Potential spaces of crime: The playful, the destructive, and the distinctively human

Abstract

Though most share an interest in answering the question, ‘What are people trying to accomplish when they commit a crime?’ criminologists have been largely reluctant to entertain the ways in which the accomplishment of crime reflects deeper, more fundamental and distinctively human capacities and needs. Of especial significance in this context are the human capacity and need for creative engagement. The interplay between human ontology, experience, and behavior gives rise to a variety of such expressions and engagements, both normative and illicit in manifestation. Where history, culture, organization, and biography erect limitations, human beings can be expected to seek out or construct alternative, at times playful and at times destructive, experiential spaces for creative engagement. Drawing from cultural criminology, existentialism, and critical humanism, these spaces are provisionally explored.