A Career in Crime

Part of the great attraction of sociology - for me at least - has always been the way that it sheds light on our personal lives. The American sociologist C.Wright Mills famously wrote about this in his book The Sociological Imagination. Mills wrote:

” Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between the ‘personal troubles of milieu’ and ‘the public issues of social structure.’

By ‘milieu’ Mills just means ‘environment’ and he’s getting at the point that there is a connection between the way our environment shapes us and the larger social structures which influence us, like class, race and gender.

Why do I mention it? Because I was struck tonight by my son’s interest in Curtis Warren.

Not, I hasten to add, that I am living the life of a gangster (or should that be ‘gangsta’?) or that my son has embarked on a criminal career. No. But I just find it interesting that he, and teenage boys like him all over the UK, appear fascinated by the ‘gangsta culture’ and anything to do with crime.

So what is the linkage between the personal and the public in this case? I’d suggest that one element is masculinity. Criminals like Curtis Warren, and the whole gangsta culture they buy into, give a source of identity and sometimes status to a lot of males of various ages at in various social locations. For some, its about real involvement; for others, there may be a vicarious thrill in finding out and talking about such activities.

There are truckloads of other sociological theories on offer to help us come to an understanding of the current fashion or culture of gangsters. The fashionable focus on the role of the media and theories like postmodernism, and a concern with culture and identity, provides another set of linked explanations for this type of crime and the interest in it.

But a word of warning. Sociology provides a method for standing back a little from the current ‘craze’ (if I can call it that) for criminology and in doing so, can give powerful explanations for the increasing interest and development in criminology and all things criminal.

Sociologists might for example, suggest that the rise of the subject of criminology is itself the result of the perceived growth of the social problem of crime. A social problem though, is a social construction - (which isn’t to say that gang crime is not a real issue, just that it can be exaggerated and distorted) and reflects the concerns, attitudes and values of certain social groups. It rarely frames a social issue in full social and historical context. And, as people are reflexive and active participants in social life, and act in unpredictable ways, it may well be the case that all the attention on this particular social problem in fact simply amplifies the original deviance.

It’s a great shame - in my view - that ‘gang crime’ (a useful category?) has become so glamourised and so heavily reported by the media and adopted or reflected in popular culture, but of course glamourising and sensationalising crime is nothing new.