556045

research-article2014

CMC0010.1177/1741659014556045Crime, Media, CultureMatthews

Special Issue Article

Cultural realism?

Crime Media Culture

2014, Vol. 10(3) 203214
The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1741659014556045
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Roger Matthews
University of Kent, UK

Abstract
Cultural criminology has provided a much needed energy and diversity within academic
criminology. However, it has been criticised for its notion of culture, its tendency to romanticise
deviance and for its lack of engagement with policy development. Realist criminology, on the
other hand, has expressed a commitment to taking crime and victimisation seriously and to being
policy relevant. The question that this paper addresses is whether these two strands of criminology
can be combined to produce an approach that is both critical and useful. This was a question that
Jock Young raised in his later writings.

Keywords
critical criminology, cultural criminology, realist criminology

Introduction
In his introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of The New Criminology Jock Young charts the
development of critical criminology (Taylor et al. 2012). He makes two central points: first, that
critical criminology has been a major driving force in the formation of modern criminology, opening up new avenues of inquiry; second, that it has deepened the focus of academic criminology
while maintaining an important progressive impulse. The development of critical criminology may
have involved two steps forward and one step back at times, but he was convinced that on both
sides of the Atlantic the formation of a critical criminology has provided an important alternative
to positivistic criminology, on one hand, and administrative criminology, on the other.
In his pivotal article Working class criminology (1975) Young forged a split in critical criminology
between what became known as the left idealists who tended to romanticise offenders and deny
the social significance of the harms caused by crime (except for white collar and corporate crime)
and left realists who in line with a growing body of feminist criminologists began to argue for the
need to take crime and victimisation seriously. In opposition to the left idealists, the left realists
argued that criminology needed to be policy relevant and address the issue of What is to be done
about law and order? (Lea and Young 1984). However, during the second half of the 1990s Young
became increasingly disillusioned with the crime control policies implemented by New Labour and

Corresponding author:
Roger Matthews, University of Kent, UK.
Email: R.A.Matthews@kent.ac.uk

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became interested in the cultural dimensions of crime and the growing body of literature that
became known as cultural criminology. The work of Jeff Ferrell (1996), Mark Hamm (1998), Keith
Hayward (2004), Steven Lyng (1990) and others was seen to provide a breath of fresh air in a context in which mainstream criminology seemed to be becoming increasingly dry and lifeless.
Cultural criminology promised to reconnect with the ethos of the National Deviancy Conference
with its affinity to new deviancy and subcultural theories and set about applying them to the
investigation of the changes taking place in the late-modern world. The immediate attraction of
cultural criminology was that it aimed to reconnect with the lived experiences of those under
study, bringing a richness and diversity to an academic audience that seemed to have lost touch
with the meanings and motivations of those subjects that it claimed to investigate, all too often
reducing them to statistical artifacts (Young 2004).
In many respects, however, cultural criminology became the very antithesis of the realist criminology that preceded it, which was policy orientated, interventionist and committed to developing a social democratic approach to crime and justice. In contrast, cultural criminology was accused
of idealism, romanticising the offender, engaging in a full-blown social constructionism and having little to say about controlling crime or reducing victimisation (OBrien 2005). In Matzas (1969)
terms, cultural criminology, in its initial formulations at least, was largely appreciative rather than
corrective.
Despite these differences it was Youngs claim that there is a potential compatibility between
cultural and realist criminology and that both approaches share the same theoretical roots. He
also suggested that both approaches share a commitment to naturalism and an engagement with
the lived experiences of selected individuals and groups (Young 1992). Young also argued that,
while a great deal of cultural criminology might be reasonably criticized for concentrating on lowlevel crime and deviance, there is no intrinsic reason why it could not focus on more serious forms
of crime such as sexual violence, corporate malfeasance or genocide (see Morrison 2004). Thus,
rather than being irreconcilable, Young claimed not only that realist and cultural criminology are
complementary, but that there is potentially a good fit between these two approaches:
There is a certain serendipity to the synthesis between realism and cultural criminology because
both fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; one depicts the form of social interaction which
we call crime, whilst the second breathes human life into it. If realism stresses that crime is a
relationship between offender and victim and between actors and reactors, cultural criminology reminds us that such relationships are imbued with energy and meaning. (Taylor et al.
2012:xxxvi)
While we might agree that there are points of compatibility between cultural and realist criminology,
the fit between the two approaches is not straightforward. It is not just a question of realist criminology providing the form or background and cultural criminology providing the content or foreground, since there are serious issues about the validity and value of the content that cultural
criminology has provided, to date, as well as considerations of the relation between structure and
agency (Webber 2007; Young 2003). There are also significant theoretical, epistemological and
methodological differences between these two approaches that need to be addressed before any
kind of marriage could be established. However, before exploring these differences it is necessary to
identify some points of continuity and agreement between these two forms of critical criminology.

