The Natural Meaning of Crime and Punishment: Denying and Affirming Freedom

The article discusses the link between freedom, crime and punishment. According to some theorists, crime does not only cause a person to have less freedom; it constitutes, in and of itself, a breach of the freedom of others. Punishment does not only cause people to have more freedom, for instance by preventing crimes; it constitutes, in and of itself, respect for mutual freedom. If the latter claims are true, crime and punishment must have certain meanings that make them denials/affirmations of freedom irrespective of their consequences. My aim is to show that such an immanent connection between crime/punishment and freedom exists. I do so by explicating the “natural meaning” of crime and punishment. This way of addressing the topic is inspired by Jean Hampton’s use of H. P. Grice’s concept of natural meaning. Expanding on Hampton’s theory, drawing on both H. L. A. Hart and Kant, I argue that crime has the natural meaning of denying freedom, and punishment has the natural meaning of affirming freedom. The paper presents an ideal theory, not a justification for actual criminal justice practices, which in most countries unfortunately fail to instantiate the value of mutual freedom.

A guarantee of safety, a cautionary tale or a celebration? Popularity of true crime narratives through the lens of Mary Douglas’s concepts of pollution and defilement

The fascination with crime, hastily described by some as a symptom of moral degradation of Western culture, seems to be a defence mechanism used by individuals to deal with social transgressions and anomalies represented by serious crimes. The aim of this article is to analyse the growing popularity of true crime through the lens of Mary Douglas’s theory of purity and pollution, with a particular emphasis on the methods of dealing with anomalies appearing within conceptual schemata of a given culture. For this purpose, the text has been divided into four parts: the first part briefly presents the history of true crime; the second part analyses the idea of murder through the lens of Douglas’s theory; the third part discusses the reasons behind the popularity of true crime narratives; and the fourth part showcases how individuals use true crime stories as tools to deal with anomalies.

Columbiners. Działalność Serial Killer Fandom w środowisku True Crime Community

Eric Harris i Dylan Klebold są odpowiedzialni za jedną z największych masowych strzelanin szkolnych w USA, znanej jako masakra w Columbine High School. Wydarzenie to zaowocowało ogólnokrajową paniką moralną skupioną wokół reprezentacji przemocy w grach komputerowych, muzyce i filmie. Nastoletni mordercy współcześnie posiadają rzeszę aktywnych internetowych fanek, a sam fandom określa siebie jako Columbiners. Fandom ten jest osobliwą podgrupą True Crime Community, czyli większej społeczności zainteresowanej kryminologią i psychologią przestępców. Adoracja masowych i seryjnych morderców, szczególnie przez kobiety, nie jest nowym fenomenem. Zjawisko to starano się tłumaczyć parafilią oraz wyjaśnieniami ewolucyjnymi, jednak fanki sprawców masakry w Columbine High School zdają się wymykać tym uzasadnieniom. W niniejszym artykule pokazano na przykładzie fandomu Columbiners, że fascynacja mordercami może objawiać się nie tylko w formie ich seksualizacji, ale także poprzez empatyzowanie i utożsamianie się z osobami zbrodniarzy na bazie daleko posuniętych rekontestualizacji ich wizerunków w przestrzeni cyfrowej.

The cultural scope and criminological potential of the “hardman story”

The true crime genre has become synonymous with the serial killer. As such, other narratives dealing with different types of violent criminal subjects have been overlooked in academic and media analyses. The following article explores a subgenre of true crime which has been overlooked—the life story of the violent criminal or “hardman biography.” However, in acknowledging the hardman, the discussion also reveals his presence across fact/fiction boundaries and a range of cultural terrain. Following a discussion of the cultural space this figure occupies, I turn my attention to hardman stories which exist predominantly in the local imaginary and focus on one such text which tells the story of a violent protagonist and cultures of crime and violence in the North of England in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In so doing, I focus on how this text animates cultures of violence and marginality left in the wake of deindustrialization and economic decline, combining this with relevant theoretical and ethnographic work. I conclude by arguing that the text is a further example of the way in which popular criminology can complement and advance academic criminological understandings of crime and violence.

Medien der Forensik

In der kriminaltechnischen Praxis beginnt Forensik materialiter und lokal: mit Spuren am Ereignisort einer Tat. Medien der Forensik operieren als Tatortmedien und formieren Medientatorte. Sie prozessieren Datenspuren und Spurmedialitäten. In digitalen Medienkulturen ist - im Off offizieller Forensik - eine Konjunktur medienforensischer Semantiken, Verfahren, Praktiken zu beobachten, denen Simon Rothöhler nachgeht: in Alltags- und Popkultur (True Crime), in der Praxis künstlerischer Forschung (Forensic Architecture), in zivilgesellschaftlich-investigativen Kontexten (Open Source Intelligence).