality
discourse: On the
narrative positioning
of young defendants
Bernd Dollinger
University of Siegen, Germany
Abstract
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 recon-
structed how they conceptualize themselves interactively as subjects and/or ‘‘perpet-
rators’’. 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.
Keywords
defendants, membership categorization analysis, narrative criminology, positioning,
youth crime
Introduction
Narrations are in fashion, across disciplines (Meuter, 2014). They are also receiving
growing criminological attention; Presser (2016) speaks of a ‘‘narrative turn’’ of
criminology, Ugelvik (2016: 216) of the ‘‘burgeoning criminological subfield known
as narrative criminology’’. This criminological interest in narrations has a longer
history. One can trace it back to the middle of the 19th century, when chaplain
Corresponding author:
Bernd Dollinger, Universita
¨t Siegen, Fakulta
¨t 2, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2a, 57068 Siegen, Germany.
Email: bernd.dollinger@uni-siegen.de
John Clay called upon prisoners to compose ‘‘short narratives of their lives, their
delinquencies, their self-convictions, and their penitence’’ (Clay, 1846, cited in
Bennett, 1981: 72). For a long time, however, narrations remained marginal in
criminology. An important ‘‘exception’’ (Aspden and Hayward, 2015: 235) was
the Chicago School, most prominently with the studies of Shaw (1930/1966) and
Sutherland (1937), but criminology has nonetheless struggled with narration over
the long term.
1
Even where there has been an interest in narrations, they have often
been understood as merely a subdomain of an otherwise non-narrative reality.
Biographies and stories of perpetrators have been (and are) coordinated with
other materials to ensure ‘‘that what purports to be factual squares with other
available evidence and that the subject’s interpretations are honestly given’’
(Becker, 1966, vi). This objectivist requirement does not apply to the approach
of narrative criminology, which has been more broadly pursued during the past few
years. According to this view, reality is fundamentally narratively structured.
Presser (2013: 29) speaks of a ‘‘constitutive (...) view of stories: they are seen as
constructing lived experience as much as lived experience constructs them’’.
Knowledge of reality is linguistically and culturally mediated; ‘‘real’’ events are
given a particular, narrative form, through which they can be experienced and
understood (White, 1980). Narrations therefore represent a mode—albeit not the
only one—which constitutes reality linguistically.
The present essay takes this seriously by searching for connections. The focus is
not upon ‘‘objective’’, ‘‘structural’’ backgrounds of narratives, as they are insinu-
ated in ‘‘traditional’’ or ‘‘critical’’ criminology. Instead, the focus is on individual
stories and the contexts that the narrations themselves make relevant (Sandberg,
2010: 462). What is revealed, based on narrations, is not factors of criminalization
or the causing of criminality (a criminogenic upbringing, low self-control, discrim-
ination, disadvantage, a ‘‘tough’’ criminal policy, etc.), but connections with other
narrations.
2
It is a case of ‘‘turtles all the way down’’,
3
as it were: narrations
substantiate other narrations. The researcher encounters ‘‘a confusion of histories,
a swarm of biographies. There is order in it all of some sort, but it is the order of a
squall or a street market: nothing metrical’’ (Geertz, 1995: 2).
This is not to be mistaken for arbitrariness, because narrations are structured.
Only certain narrations are conceivable and appropriate, while others are not,
depending on the situation and persons present. Narrations—especially if it is a
case of norm violations and questions of responsibility (Scott and Lyman, 1968;
Watson, 1976) —are evaluated, depending on the context, as to how far they cor-
respond to cultural and institutional expectations (Bruner, 1991; Gubrium and
Holstein, 2009: 201–210; Nu
¨nning, 2015; Shuman, 2015). Criminal investigations
and trials are a textbook example of these evaluations, because, e.g. in court, only
specific narratives are assessed as authentic and credible, whereas others are not
(Arnauld and Martini, 2015; Ewick and Silbey, 1995; Polletta et al., 2011). In this
respect, the telling of stories is regulated. At the same time, however, there is also
leeway for different forms and contents of accounts.
478 Punishment & Society 20(4)
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