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Continuity and Synthesis

While cultural criminologists emphasise the cultural meanings and interpretation of those activities that become defined as crime, realists argue that crime is a social relationship involving four
basic component parts: the offender, the victim, the public and the state. This square of crime
is designed to remind us that crime is not simply an act but rather the outcome of a complex
process of interaction involving a combination of both formal and informal processes. Taylor et al.
(2012) suggests that any analysis of crime must involve an examination of the dynamics involved
in the construction of crime. Unpacking these complex and often contradictory processes is an
important aspect of any critical criminology.
Both cultural and realist criminologies recognise the need to engage with the meanings, writings and discourses of the subjects they wish to study, for four main reasons. First, social scientific enquiry is not dealing with atoms or molecules but with social phenomena that are intrinsically
meaningful. Meaning has to be understood. It cannot be measured or counted absolutely or
unproblematically and hence there is always an interpretive or hermeneutic dimension to social
science.
Second, there is the issue of the congruence of meaning. That is, whether the concepts, theories and categories that criminological researchers use correspond to those adopted by the group
of actors under study. Third, and relatedly, any discussion of interventions and social or individual
change needs to have an understanding of the motives and interests of selected populations. As
Orlando Patterson (2006) has pointed out, any attempt to engage with or change the attitudes of
marginalised African American youth needs to make sense of their subcultural codes and their
particular responses to the conditions in which they live.
Fourth, interventions rarely work in all contexts and with all groups. Indeed, as Pawson and
Tilley (1997) have pointed out, interventions will only work to the extent that they connect with
the capacities and interests of those to whom they are directed. Their likelihood of working will
also be conditioned by the context in which they are used. Thus, it is not so much a matter of
whether interventions work or not but rather an issue of identifying how they work, with whom
and under what conditions.
In addition, the observations made by Dario Melossi (2001), David Garland (2006) and others
in relation to the cultural significance of different forms of punishment in different countries
remind us that the meaning and messages that punishments give out in different cultural contexts
can vary enormously. (For a useful discussion on the different notions and definitions of culture
see Kuper 1999.)
All of these considerations suggest that cultural criminology can potentially enrich our understanding of the role and the impact of crime and punishment. Most importantly, however,
although cultural criminology has to date been conspicuously subdued in terms of contributing to
policy development, these cultural considerations can potentially play an important role in moving
beyond So What? criminology and contributing to the development of a public criminology
(Currie 2007; Matthews 2009).
One recurring issue, however, which is seen to place limits on the value of cultural criminology,
is its preoccupation with providing detailed studies of particular localities or groups and consequently its ability to make valid generalisations about social relations and social change. This raises
classic concerns about the relation between ideographic (specific and localised) and nomothetic
(generalised and law-like) forms of analysis (see Sayer 2000:135141).

