Emotions and Crime

Explanation

For much of its history, criminology focused primarily on rational decision-making, social structure, or biological explanations of crime. More recent approaches increasingly emphasize the role of emotions, affects, and subjective experiences in shaping criminal behavior and social control.

Research on emotions and crime highlights that offending is often connected to feelings such as:

• anger and frustration,
• humiliation and disrespect,
• fear and insecurity,
• thrill-seeking and excitement,
• resentment and defiance,
• or the search for identity and meaning.

Different criminological approaches analyze emotions in different ways:

• General Strain Theory emphasizes anger and frustration resulting from stressful social experiences.
• Jack Katz’s Seductions of Crime explores the emotional attractions, sensual excitement, and moral transcendence associated with criminal acts.
• Edgework Theory focuses on risk-taking, adrenaline, and the emotional thrill of approaching danger.
• Defiance Theory examines how stigmatization, humiliation, and perceived injustice may increase deviant behavior.
• Narrative Criminology investigates how stories, emotions, and personal identities shape criminal action.
• Code of the Street highlights how respect, honor, and emotional reactions to disrespect influence violence and street culture.

These approaches challenge purely rational or economic explanations of crime by emphasizing that offending is frequently emotional, symbolic, embodied, and socially meaningful.

The study of emotions and crime therefore connects criminology with sociology, psychology, cultural studies, urban studies, and affect theory.