A Queer Criminal Career. Issue 2 (1st November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Asquith, Nicole L; Dwyer, Angela; Simpson, Paul
• Is Part Of: Current issues in criminal justice. Volume 29:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 167
• Page End: 180
• Publication Date: 2017-11-01
• Subjects: queer -- crime -- offending -- young people -- criminal career; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Periodicals; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Australia -- Periodicals; Criminology -- Periodicals; Criminology -- Australia -- Periodicals; 364.05
• DOI: 10.1080/10345329.2017.12036094
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1034-5329

Abstract

Abstract: Since the publication of Moffitt's (1993) important research on adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent offending, there has been a renewal of the often tacit goal of criminology of identifying the individual factors that facilitate and inhibit deviant behaviour. In focusing on early childhood biological, genetic and psychological development, and considering social environment only as a mediating factor, these approaches miss some of the queer pathways to crime. We argue that examining offending by queer people inevitably destabilises taken-for-granted ideas about offending and desistance from offending. Moreover, given the increasing numbers of young people identifying as queer, and that they are more likely to be sanctioned by criminal processing systems, we highlight the importance of exploring the experiences of queer young people. A queer criminological lens can offer up an alternative, queer criminal career, which starts not with bio-psychological dysfunctioning, but with social exclusion and criminalisation of identity.