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206

Ideographic and Nomothetic Approaches

While both cultural and realist criminologists reject the possibility of law-like generalisations which
are seen as only applicable to the natural sciences, there remains a tension and some uncertainty
about the value of the (ideographic) descriptions that some cultural criminologists present of specific groups and localities and the role of theoretical explanations. However, both cultural and
realist criminologists are sceptical of the type of broad (nomothetic) generalisations that claim, for
example, that unemployment leads to crime, or the currently fashionable claim that the changing
nature of crime control is a function of neoliberalism. Such mechanistic explanations are inadequate. It is a central component of both realist and cultural criminology that these objective conditions are interpreted through the specific cultural milieu of the groups involved. These objective
conditions are highly mediated and their effects will be conditioned by social context and local
conditions. In the same way, we have to be sceptical of those studies that argue that certain areas
produce more crime than others without specifying what it is about these areas that might cause
high levels of crime.
Both cultural and realist criminologists recognise that location matters (Massey and Allen 1985).
Localities are not just a product of structures but also shape structures. Localities may be neighbourhoods, countries or regions but the question is: to what extent does the specific context influence social arrangements? This is a matter of empirical research. For example, historical research
has shown that, while prisons in Latin America were modelled on their European and North
American counterparts, their function and organisation have been significantly different since, at
the time they were introduced, there was a limited industrial base in these countries. Therefore, the
Foucauldian model of labour discipline does not fit very well with the operation of these institutions, which have instead operated mainly as sites of incapacitation (Salvatore and Aguirre 1996).
Thus, we must be careful when discussing globalisation of taking western models of crime control
and applying them to other localities independent of context (Aas 2007; Muncie 2005). However,
this example of the importation of imprisonment points to the interplay between the specific and
the general the ideographic and the nomothetic and although there are variations in the use
and operation of imprisonment, we tend to make sense of the operation of prisons in Latin America
partly through a process of comparison and by seeing them to some extent as a deviation from
their traditional functions. This observation underlines the realisation that the ideographic and
nomothetic are often not so much opposites but represent two related parts.
According to Andrew Sayer (2000), realism aims to overcome the ideographicnomothetic
dualism by moving away from a positivistic focus on regularities to focus on necessities. This
involves, he suggests, a reconsideration of the relation between theory, generalisation, causality
and structures. For realists social investigation needs to be theory driven. There is also an emphasis
on the role of structures as well as the relation between agency and structure. Critical realism also
places great emphasis on the identification of the causal mechanisms that lie behind social change
and social processes. This emphasis on theory, causes and structures has, in turn, some more or
less direct implications for the choice of method.

The Problem of Method

In their seminal text Cultural Criminology: An Invitation, Ferrell, Hayward and Young (2008) claim
with some justification that nothing kills criminology like bad method. The main examples of

