With his work Cultural CriminologyA perspective that studies crime and control as cultural products shaped by meaning, emotion, and symbolism. and the Carnival of Crime (2000), Mike Presdee established a radical perspective within Cultural CriminologyThe scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, prevention, and societal reactions to deviance within and beyond the criminal justice system.. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnival theory, Presdee interprets crime not just as a rule violation but as a cultural expression—a subversive ritual, symbolic protest, and form of resistance against social control. Having worked as both a social worker and a sociologist, Presdee combines academic insight with real-world experience. CrimeActs or omissions that violate criminal laws and are punishable by the state. becomes a stage upon which power, morality, and discipline are challenged.
The Carnivalization of Crime
Presdee understands the “carnival of crime” as a counter-world to normalized everyday culture. Much like Bakhtin’s medieval carnival, deviant acts disrupt the symbolic order of society: inverted roles, liberated bodies, mockery, and provocation are all expressions of an aesthetic rebellion against authority, law, and social discipline.
Crime—particularly vandalism, pyrotechnics, nocturnal graffiti, youth violence, or subcultural practices—thus becomes an expressive practice. These acts are not driven solely by economic or rational motives, but by a cultural desire for meaning, empowerment, and visibility. The carnival of crime is a domain of those denied public voice and cultural representation.
Emotion, Deviance, and Everyday Rituals
Presdee deliberately positions himself against rationalist crime theories. Rather than focusing on utilitarian logic, he centers affects, atmospheres, and symbolic meaning. DevianceDeviance refers to behaviors, beliefs, or characteristics that violate social norms and provoke negative social reactions. is part of everyday culture—embedded in rituals of resistance, pleasure, and transgression.
Young people, in particular, use deviant practices to create spaces of freedom beyond normative constraints. These forms of expression are often temporary, fleeting, and risky—but therein lies their subversive potential. Such practices highlight that crime can also be a cultural need.
A related approach can be found in Jack Katz’s The Seductions of Crime (1988), which also emphasizes the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of criminal behavior. Katz describes deviance as an activity full of desire and thrill—not just a reaction to inequality or control, but a cultural practice in its own right, enacting moral emotions like humiliation, anger, or triumph. Presdee builds on this idea and expands it with the collective-ritual character of cultural transgression.
Theoretical Foundations and Influence
Presdee draws on Mikhail Bakhtin (carnival, grotesque), Stanley Cohen (moral panic), and symbolic interactionism. At the same time, he opens cultural criminology to emotion sociology and cultural theory. His work laid the groundwork for later analyses of protest movements, police critique, music subcultures, and digital deviance.
Key Points
Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime by Mike Presdee
Main Proponent: Mike Presdee (1944–2009)
First Published: 2000
Country: United Kingdom
Key Idea / Assumption: Crime is a symbolic act of cultural self-assertion—a form of resistance against normative order, visible in ritualized, expressive forms of deviance.
Foundation for: Cultural criminology, sociology of emotion, protest analysis
Related Theories: Stanley Cohen, Goffman, Hayward, Bakhtin
Criticism and Reception
Presdee’s approach has been celebrated as a provocative counter-model to functionalist and instrumental criminology. Critics have pointed out, however, that his perspective underplays the normative and legal dangers of violence and deviance—particularly concerning victim-perpetrator dynamics. His empathic closeness to subcultures also carries the risk of romanticization.
Despite this, Presdee’s work remains influential within cultural criminology—especially in the English-speaking world, but increasingly in Germany as well, particularly in contexts such as protest, graffiti, or urban policing.
Contemporary Relevance
Whether in nighttime riots, stadium choreographies, graffiti writing, or digital subversion—the carnival of crime lives on. Presdee’s perspective allows us to understand these phenomena not only as legal violations but as cultural expressions. His work shows: deviance is always also a mirror of social order.
Example 1: Rave as Reversal of the Working World
Presdee describes how youth in the 1990s organized illegal raves in abandoned factories—precisely where labor once took place. Spaces of productivity become stages of nocturnal ecstasy, noise replaces productivity, bodies evade discipline.
The spatial and temporal rupture with the working world is carnivalesque: celebration doesn’t happen on weekends or after hours but at night, when society sleeps. The deviant act becomes a symbolic inversion of order and purpose—a cultural reappropriation of space by violating its original logic.
Example 2: Ultras and Stadium Rituals as Carnival of Deviance
The ultra culture in football can also be seen as a carnivalesque form of deviance. Fan choreographies, pyrotechnics, provocations against police or associations follow a distinct aesthetic of resistance. The stadium curve becomes a stage for symbolic power reversal: instead of state-imposed order, self-made rules, rituals, and belonging dominate.
Through intentional violations of rules—such as lighting flares despite bans—ultras present themselves not as offenders, but as cultural actors resisting the commercialization of football and state control. Here too, deviant practice becomes a form of collective identity.
Example: Carnivalization of Protest
Protest movements such as Extinction Rebellion, Occupy, or Reclaim the Streets deliberately use carnivalesque aesthetics: masks, music, dance, costumes. This staging breaks with the norm of disciplined protest and creates the kind of disturbance that Presdee sees as the subversive force of “crime as carnival.”
References
- Presdee, M. (2000). Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime: Contemporary Imaginations of Crime, Deviance and Control. London: Routledge.
- Bakhtin, M. (1968). Rabelais and His World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon & Kee.
- Hayward, K. J. (2010). “Pinned Down.” In Hall, S. & Winlow, S. (Eds.), New Directions in Criminological Theory. London: Routledge.
- Hayward, K. J. (2004). City Limits: Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience. London: GlassHouse Press.
Obituary
- Young, J. (2009, August 20). Obituary – Mike Presdee. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/aug/20/obituary-mike-presdee
