Abstract

Constitutive Criminology offers an affirmative, holistic approach to the study of crime. Taking as its starting point that individuals not only shape the world but are shaped by it, this book argues that the behaviours of those who offend and victimize others cannot be understood in isolation from the society of which they are a part. Instead of setting out to identify factors that cause offending, constitutive criminology examines the co-production of crime by human subjects and by the social and organizational structures that humans develop. The implications are, first, that crime must be deconstructed as a recurrent discursive process and, secondly, that conscious attempts must be made at reconstruction wi.