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bad methods that they present are statistics and survey methods. In general, cultural criminologists firmly reject the use of statistical methods, particularly inferential statistics, and instead advocate the use of qualitative methods that are seen to better capture motivations and meanings of
the subjects under study (Ferrell 1997). In particular, they tend to favour ethnographic approaches
and advocate forms of instant and liquid ethnography. These approaches, we are told, can
produce disciplinary dangerous knowledge while capturing the swirls of meanings, representation and identity in liquid modernity. Visual ethnography is also seen as important in our increasingly visual culture and able to capture relevant images and bring them to life (see Hayward and
Presdee 2008). The enduring attraction of these ethnographic approaches is that they can identify
beliefs that are often obscured, draw on multiple sources of evidence, are flexible and able to
adjust to the different situations, and can examine processes as well as outcomes.
However, the critical question that Ferrell et al. (2008) fail to raise is how to distinguish a good
from bad ethnography. Cultural criminologists might be correct that there are some very poor
statistical studies, but there are also some very poor ethnographies. Researchers claim that they
are involved in detailed ethnographic research provides no guarantee of the quality or usefulness
of the work (Kane 2004).
While realists also share some reservations about the value of certain forms of statistical and
mathematical accounts of social processes, they are open to the use of quantitative and qualitative
approaches and indeed to multi-method approaches (Sayer 2010). The choice of method, realists
argue, should be directly linked to the theoretical problematic and the formulation of the research
questions. Choosing an appropriate method is a function of what we want to know and the nature
of the object under study. Realists are critical of those approaches that use thin concepts or what
Marx called chaotic conceptions which are unable to properly grasp the nature of the objects
under study or unable to bear the conceptual weight placed upon them. In this way, they are dismissive of atheoretical approaches: that is, the use of concepts and formulations in an unexamined
way. Critical realists also reject those forms of empiricism that focus only on that which is directly
observable. In contrast, great weight is placed on the identification of the underlying mechanisms
that trigger or drive social change. One of the most important aspects of social investigation is
distinguishing the contingent from the (generative) causes involved. Research that is purely descriptive and atheoretical, whether it is qualitative or quantitative, is of limited value. In fact:
One might say that a good ethnography gives us an understanding of the systems of belief and
practices of a group, but if it stops there, it does not give us an understanding of why these
particular beliefs and practices are what they are. To do this requires causal analysis an
account of the mechanisms at work; and it requires history an account of the genesis of those
mechanisms. (Manicas 2006:122)
A good ethnography must involve more than a detailed description, however thick or fascinating
it might be. It is not enough to claim that it maintains the integrity of the phenomena under study.
It is always possible to create any number of true descriptions of any social phenomenon. The
aim is to move from descriptions to explanations of how social relations are structured and maintained and how social change occurs. As Martin Hammersley (1992) has argued, the aim is to
identify patterns and processes that have a degree of generalisability. This may involve engaging
in comparative research or at least in research in different but related sites and contexts.

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It is not enough to simply immerse oneself in a social context and attempt to record or describe
the activities and sentiments of those under study, equipped only with unexamined conceptual
schemas. This form of empiricism is unlikely to sustain meaningful generalisations and tends to
give the misleading impression that social research is a quick and easy process that can be conducted by anyone with a notepad, tape recorder or camera. It is also not enough simply to provide
a shopping list of factors. The aim is to show how they combine. In doing social research we are
continuously engaged in interpreting, mediating and editing the speech and actions of the
selected population. As Beverly Skeggs (2001) reminds us, even in those studies that claim to give
voice to respondents, it is ultimately the researcher who guides the project, sets the terms of
reference and interprets the responses. Analysis also needs to link the viewpoints and activities to
the structures that shape and constrain behaviour. Structures such as schools, bureaucracies or
institutions like the family embody and exercise powers that shape and constrain individual
actions. Therefore, accounts that focus exclusively on the emotions or motivation of agents will
produce at best a one-sided account from which it will be difficult to make meaningful
generalisations.
It also has to be recognised that respondents can be mistaken and may not fully understand
the situation that they are in. They may or may not be knowledgeable about the issues that the
researcher wishes to explore or may never have given them serious consideration. Consequently,
presenting the narratives or accounts of those under study uncritically is as likely to mystify as to
clarify the situation (Presser 2009). It can involve a retreat from theory, downplaying of the causal
processes involved, and a failure to problematise categories and explanations (Sayer 2010).
Thus, according to critical realists a good ethnography will have a number of key attributes.
First, it is necessary to formulate a generic conceptual framework that elucidates key concepts and
theorises the patterns and processes that may be in play. Second, it needs to be reflexive and to
consider power relations, not only relations affecting the actions and interactions of those being
studied, but also those between researcher and researched. Third, it must try to identify the main
causal relations that affect the social processes under investigation. The aim is to move beyond
description and towards an explanation. Fourth, it should link the analysis of peoples accounts to
the structures in which they operate and at the same time identify the mediations that connect
the two processes. Ultimately, the aim is to move beyond individual accounts, recognising how
structures and contexts shape processes and outcomes. Fifth, it should move from the specific to
the general in developing investigations, through use of comparisons or of repetition to maximise
the researchs generalisability. Finally, it should aim to construct credible and convincing explanations than can inform policy.
A critical realist ethnography will also be evaluative of social action and aim to better understand human capabilities, vulnerabilities and values. Peoples involvement and response to different forms of transgression are not reducible to the search for excitement, engaging in edgework,
the expression of resistance, or even the joy of transgression. We need to understand more about
the ethical dimensions of social life and the complex mix of values, aspirations and concerns of
those we study, including guilt, shame and responsibility, for example. Some account also needs
to be taken of public opinion and social norms to understand why different forms of crime and
deviance matter to people (Sayer 2011).
Cultural criminologists are correct to emphasise that we need to fully appreciate everyday
behaviour, attitudes and meanings if we are to get a foothold in understanding social life, but all

