Citation

Cromby J, Brown SD, Gross H, Locke A, Patterson AE. Br. J. Criminol. 2010; 50(5): 873-895.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/bjc/azq029

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Research into emotion, crime and anti-social behaviour has lacked psychological input and rarely considered the multi-directional associations between emotion, crime and morality. We present a study analysing audio recordings of two community groups meeting in a deprived inner-city area with high rates of crime, using conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques to conduct an affective-textual analysis that draws out aspects of participants' moral reasoning and identifies its emotional dimensions. Moral reasoning around crime and anti-social behaviour took three forms (invoking moral categories, developing moral hierarchies, invoking vulnerable others) and was bound up with a wide range of emotional enactments and emotion displays. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary government policy and possible future research.