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too often their investigations only examine one aspect, rather than peoples whole lives. And even
these accounts are often divorced from the network of social relations in which people construct
meaning, make judgements and exercise choice (Archer 2000).

Two Case Studies: Willis and Goffman

In order to exemplify the characteristics of a good ethnographic approach and the relation
between the ideographic and nomothetic, two case studies have been selected. The first is Paul
Williss (1977) classic study Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs.
The second is Erving Goffmans (1968) Asylums in which he outlines the characteristics of total
institutions.
Williss account aims to explain how working class kids through acts of resistance and defiance
end up getting low grade and low paid jobs. In his exploration of this issue he makes a strong case
for the benefits of ethnographic research over survey methods and all forms of social investigation
that just report or summarise verbal or written responses. Based on a study of a working class
school in the West Midlands, he divides the pupils into the ear oles who believe in the value of
education and the lads who are nonconformist and subversive and prefer to have a laugh.
Rather than celebrate this resistance to the educational process, Willis aims to show how it contributes to the reproduction of the structures of domination and subordination. He explains that
this is not just a process of ideology and manipulation but that the lads themselves are complicit
in the process. He suggests that this involves internal cultural relationships in which the lads
become active agents in a subculture of resistance and defiance. Thus Willis argues that it is necessary to penetrate the surface the immediate representations and the appearances in order to
understand the mechanisms at work and the nature of working class culture. Willis aims to capture the essential elements of this process, not only in the particular school that he studied but
also in schools up and down the country, in order to provide a degree of generalisability. In this
way, his study captures some of the essential elements of this complex process by examining and
unpacking the dynamics of action and reaction.
The power of Williss analysis derives in part from his ability to identify the subtleties of class
and cultural adaptations within a framework that accounts for both agency and structure, while
exploring the relevant mediations. The processes he points out are influenced by dominant ideologies of masculinity and power. It is the role of researchers, Willis (2000) insists, not to dismiss these
ideologies as illusions or simple conspiracies but rather to investigate them in order to reveal their
structure and functioning.
The significance of Williss contribution is that he identifies many of the key mechanisms that
are at play in this process. His account is plausible because the processes that he outlines can be
readily found in other locations. It also demonstrates an appreciation of the fact that in the present system not all can succeed, and while education may be a route to upward mobility for a few
individuals it also serves as a mechanism for reinforcing the class structure and maintaining a
segmented labour market. Williss study throws light on the complex process of identity formation
and the ways in which the goals and aspirations of working class kids are structured. Some subsequent commentaries have pointed out that the account Willis has presented does not stand up
in all locations. But this is not the point. There will of course be exceptions and it is the case that
the local context matters. However, if space and place make a significant difference to this general

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process, it is incumbent on researchers to show in concrete terms exactly what difference they
make.
Erving Goffmans study of total institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, army barracks,
concentration camps, care homes and the like also indicates how we can move from the particular
to the general. Although Goffmans original research was on mental institutions, he was able
through a process of abstraction to identify the key features of those institutions in which the
inmates are to a significant degree separated from the normal activities of work and leisure and
from family and friends. This process of separation, he argues, has implications for the identities
of those confined in these institutions, and since the sense of self is created intersubjectively, the
separation from significant others results in what he refers to as the mortification of the self a
kind of social death.
These institutions are themselves characterised by an opposition between the managers and
the managed. Inmates are normally infantilised and given limited powers of decision-making. This
may result, as with Williss lads, in forms of resistance or non-cooperation. However, the rulegoverned and ritualistic nature of these institutions, combined with various disciplinary procedures, serves to maintain the successful reproduction of the institution, and the inmates will
typically become complicit in their own subordination.
All total institutions will vary by their level of confinement, their modes of adaption and rules
of behaviour. However Goffman, like Willis, is able to identify the key mechanisms involved in the
operation of these institutions and the impact that it is likely to have on inmates. He captures elements of the formal and informal power relations in play and in doing so is able to identify the
main features of all total institutions. Looking for patterns and identifying how certain mechanisms produce different outcomes allows him to make generalisations about the functioning of all
such institutions. It is from this general explanation that we are able to assess differences and
deviations. Not all total institutions are as total as others and these differences invite the possibility of comparative analysis that can highlight important variations.
Both studies have implications for policy and practice. At the end of Learning to Labour Willis
makes a number of suggestions in relation to possible intervention including changing the content
of education and the school structure, using progressive teaching methods, reducing class size,
encouraging the use of continuing education as well as using vocational counselling. He argues,
however, that it is wrong to assume that the levers exist within the cultural milieu alone which can
be operated to produce desired results. Goffman, in contrast, does not address policy issues in
Asylums, but other authors have drawn out some of the implications of his analysis for policy. In
particular, Goffmans work has been widely used in debates about the value of rehabilitation in
prisons and the possibilities of abuse in mental hospitals and care homes. Goffman argued that
prisons were more likely to debilitate as rehabilitate and stimulated a fundamental rethink about
rehabilitative practices. His work was connected to the rise of the anti-psychiatry movement as well
as the movement for patients and prisoners rights and was effective in drawing attention to the
malpractices that were widespread in prisons and mental hospitals. His work also encouraged a
reconsideration of prison regimes and stimulated the movement towards greater transparency and
accountability of these institutions (Davies 1989; Sparks et al. 1996).
Thus, both Willis and Goffman provide useful examples of the movement from the particular
to the general from the ideographic to the nomothetic in which the aim is to draw out through
a process of abstraction the key features of the processes or institutions being examined. This

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involves an appreciation of the mechanisms at work, the power relations in play, and an understanding of the relation between agency and structure. We need to be careful about too readily
glorifying resistance or alternatively dismissing actions as the product of a misunderstanding.
Rather the aim is to construct an explanation that allows a degree of generalisation while providing a basis for developing a policy response. In this way we need to move beyond a celebration of
cultural forms and avoid cultural relativism, while recognising that an important component of a
critical criminology is to engage in an evaluation of the cultures that we are investigating (Bauman
2011). We also need to question the claim, for example, that capitalism is essentially cultural
these days (Ferrell 2007:9293), which overlooks the pivotal role that political economy plays in
shaping social relations.
This is not to deny that some form of cultural explanation may be useful enough, in its place,
but appeals to culture can only offer a partial explanation of why people think and behave as
they do, and of what causes them to alter their ways. Political and economic forces, social
institutions, and biological processes cannot be wished away, or assimilated to systems of
knowledge and belief. And that, I will suggest, is the ultimate stumbling block in the way of
cultural theory, certainly given its current pretensions. (Kuper 1999:xi)

Conclusion
In some respects the positive achievement of cultural criminology has been to draw attention to the
significance of different cultural forms and to inject much-needed energy into the criminological
enterprise. On the negative side, however, there has been a tendency towards cultural reductionism,
which has to some extent replaced the political reductionism that has been evident in academic
criminology for some time. Within cultural criminology capitalism is frequently translated into cultural terms and mythologised, while the examination of specific cultures is often decontextualised
and the activities and aspirations of the groups under study are disconnected from the social networks in which they operate and which give meaning to their lives (Hall and Winlow 2007).
Martin OBrien (2005) has suggested that cultural criminology has moved historically through
two main phases. The first phase, mainly driven by Jeff Ferrell, centres around crimes of style and
is characterised by idealism, libertarianism and a celebration of diversity. The second phase involving the writings of Keith Hayward and Jock Young are, OBrien (2005) argues, more materialistic
and involve a different cultural focus looking more at consumerism, issues of globalisation and
changing forms of social relations in late modernity. However, I would suggest that if we are to
construct some form of cultural realism then we have to think about the meaning of culture in
deeper and broader terms. By deeper is meant forms of social investigation that examine the
underlying, often hidden but essential structures, on which social relations and interaction rest.
This involves a detailed investigation of values, ethical concerns and emotions. By widening the
frame of reference is meant the type of cultural dynamics that Melossi and Garland have identified, which shape attitudes to crime and punishment in different countries.
We might also want to think about including cultural explanations in terms of accounting for
major changes such as the recent dramatic decrease in recorded crime. James Q. Wilson, the
influential conservative criminologist, for example, sees the recent decrease in crime as function
of an improvement in culture (Wilson 2011). In addition, Robert Sampson (2006) has suggested

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that the crime drop may be a linked to the influx of first-generation immigrants who have transformed urban culture, resulting in the dilution of the criminogenic propensity of urban societies
(see Young 2011).
A viable cultural realism would need to engage more directly with issues of crime and justice
rather than focusing on low-level transgressions, deviance and incivilities. This necessarily
involves relinquishing the grip of hard-line social constructionism that denies the materiality of
crime and the effects of victimisation and believes that the problem of law and order is discursively revisable. It also involves moving beyond crimes of style, critiques of consumer culture
and descriptions of the changing social relations of late modernity. The criminological question
is: how do these developments connect with changing forms of crime control in the current
period and how do different cultural and subcultural forms impact upon those modes of transgression that are most socially damaging and have a major social impact? At the same time
cultural considerations can contribute to making the crime control industry more effective and
more just (Currie 2010).
Developing cultural realism provides a major challenge but could result in a form of critical criminology that is both critical and useful. To be critical it is not enough simply to criticise other
approaches or state practices. It needs to consider what is to be done and propose alternatives to
the present arrangements. It is not just a matter of supporting the underdog but engaging in an
evaluation of social action. Nor is it enough to engage in ideology critique, but rather to identify
the mechanisms and material conditions that foster and support these ideologies. Nor is it a matter
of pursuing forms of minimal statism as the liberals and libertarians suggest, but also of exploring
how dependencies can be beneficial. Thus, rather than being anti-state or non-interventionist, it
is necessary to consider ways in which state intervention can be more supportive and protective.
That is, to work both in and against the state.
Paul Willis (1977), Erving Goffman (1968) as well as Philippe Bourgois (1996) and John
Braithwaite (1989) have provided some examples of what we might call cultural realism (see
Matthews 2014). This involves an initial process of theory formation and abstraction and moving
beyond thin and chaotic conceptions. It also involves developing an appropriate methodology
that is capable of identifying what it is we want to know, rather than sticking religiously to a preferred method. Whether a quantitative, qualitative or a mixed method approach is selected will be
a function of the research questions asked and the nature of the object under study. The aim is to
move from descriptions and observations to causal explanations that involve the identification of
the key mechanisms at work and to distinguish between necessary and contingent causes.
Ultimately, the objective is to produce work that is not only critical but also useful and able to
contribute more or less directly to the policy process.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

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Author biography

Roger Matthews is Professor of Criminology at the University of Kent. He is the author of Realist Criminology
(Palgrave Macmillan 2014).

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